BarberPoleCat

This is really good. Unfortunately, it's sort of an inside joke.

Just ask any barbershopper.

The Sound of Silence

Now That Is a Quartet!

Singing Valentines in Albuquerque

You can send a singing valentine to your sweetheart in Albuquerque — and a number of other cities. Love songs, chocolate, a long-stemmed red rose, and your personal card. What could be better? All you have to do is call.


More information — at least till Valentine's Day — at the New MexiChords site, among other places.

Four Part Harmony

Barbershop music has a distinctive sound that comes from its four part harmony. In that harmony, each of the four voices has its particular place and vocal responsibility.

Bill Biffle has been singing barbershop music for a long time. He is the past president of the Barbershop Harmony Society (also known as SPEBSQSA — the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America), of which he has been a member for something over 36 years. I think that qualifies him as experienced in this art form.

I heard this description from him a couple of months ago. While there can be exceptions, depending on the specific musical arrangement, in general the four voices in four part harmony line up like this:

1. Leads are responsible for the melody of the song. (The Quartet Curmudgeon commented that their job is to sing the melody as loudly as possible while keeping it pretty.)
2. Basses must drive the song. They are responsible for keeping the beat and rhythm going, at the proper tempo.
3. Tenors are the icing on the cake, floating above the melody and providing color for the song.
4. Baritones are the mortar (or the grout) of the chorus or quartet. They make everything work together. And the baritones' notes fill in the chords and make them ring.

That combination is why four part harmony sounds so fantastic. Duets and three part harmonies are nice, but they don't reach inside and grab you like a good four part harmony does.

Listen for yourself. Check out the links in the posting on the 2011 Barbershop Harmony Society Mid-Winter Convention last January, or listen to the New MexiChords here or on the YouTube link from the New MexiChords web page.

Barbershop Harmony in Albuquerque

'Nuff said.

UPDATE: The show was great!

Harmonies

We went to the Barbershop Harmony Society's Mid-Winter Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, last month. The convention included the seniors quartet competition and the youth chorus festival, as well as a performance that included the top five quartets from the international competition last July. And we really enjoyed it. Yes, there were times we agreed with the judges, and times we didn't. But we really enjoyed it.

What did we enjoy the most? These:

• Senior Quartet Competition: We enjoyed a lot of the seniors quartet competition, and we enjoyed last year's winner of that competition, Resisting A-Rest. They were great! (We liked them a lot better than this year's winners. This year's winners were good, but ....)

• Youth Chorus Festival: We largely agreed with the judges here. The two non-US choruses especially impressed us. Those were the Saints Chorus from Saint Patrick's College (what we would call a high school) in New Zealand, and the Cross Canada Chorus.

• International Quartets: Storm Front was fantastic! (See their own web site, too.) The other quartet that impressed us was this year's fourth place finisher, the Musical Island Boys from New Zealand.

Why did we like these? It's simple: The harmonies are excellent. And they're great to listen to. Check them out for yourselves.

Harmonies

I've noticed something lately about the music I've been listening to. I sometimes put one of the music stations on the radio. But when I'm listening to something other than the radio, it's almost always one of two things — barbershop music, either quartet or chorus, on my MP3 or Los Panchos (or El Trio Los Panchos) on CD.

Once I noticed that, it started me thinking about why. And I realized it was because of the harmony in both. Nearly every note sung is in harmony — a chord. And then I realized the same thing, the harmony, is what's driven a lot of my musical preferences over the years, including in my preferences in instrumental music.

Listen to the harmonies for yourself (on YouTube) — here's a song called La Hiedra by Los Panchos and God Bless America by Albuquerque's New MexiChords barbershop chorus. The harmonies in both are indeed excellent.