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Barbershop
vocal harmony
Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are simultaneously sung as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical c ...
, as codified during the barbershop revival era (1930s–present), is a style of
a cappella close harmony
A chord is in close harmony (also called close position or close structure) if its notes are arranged within a narrow range, usually with no more than an octave between the top and bottom notes. In contrast, a chord is in open harmony (also c ...
, or unaccompanied
vocal music
Vocal music is a type of singing performed by one or more singers, either with instrumental accompaniment, or without instrumental accompaniment (a cappella), in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but d ...
, characterized by
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
four-part
chords for every melody note in a primarily
homorhythmic texture.
Each of the four parts has its own role: generally, the
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
sings the melody, the
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
harmonizes above the melody, the
bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, and the
baritone completes the chord, usually below the lead. The melody is not usually sung by the tenor or baritone, except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward
voice leading
Voice leading (or part writing) is the linear progression of individual melodic lines ( voices or parts) and their interaction with one another to create harmonies, typically in accordance with the principles of common-practice harmony and counte ...
, in
tags or
codas, or when some appropriate
embellishment
In sewing and crafts, an embellishment is anything that adds design interest to the piece.
Examples in sewing and craft
* appliqué can be made by sewing machine of decorative techniques and or
* embroidery, done either by machine or by hand
* ...
can be created. One characteristic feature of barbershop harmony is the use of what is known as "snakes" and "swipes". This is when a chord is altered by a change in one or more non-melodic voices. Occasional passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.
Barbershop music is generally performed by either a
barbershop quartet, a group of four singers with one on each vocal part, or a barbershop chorus, which closely resembles a
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
with the notable exception of the genre of music.
According to the
Barbershop Harmony Society
The Barbershop Harmony Society, legally and historically named the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. (SPEBSQSA), is the first of several organizations to promote and preserve barbershop ...
(BHS), "Barbershop music features songs with understandable lyrics and easily singable melodies, whose tones clearly define a tonal center and imply major and minor chords and barbershop (dominant and secondary dominant) seventh chords that resolve primarily around the
circle of fifths
In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval of ...
, while making frequent use of other resolutions."
Slower barbershop songs, especially ballads, often eschew a continuous beat, and notes are often held (or sped up)
ad libitum
In music and other performing arts, the phrase (; from Latin for 'at one's pleasure' or 'as you desire'), often shortened to "ad lib" (as an adjective or adverb) or "ad-lib" (as a verb or noun), refers to various forms of improvisation.
The ...
.
Except for the
bass, the voice parts in barbershop singing do not correspond closely to their classical music counterparts; the tenor range and
tessitura
In music, tessitura (, pl. ''tessiture'', "texture"; ) is the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer or less frequently, musical instrument, the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characte ...
are similar to those of the classical
countertenor, the baritone resembles the
Heldentenor
A heldentenor (; English: ''heroic tenor''), earlier called tenorbariton, is an operatic tenor voice, most often associated with Wagnerian repertoire.
It is distinct from other tenor '' fächer'' by its endurance, volume, and dark timbre, which ...
or
lyric baritone in range and a
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
in tessitura, and the lead generally corresponds to the
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
of classical repertoire, with some singers possessing a tessitura more similar to that of a
high baritone. Barbershop singing is performed both by men's and women's groups; the elements of the barbershop style and the names of the voice parts are the same for both.
Characteristics
Ringing chords
The defining characteristic of the barbershop style is the ''ringing'' chord, one in which certain overtones of the four voices reinforce each other, sometimes so strongly that the overtone is perceived by the listener as a distinct tone, even though none of the voices are perceived as singing that tone. This effect occurs when the chord, as voiced, contains intervals which have strongly reinforcing overtones (fifths and octaves, for example) that fall in the audible range; and when the chord is sung in perfect
just tuning without excessive vibrato. Both of these characteristics are important in many styles of singing, but in Barbershop there is an extreme emphasis on them that tends to override other musical values. For example, favored chords in the jazz style are characterized by intervals which don't audibly ring, such as diminished or augmented fifths. For another example, Barbershop music is always a cappella, because the presence of fixed-pitch instruments (tuned to equal-temperament rather than just temperament), which is so highly prized in other choral styles, makes perfect just tuning of chords impossible.
The physics and psychophysics of the effect are fairly well understood; it occurs when the upper harmonics in the individual voice notes, and the
sum and difference frequencies resulting from nonlinear combinations within the ear, reinforce each other at a particular frequency, strengthening it so that it stands out separately above the blended sound. The effect is audible only on certain kinds of chords, and only when all voices are equally rich in harmonics and justly tuned and balanced. It is not heard in chords sounded on modern keyboard instruments, due to the slight tuning imperfection of the
equal-tempered scale.
Gage Averill writes that "Barbershoppers have become partisans of this acoustic phenomenon" and that "the more experienced singers of the barbershop revival (at least after 1938) have self-consciously tuned their dominant seventh and tonic chords in just intonation to maximize the overlap of common overtones." However, "In practice, it seems that most leads rely on an approximation of an equal-tempered scale for the melody, to which the other voices adjust vertically in just intonation."
[
]
What is prized is not so much the "overtone" itself, but a unique sound whose achievement is most easily recognized by the presence of the "overtone". The precise
synchrony of the waveforms of the four voices ''simultaneously'' creates the perception of a "fifth voice" while at the same time melding the four voices into a unified sound. The ringing chord is qualitatively different in sound from an ordinary musical chord e.g. as sounded on a tempered-scale keyboard instrument.
Most elements of the "revivalist" style are related to the desire to produce these ringing chords. Performance is
a cappella to prevent the distracting introduction of equal-tempered intonation, and because listening to anything but the other three voices interferes with a performer's ability to tune with the precision required.
Barbershop arrangements stress chords and chord progressions that favor "ringing", at the expense of suspended and diminished chords and other harmonic vocabulary of the
ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...
and
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
forms.
The dominant seventh-type chord is so important to barbershop harmony that it is called the "barbershop seventh". BHS arrangers believe that a song should contain dominant seventh chords anywhere from 35 to 60 percent of the time (measured as a percentage of the duration of the song rather than a percentage of the chords present) to sound "barbershop".
Historically barbershoppers may have used the word "minor chord" in a way that is confusing to those with musical training. Averill suggests that it was "a shorthand for chord types other than major triads", and says that the use of the word for "dominant seventh-type chords and diminished chords" was common in the late nineteenth century. A 1910 song called "Play That Barber Shop Chord" (often cited as an early example of "barbershop" in reference to music) contains the lines:
'Cause Mister when you start that minor part
I feel your fingers slipping and a grasping at my heart,
Oh Lord play that Barber shop chord!
Averill notes the hints of
rapture, "quasi-religion" and erotic passion in the language used by barbershoppers to describe the emotional effect. He quotes Jim Ewin as reporting "a tingling of the spine, the raising of the hairs on the back of the neck, the spontaneous arrival of
goose flesh on the forearm ... the fifth note has almost mysterious propensities. It's the consummation devoutly wished by those of us who love Barbershop harmony. If you ask us to explain why we love it so, we are hard put to answer; that's where our faith takes over." Averill notes too the use of the language of addiction, "there's this great big chord that gets people hooked." An early manual was entitled "A Handbook for Adeline Addicts".
He notes too that "barbershoppers almost never speak of 'singing' a chord, but almost always draw on a discourse of physical work and exertion; thus, they 'hit', 'chop', 'ring', 'crack', 'swipe', and 'bust.' Vocal harmony is interpreted as an embodied
musicking. Barbershoppers never lose sight (or sound) of its physicality."
Historical origins
While the modern era of barbershop music is accepted to have begun with a 1940s revival, opinions as to the genre's origins vary with respect to race, gender, region and context.
[Döhl, Frédéric (2014): From Harmonic Style to Genre. The Early History (1890s–1940s) of the Uniquely American Musical Term Barbershop. American Music 32, no. 2, 123–171, here 123–124. "In recent years, new insights and greater clarity have been acquired, which include aesthetic issues relating to sound, some answers to questions of race, gender, and other social factors shaping the genre, and exploration of the ideology surrounding the so-called revival around 1940. Still, the debate about the origins of this genre seems to be widely unsettled. The current models that chart the birth of barbershop harmony are diverse and often contradictory with regard to categories such as race, gender, regional context, social environment, amateur or professional, impromptu or composed-arranged, and highbrow or lowbrow."]
Historical memoirs and journalism indicate a strong tradition of quartet singing among young
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
men, gathering informally to "crack up a chord".
This was acknowledged as early as 1882, when a ''
New York Age
''The New York Age'' was a weekly newspaper established in 1887. It was widely considered one of the most prominent African-American newspapers of its time. '' writer traced the development of this singing as a home-grown amusement, arising from the exclusion of Blacks from theaters and concert halls.
Jazz musician
Louis Armstrong told of having harmonized on
street corners as a boy, and
NAACP executive secretary
James Weldon Johnson
James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peop ...
"grew up singing barbershop harmony".
English "barber's music" was described in the 17th century by
Samuel Pepys as amateur instrumental music.
The ''
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'' considers the 19-century origins of the quartet style as "obscure", possibly referring back to barber's music, or dating to when barbershops served as community centers, where men would gather for social and musical activities with barbers traditionally being musicians.
Later, white
minstrel singers adopted the style, and in the early days of the recording industry their performances were recorded and sold. Early standards included songs such as "
Shine On, Harvest Moon
"Shine On, Harvest Moon" is a popular early-1900s song credited to the married vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth. It was one of a series of moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was debuted by Bayes and Norworth in the Z ...
", "
Hello, Ma Baby", and "
Sweet Adeline". Johnson noted in the 1920s how the genre had already crossed racial barriers.
Barbershop music was very popular between 1900 and 1919, and some of the most popular quartets were the
Haydn Quartet, the
American Quartet, and the
Peerless Quartet
The Peerless Quartet was an American vocal group that recorded in the early years of the twentieth century. They formed to record for Columbia Records, where they were credited as the Columbia Quartet or Columbia Male Quartet. From about 1907, wh ...
. Modern barbershop quartets often costume themselves in gaudy versions of the vaudeville dress of this time, with
boater
__NOTOC__
A boater (also straw boater, basher, skimmer, The English Panama, cady, katie, canotier, somer, sennit hat, or in Japan, can-can hat, suruken) is a semi-formal summer hat for men, which was popularised in the late 19th century and e ...
s and vertically striped vests. Composer and pianist
Scott Joplin incorporated a barbershop quartet into his 1911 opera ''
Treemonisha
''Treemonisha'' (1911) is an opera by American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. It is sometimes referred to as a "ragtime opera", though Joplin did not refer to it as such and it encompasses a wide range of musical styles. The music of ''Treemonis ...
''.
The genre gradually faded into obscurity in the 1920s, although barbershop-style harmonies remained in evidence in
a cappella forms of
traditional black gospel
Traditional Black gospel is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding African American Christian life, as well as (in terms of the varying music styles) to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular mu ...
and
white gospel.
Other researchers argue that today's barbershop music is an
invented tradition
Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from the people starting in the distant past, but which in fact are relatively recent and often even consciously invented by identifiable historical ...
related to several musical features popular around 1900, including quartet singing and the use of the barbershop chord,
but effectively created during the 1940s in the ranks of the
Barbershop Harmony Society
The Barbershop Harmony Society, legally and historically named the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. (SPEBSQSA), is the first of several organizations to promote and preserve barbershop ...
whilst creating a system of singing contests and its contest rules.
Organizations
Barbershop music is promoted through the use of competition for quartets and choruses run by not-for-profit organizations. Barbershop organizations often provide judging, education, coaching and promotion services for local choruses and quartets.
United States
In the United States, there are three major organizations which are intended to preserve the style of Barbershop music: The Barbershop Harmony Society, a historically men's organization until 2018, Sweet Adelines International, a women's organization and Harmony, Incorporated which splintered off from Sweet Adelines in 1959.
A minor organization began in 2014 called the ''Mixed Harmony Barbershop Association'' to promote mixed harmony barbershop quartets and choruses within the three major organizations and internationally. The Society for the Preservation and Propagation of BarberShop Quartet Singing in the U.S. (SPPBSQSUS) formed in 2018 as a fraternal organization to preserve and perpetuate the all-male barbershop quartet.
Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS)
The revival of a cappella singing took place circa 1938 when tax lawyer Owen C. Cash sought to save the art form from the threat of radio. He garnered support from investment banker Rupert I. Hall. Both came from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cash was a partisan of quartet singing who advertised the fact that he did not want a cappella to fall by the wayside. Thousands of men responded. Later the "Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America" was established, known by the abbreviation S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A. at a time when many institutions in the US used multiple initials to denote their function. The group adopted the alternate name "Barbershop Harmony Society" early in its history. While its legal name has never changed, it changed its official brand name to "Barbershop Harmony Society" in 2004.
For the majority of its history, the Society has been an all-male society. It was all-white until 1963 when it allowed black members, and since 2018, it allows women to join as members.
Sweet Adelines International (SAI)
![Ronninge Show Chorus (2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Ronninge_Show_Chorus_%282%29.jpg)
Sweet Adelines International was established in 1945 by Edna Mae Anderson of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The aim was to teach and train its members in music and to create and promote barbershop quartets and other musical groups. By year's end, the first chapter incorporated in Oklahoma with Anderson as its president. Sweet Adelines went international on March 23, 1953, when the first chapter outside the U.S. was chartered in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Even though there were international chapters, it was not until May 1991 that the name officially changed to Sweet Adelines International. It has a current membership of 23,000 and holds an annual international singing competition.
Harmony, Incorporated (HI)
In 1957, several members of
Sweet Adelines International (SAI) broke from the organization in protest of the policy limiting membership to Caucasian women. In 1958, chapters from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Orillia, Ontario, also left SAI to form Harmony, Incorporated. (Sweet Adelines changed their policy in 1966).
Harmony, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Rhode Island on February 26, 1959. The founding member chapters of Harmony, Inc. were the Melody Belles of Providence, Rhode Island; Sea Gals of New Bedford, Massachusetts; The Harmonettes from North Attleboro, Massachusetts; Harmony Belles of Barrie-Orillia, Ontario; and the Harborettes from Scituate, Massachusetts.
In 1963, a Sweet Adeline chapter in Ottawa, Ontario was threatened with expulsion after accepting a black woman, Lana Clowes, as a member. As a result, Ottawa's Capital Chordettes left SAI to become the seventh chapter to join Harmony, Incorporated.
In 2013, Harmony, Inc. announced the creation of the Affiliate membership category, extending membership to men involved with the organization.
International Organizations
After the establishment of the above organizations, other countries have begun their organizations to promote Barbershop music. These international organizations are often affiliated with one of the United States organizations listed above or by the World Harmony Council. Some are gender exclusive organizations while some are mixed. They include;
British Association of Barbershop Singers, Barbershop Harmony Australia (BHA), Barbershop Harmony New Zealand (BHNZ),
Barbershop in Germany
Barbershop in Germany (abbreviated BinG or BinG!) is the association for barbershop music in Germany. It was founded in October 1991 and has an official alliance with the US-based Barbershop Harmony Society.
Any representative of a German barbe ...
(BinG), Finnish Association of Barbershop Singers (FABS), Holland Harmony (HH), Irish Association of Barbershop Singers (IABS), Ladies Association of Barbershop Singers (LABBS) in the United Kingdom, Spanish Association of Barbershop Singers (SABS) and Society of Nordic Barbershop Singers (SNOBS).
Performance groups
Quartets
A barbershop quartet is an
ensemble
Ensemble may refer to:
Art
* Architectural ensemble
* Ensemble (album), ''Ensemble'' (album), Kendji Girac 2015 album
* Ensemble (band), a project of Olivier Alary
* Ensemble cast (drama, comedy)
* Ensemble (musical theatre), also known as the ...
of four people who
sing a cappella in the exacting barbershop music genre.
In North America, the Barbershop Harmony Society hosts contests for all singers. Female barbershop quartet singers can also compete in Sweet Adelines International or Harmony, Inc., and the Society for the Preservation and Propagation of BarberShop Quartet Singing in the U.S. is available to male singers. Similar organizations exist in other continents and countries.
Choruses
A barbershop
chorus sings
a cappella music in the barbershop style. Most barbershop choruses belong to a larger association of practitioners such as the Barbershop Harmony Society, Sweet Adelines International, LABBS (Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers), BABS (British Association of Barbershop Singers) or Harmony, Inc.
In the Barbershop Harmony Society, a chorus is the main performing aspect of each chapter. In competition, choruses may have as few as 12 members singing, with no upper limit. Choruses normally sing with a director, as distinct from quartets. It is not uncommon for a new quartet to form within a chorus, or for an established quartet affiliated with a given chorus to lose a member (to death, retirement, or relocation) and recruit a replacement from the ranks of the chorus. Choruses can also provide "spare parts" to temporarily replace a quartet member who is ill or temporarily out of town.
Unlike a quartet, a chorus need not have equal numbers singing each voice part. According to BHS, the ideal balance in a chorus is about 40% bass, 30% lead, 20% baritone and 10% tenor singers.
Filling the gap between the chorus and the quartet is what is known as a VLQ or Very Large Quartet, in which more than four singers perform together, with two or more voices on some or all of the four parts. A VLQ possesses greater flexibility than a standard quartet, since they can perform even with one or more singers missing, as long as all four parts are covered. Like a normal quartet, a VLQ usually performs without a director.
Typical barbershop songs
Barbershop Harmony Society
The Barbershop Harmony Society, legally and historically named the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. (SPEBSQSA), is the first of several organizations to promote and preserve barbershop ...
's
Barberpole Cat Songs "Polecats"—12 songs which all Barbershop Harmony Society members are encouraged to learn as a shared
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
ic repertoire—all famous, traditional examples of the barbershop genre:
The Barbershop Harmony Society announced on May 28, 2015, that the "Polecat" program would be expanded to include the following songs:
Examples of other songs popular in the barbershop genre are:
While these traditional songs still play a part in barbershop today, barbershop music also includes more current titles. Most music can be arranged in the barbershop style, and there are many arrangers within the aforementioned societies with the skills to include the barbershop chord structure in their arrangements. Today's barbershop quartets and choruses sing a variety of music from all eras—show tunes, pop, and even rock music has been arranged for choruses and quartets, making them more attractive to younger singers.
See also
*
List of Barbershop Harmony Society quartet champions &
List of Barbershop Harmony Society chorus champions
This page lists the Barbershop Harmony Society's international chorus champions by the year within which they won. Choruses are eligible to win any number of times but must sit out for two years after they win. The only non-U.S. choruses to win thi ...
*
List of BABS quartet champions by year
*
Sweet Adelines International competition
The Sweet Adelines International Competitions are the annual global championships for women's barbershop harmony A cappella, a cappella singing – in quartets and choir, choruses – for members of Sweet Adelines International (SAI) and ...
* ''
American Harmony
''American Harmony'' is a 2009 documentary film directed and produced by Aengus James, produced by Colin Miller, and edited by Kate Amend.
''American Harmony'', the documentary, was initially screened at the Barbershop Harmony Society’s 2008 ...
'' Documentary Film (2009) about Barbershop music
References
Further reading
*
* Hicks, Val (1988):
Heritage of Harmony: Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America'. Friendship/WI: New Past Press.
* Abbott, Lynn (1992): ''Play That Barber Shop Chord: A Case for the African-American Origin of Barbershop Harmony''. American Music 10, no. 3, 289–325.
* Stebbins, Robert A. (1996): ''The Barbershop Singer: Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
* Averill, Gage (1999): ''Bell Tones and Ringing Chords. Sense and Sensation in Barbershop Harmony''. The World of Music 41, no. 1, 37–51.
* Henry, James Earl (2000): ''The Origins of Barbershop Harmony: A Study of Barbershop's Musical Link to Other African-American Musics as Evidenced Through Recordings and Arrangements of Early Black and White Quartets'' (PhD diss., UMI Microform 9972671, Washington University in St. Louis). Ann Arbor: ProQuest.
* Ayling, Benjamin C. (2000): ''An Historical Perspective of International Champion Quartets of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, 1939–1963'' (PhD diss., UMI Microform 9962373, The Ohio State University). Ann Arbor: ProQuest.
* Henry, James Earl (2001):
'. The Harmonizer (July/August), 13–17.
* Averill, Gage (2003): ''Four Parts, No Waiting. A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony''. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Ayling, Benjamin C. (2004):
An Historical View of Barbershop Music and the Sight-Reading Methodology and Learning Practices of Early Championship Barbershop Quartet Singers, 1939–1963'. International Journal of Research in Choral Singing 4, 53–59.
* Mook, Richard (2004): ''The Sounds of Liberty: Nostalgia, Masculinity, and Whiteness in Philadelphia Barbershop, 1900–2003'' (PhD diss., UMI Microform 3152085, University of Pennsylvania). Ann Arbor: ProQuest.
* Brooks, Tim (2005): ''Lost Sounds. Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890–1919''. Urbana-Champaign/IL: University of Illinois Press.
* Garnett, Liz (2005): ''The British Barbershopper: A Study in Socio-musical Values''. London: Ashgate.
* Mook, Richard (2007):
White Masculinity in Barbershop Quartet Singing'. Journal for the Society of American Music 1, no. 3 (2007), 453–483.
* Döhl, Frédéric (2009):
'. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
* Döhl, Frédéric (2012): ''Creating Popular Music History: The Barbershop Harmony Revival in the United States around 1940''. Popular History Now and Then, ed. Barbara Korte and Sylvia Paletschek. Bielefeld: transcript, 169–183.
* Mook, Richard (2012): ''The Sounds of Gender: Textualizing Barbershop Performance''. Perspectives on Males and Singing (= Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol. 10), ed. Scott D. Harrison/Graham F. Welch/Adam Adler. Dordrecht: Springer, 201–214.
* Nash, Jeffrey Eugene (2012): ''Ringing the Chord. Sentimentality and Nostalgia among Male Singers''. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 51, no. 5, 581–606.
* Hobson, Vic (2013):
'. American Music 31, no. 3, 314–339.
* Nash, Jeffrey Eugene (2013): ''Puttin' on Your Face: Staged Emotions among Barbershop Singer''. The Drama of Social Life: A Dramaturgical Handbook, ed. Charles Edgley. Farnham: Ashgate, 229–244.
* Döhl, Frédéric (2014):
'. American Music 32, no. 2, 123–171.
* Hobson, Vic (2014): ''Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues''. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
External links
Present at the Creation: Barbershop Quartetsfrom
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
Barbershop Quartets on 78rpms: How Quartet Harmonizing Became Known as BarbershopListen to Barbershop music at the Internet Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbershop Music
African-American music
American styles of music
A cappella
Four-part harmony
Retro-style music