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Talk:Barbershop music

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

if anyone happens to know where the name came from it would be interesting to know --Lezek

The story I always heard was that it started out as a way of passing the time in the barber's waiting room. Don't know how true that is, though. —Paul A

It's now generally accepted, as a result of scholarship by Lynn Abbott and Jim Henry, that barbershop singing originated in African-American communities in the U.S. around the turn of the century. Barbershops were social gathering-places for African-Americans.

The first uses of the term were associated with African-Americans. Henry notes that "The Mills Brothers learned to harmonize in their father's barber shop in Piqua, Ohio, and several well known black gospel quartets were founded in neighborhood barber shops, among them the New Orleans Humming Four, the Southern Stars and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartette."

I've been brooding about what the Wikipedia entry should say about this and what it should say.

SPEBSQSA was founded in 1939 as a white organization, and did not admit blacks until 1963. The Sweet Adelines split over the same issue (the splinter group becoming Harmony, Incorporated).

In other words, as with rock 'n roll, barbershop harmony is a black cultural form that was adopted by whites.

—Dpbsmith

Editing notes:

• The Parliaments is not a Barbershop anything. It's a doo-wop group. It should not be listed on this page
• The Revelers are a 1920's acapella QUINTET, and should not be on this page either.
• Is Chaz Weigel a notable Barbershop artist? I cannot find any information about him anywhere. I am suspicious, since notable Barbershop artists tend to come in fours. Perhaps if he is to be included on this page, someone should supply some sort of information about him.
• The list of notable artists could go on for pages, since the society medals a new champion quartet every year, of which Acoustix is one. Is there some standard for notability here?

Tuf-Kat

The ranks of barbershoppers

I've made one minor edit to the last paragraph, which had claimed that the number of people worldwide who enjoy the hobby of barbershop singing is in the millions. As a lifelong barbershopper myself, I wish this were true; the society's own website puts U.S. membership at only 32,000, and even with subsidiary groups and Sweet Adelines, plus non-member hobbyists, I think "millions" is a bit lofty and reduced the credibility of the article more than "thousands". Perhaps the number isn't even all that important to include, since it can only be used to accurately measure society membership, which does not ultimately define everything about barbershop.

While I'm spouting off, I thought I'd second a previous comment about how "notable artists" make the list. After all, if I were formulating it with an eye toward the artists' overall significance to the style, I'd surely include the Boston Common and Bluegrass Student Union, or Keepsake, if technical merit is the main criterion. Arguably, any of these would be more representative of the style, since to the best of my knowledge, more recent albums by Acoustix and the Vocal Majority (impressive as they are) have featured backing instrumentation, non-standard arranging, six- and eight-part voicings, as well as later-period (e.g. jazz) songs that many barbershoppers would not generally regard as representational of the style.

I agree with your changes...

...although a real Society booster might say that "thousands" errs in the other direction.

At this point in time, I don't honestly believe that there is any large amount of barbershop singing activity going on outside the societies. The society was, in fact, founded because it was starting to die out as a independent, spontaneous phenomenon. In the fifties, when quartets were still a common feature e.g. in radio or televison commercials, the Mills Brothers were still cutting hit records, etc. the average person would have heard the style in "ordinary life" and one can imagine that at least some would have picked it up and started to sing it just from hearing it. The total number of people singing barbershop can't be very different from the total membership of SPEBSQSA + SAI + HI.

www.harmonize.com/region4/ MMNewsletter-September2003.PDF says:

In last month’s issue, we reported that from April 30, 2002 to April 30, 2003 Sweet Adelines International has seen a 2.5% decrease in total membership. Total members is currently 27,273. Within the last eight years, SAI membership peaked in 1997 to 30,092. It has declined steadily since.

Dpbsmith 10:26, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Membership figures; HI numbers...

Well, I found (and lost, darn it) a reference somewhere to a total membership of "about 80,000" for the combined three organizations, and since SPEBSQSA and SAI are about 30,000 each and HI is smaller than SAI, I think that will do.

It seemed to me that it was absolutely necessary to explain why SPEBSQSA has such a long initialism, which led to a brief explanation, which seemed to require noting the origins of SAI and HI as well, which seemed to require a plain statement (rather than the usual PR euphemism of saying that the SAI/HI split originated over "a by-law.")

Dpbsmith 11:05, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Notable Artists list needs some consideration, deliberation

I have noticed that one of the most volatile parts of this article seems to be the list of "Notable Artists", owing, I'm sure, to the fact that this is such a subjective designation. Indeed, I have started to wonder if the list ultimately adds any substance to the article, or whether it could just as easily be eliminated from it, or handled differently.

As long as it's preserved, however, these are my latest thoughts:

I agree that the doo-wop groups and others that have so far been removed are better categorized and written about under that category (or perhaps the more comprehensive "a cappella" section).

My opinion is that a limited, concise list of quartets and choruses is more valuable than everyone adding his or her favorite group(s) to the list, with the result being long, arbitrary, and ultimately not as useful for those not familiar with the style.

I would also point out that many of the quartets that might be included on the list are already accessible via other links in the article, such as the SPEBSQSA site, and for that reason are already well within reach of those wanting more information or conducting research, and therefore are unnecessary to include on this page. The Acoustix quartet is a good example of this, and one of my main reasons for taking them off the list when editing this article recently is because they appear on the websites of both the Vocal Majority chorus website and the SPEBSQSA website, both of which already appear as links in this article. The Vocal Majority themselves are a better candidate for the "Notable Artists" list, due to their unprecedented success and very high profile in the realm of barbershop *chorus* singing, although I note that the Louisville Thoroughbreds have won only one fewer SPQBSQSA chorus championship than they have. In other words, the list could go on and on...

As long as the "Notable Artists" list persists, though, the criteria I would suggest for barbershop singing groups being included (since the question has been raised several times) are that the artist be widely considered historically important (one measure of this might be if the group is otherwise documented in the Wikipedia), and that they be a good example of the barbershop style as defined in the article and as historically practiced (as opposed to certain more recent arrangements and repertoires that puch the barbershop envelope). This "Notable Artists" distinction is ultimately impossible to make objectively, so I expect (and hope) there to be much more lively debate regarding this section of the article.

Let's not get into the business of excluding things from the notable artists lists. Just as with stub articles, I suggest that the best way to write this section of the article collaboratively is for start by everyone adding his or her favorite group to the list—or, more properly, for everyone to add whatever groups they think should be added. I definitely think it helps if the entry gives both the name of the group and a sentence or two explaining why they're included. When the list gets to be more than a few scattered entries, then we can start to slice and dice it and organize it under subheads. As for whether they be "a good example of the barbershop style," the classification could deal with that. Why don't you get the ball rolling by adding the groups that you think ought to belong?

One NPOV way of doing this is to add groups that have won SPEBSQSA /SAI/HI championships, since by definition these groups are regarded as good example of the style by the organizations that define the style.

Dpbsmith 19:00, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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