Barbershop Style
Dave Wright

Concluding Remarks

The barbershop style as currently defined and practiced is uniquely distinguished amongst vocal styles and has achieved a place of respect and admiration in the world of vocal music. It is my perception, as a student of barbershop harmony as it existed over many generations, that the trends we hear today are generally in line with the natural development and evolution of the style that has been occurring for 150 years.

As the above examples demonstrate, many things which are seen by some observers as new additions are in fact old habits. The misdiagnosis arises from comparing today’s barbershop music only with that of the period 1970-1990 while neglecting preceding episodes in the development of the style.

It is my belief that the barbershop style underwent something of a sterilization in the 1970s which took away some of its flair and adventure, replacing it with:

• a stodgy and untraditional philosophy about arranging
• an over-emphasis on "appropriateness" which precludes the effective use of traditional barbershop embellishments
• an unhistoric preoccupation with fidelity to the composer's song which is out of place in barbershop or any musical style which is rooted in improvisation, and
• a rejection of contemporary musical influences which had previously been the lifeblood of the style's development for decades.

Having dropped a few of these constrictions and reasserted a philosophy of preservation which I believe is much more in line with that of our early Society leaders, some things now being criticized as new are in fact old barbershop notions emerging with a modern sense of musical appropriateness.

It is crucial that we understand and preserve the defining characteristics of the barbershop style. These are:

1. Four part a cappella harmony. (This is the way the style developed on the street corner and in the barber's shop.)
2. Chord vocabulary consisting of consonant chords, frequently using the barbershop seventh.
3. The presence of circle-of-fifths resolutions.
4. Solid voicings, meaning the bass generally occupies the root or fifth of the chord, and doublings of triads occur on the root or the fifth.
5. Just intonation and emphasis on match, blend, ring, and lock. (6) The use of embellishments.

It should be noted that all the barbershop examples exude all of these characteristics, and that none of the non-barbershop examples posses all of these characteristics. In fact one would be hard put to find a non-barbershop example which possesses any two characteristics listed above. I believe that (1), (2), and (4) alone completely distinguish the barbershop style in the world of music.

Just as important as preserving the basic characteristics of our style is NOT attaching baggage to its definition which does not belong and which limits the style in unhistorical ways. Here are some elements which we do not attach to the definition because they have varied over time. Freedom in these areas allows the style to have life, breath, variation, diversity, and musical interest.

1. Diction, articulation, and accentuation. Styles of such vary over our history to include formal to informal, to include all kinds of stylization, including jazz/blues approaches and crooning, as well as the basic "hit-the-note-on-the-head" approach.
2. Vocal color and texture. It is possible to lock and ring chords with different textures of vocalization, and these vary from age to age and from quartet to quartet. We should not impose one vocal approach on everyone.
3. Degree of embellishment. It is very important not to attach to the style any one particular philosophy about "appropriateness" or "over-arrangement", especially one which discards treatments which clearly are central and integral in our tradition.

Some performers/arrangers prefer a very simple, "respectful" approach while others excite their audience with treatments which are ambitious, fun, and adventuresome. Both are clearly and solidly supported by the barbershop tradition and the inclusion of both gives our music a healthy and historical variety.

We must especially reject a philosophy which says that barbershop embellishment should not be featured in an arrangement. This is anti-barbershop.

4. Styles of rhythm and tempo. We see through the 20th century the quartets in every decade adopting new rhythmic trends which would not have been heard in the previous decade. This process rightfully continues today.
5. Type of songs. As long as a song can plausibly be harmonized with the consonant chords and progressions of barbershop and can be embellished by it's traditional devices, that song can be included in the barbershop repertoire. It is a mistake to arbitrarily restrict song choice to those of any one era or type. Over the course of history barbershop quartets have embraced widely varying types of songs, including civil war songs, minstrel songs, songs in the high-brow popular style of the 1800s, folk songs, gay nineties songs, Tin Pan Alley songs reflecting early jazz influences, turn-of-the-century ballads, waltzes, marches, roaring twenties songs reflecting jazz influences, Broadway songs, songs from movies, indigenous street songs, thirties songs reflecting jazz influences of that era, and on and on. O.C. Cash's favorite woodshed song was "White Cliffs Of Dover", which was a contemporary song of his day. Songs found in barbershop have always had vastly differing origins, styles of lyric, rhythms, types and range of melody, degree of formalness or informalness, degree of simplicity or complexity, etc. If a modern song works, it should be sung. The same applies to a very old song. Just a few years ago our style was uncomfortably confined to basically two song types: the fast driving up tune and the power ballad, neither of which would have been heard in 1900. One of the most appealing aspects of todays contest music is the variety song types, both new and old - a status which well reflects our musical heritage.