Strong evidence suggests that African Americans, particularly those in the South, were chiefly responsible for forging the early “close harmony” style that would later be called barbershop. In casual settings such as barbershops, barrooms and street corners, African Americans denied access to many other venues used singing as one of their primary forms of recreation, and the back rooms of barbershops were common meeting places. In 1925, Author, musician and early leader of the NAACP James Weldon Johnson recalled:
In the days when such a thing as a white barber was unknown in the South, every barber shop had its quartet, and the men spent their leisure time…‘harmonizing.’ I have witnessed some of these explorations in the field of harmony and the scenes of hilarity and backslapping when a new and rich chord was discovered. There would be demands for repetitions and cries of, “Hold it! Hold it!” until it was firmly mastered…. In this way was born the famous but much abused “barber-shop chord.”
What many choral educators have discovered—facilitated by the Barbershop Harmony Society (barbershop.org)—is that this close-harmony style has proven hugely beneficial to their programs. The quest to “ring” chords inspires in their students an insatiable desire to learn whatever they can to be successful at it. They geek out on tuning, balancing chords, and matching vowels. 21st-century teenagers in the hallways and quads of their schools are recreating Johnson’s memory from a 19th-century southern barbershop. They start teaching tags to their friends and lure them into the choir program like sailors to sirens. Think of it: not only girls, but guys clamoring to join your choirs!
(Make plans now to attend your 2016 ACDA Divisional Conference!)
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.