The Origin of Barbershop Singing

As early as the 16th Century one of the regular haunt's of music was the barbershop.  During the late 19th and early 20th Century, the barbershop was THE place for young men to hang out and sing, without instruments.  During 1918-38 the barbershop quartet became almost extinct due to the coming of the movies, dance bands and radio.  In 1939 Owen C.Cash staged a revival and became the first President of the "Society for the Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America" (S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A.) and organised Barbershop was born.  In 1964 the first men's barbershop club in the UK was formed  and in 1976 the ladies in the UK formed their own association (LABBS).   In the UK there are now approximately 56 men's clubs and 48 ladies' clubs, both holding annual Conventions where competitions are held for quartets and choruses to establish a Gold Medal Quartet and 1st Placed Chorus.  There are also barbershop associations throughout the world in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, Holland, Germany and Ireland.

What is barbershop singing?

Barbershop is an exciting and vibrant style of unaccompanied four part singing, which involves three parts harmonising around a known melody line. It uses chord arrangements rarely used in other types of singing.

These arrangements help produce a ringing quality which in turn creates the uniquely distinctive sound of barbershop singing.

But the unique sound and energy is not all. The barbershop performance also involves movement and expression by the singers, which together with effective stage costumes provides a dazzling spectacle to the audience.

For the technically minded, barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music characterised by consonant 4 part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. The melody is consistently sung by the lead, with the tenor harmonising above the melody, the bass singing the lowest harmonising notes and the baritone completing the chord. The melody is not sung by the tenor except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward voice leading, in tags and codas, or when some appropriate embellishing effect can be created. Occasional brief passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts. Barbershop singers adjust pitches to achieve perfectly tuned chords in just intonation while remaining true to the established tonal centre. Artistic singing in the Barbershop style exhibits a fullness or expansion of sound, precise intonation, a high degree of vocal skill and a high level of unity and consistency within the ensemble.

 This form of singing actually did originate with customers singing in barber shops in America before the start of the 20th century. Before long the shops recruited singing barbers, and it rapidly became a very popular form of singing as it spread into vaudeville and minstrel shows. In 1938 the Society for the Preservation of Barbershop Singing in America (SPEBSQSA) was formed, and currently it has over 30,000 members, making it the largest singing organisation in the world!

LABBS was born out of a meeting of six ladies' clubs, which had formed partly as a result of the men's association, the British Association of Barbershop Singers. The Ladies Association has its own guild of judges and also runs many educational events including an annual Harmony College, a residential weekend course for members which runs numerous classes on music skills, stage performance, directing, show production etc., and is always a sell-out.

Barbershop is well covered on television with frequent appearances by British choruses, including the Sainsbury's Choir of the Year contest, at which barbershop choruses have excelled in recent years.

Today there are barbershop organisations in most civilised countries of the world, as this unique style of singing becomes ever more popular.

Was ist Barbershop ?

 Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts waren die Barbershops – also die Friseur-Geschäfte -  das Zentrum des geselligen Lebens in den Dörfern und Kleinstädten  der USA. Dort wurde natürlich auch gesungen von den Kunden und Angestellten und man versuchte, den Konkurrenz-Laden zu übertrumpfen. Aber erst in den dreissiger Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts wurde der Verein zur Förderung des Barbershop-Singens in Amerika gegründet.

 Vor rund sechzig Jahren sind dann auch die Frauen in die bisher ausschliessliche Männer-Domäne eingebrochen und haben sich international organisiert. Der Name „Barbershop“ ist jedoch so zu einem Begriff geworden, dass niemand daran dachte die Damenchöre mit „Ladies Hairdressing-Saloon-Singers“ zu bezeichnen. Sie übernahmen den Musikstil, einen grossen Teil des Liedgutes und die Stimmenbezeichnungen von den Männern. Wenn Ihnen heute eine Frau sagt, dass sie Bass, Bariton oder Tenor singe, dann müssen Sie nicht an Ihren Musikkenntnissen zweifeln sondern sagen zu ihr : „ Aha, dann singen sie Barbershop“.

 In den 70er Jahren ist dann die Barbershop-Welle nach Europa geschwappt und hat vor allem Grossbritannien, aber auch Holland, Skandinavien, Deutschland und auch Spanien erreicht. Sogar Australien Afrika, Japan und Russland sollen von dem Virus angesteckt worden sein.

 Ps. Dieser Text stammt aus einer Konferenz von Hannes Böhler am 22. März 2005