Originally posted in The Other Paper

Barbershop music calls to mind straw hats, white pants, red-striped blazers and old movies. The Singing Buckeyes are trying to snuff that stereotype with the help of Harmony Camp—a weeklong training experience for high-schoolers that aims to get a younger, fresher generation singing the four-part tunes.

“Back in the early 1990s, we became concerned that young people were listening to music but not singing as much as they once were, and so we put together a multi-day workshop,” said Mike Renner, vice president of marketing and community relations for the Singing Buckeyes barbershop chorus.

When it was discovered that young singers actually enjoyed barbershop, Renner said, Harmony Camp became an annual event.

This year, more than 250 students gathered at Ohio Wesleyan University Wednesday to try their hands at what Renner calls the “technical” genre of music and the animated choreography that accompanies it—no white cane or matching shoes required.

They’ll spend each day until Saturday perfecting large choral numbers before taking to the stage at Veterans Memorial to show off what they learned during their time at the largest barbershop workshop in the country. The Singing Buckeyes and three quartets (Max Q, Prestige and Maxx Factor) will also perform at the 16th annual “Stars of the Night” concert.

“I think for anybody who loves vocal music or appreciates it—especially those who love a cappella music—this will be a great show, and it will be hard to find anything superior to this in Central Ohio or even in the Midwest,” Renner said.

What kind of music will the kids sing at Camp Harmony and at Saturday’s concert? A little One Direction, Rhianna or Flo Rida, maybe?

Probably not, said Renner, noting that while it’s possible to adapt today’s popular music to the barbershop style, it’s not done very often.

What, then, is the music’s appeal for modern high-schoolers?

“Anyone who loves singing should try barbershop, because it’s an awesome learning experience,” said Alexis Ankrom, a recent graduate of Thomas Worthington High School who’s attended the camp every summer since ninth grade.

“People end up becoming so passionate about it because when you hit the right notes, it rings really well and it gives you so many chills.”

Ankrom calls herself a “barbershop brat” because her parents have been chorus and quartet members since she was young.

For the majority of students who haven’t been formally introduced to barbershop, Renner said, the Singing Buckeyes take an annual road trip to schools across Ohio in hopes of recruiting students for the camp. Last school year, the singers entertained the members of 117 student choirs.

During the visits, the chorus sings classic barbershop tunes, teaches the students to harmonize and passes out information about Harmony Camp.

One student who took the four-part bait was Alex Caperton, who was introduced to barbershop during his junior year at Grove City Christian High School. This week’s camp will be his last, as this fall he’s headed to Capital University, where he’ll minor in vocal music.

Caperton said he took to barbershop because singing at his high school made him feel like an oddball. “I was the only guy in the choir class, and so I started to feel like it isn’t really cool for guys to sing,” he said. “But I knew I wanted to, so I was looking for opportunities outside school where I could sing in a full choir.”

“I’d never tried barbershop before I went to camp last summer, but now I really love it.” Because this is the last year he can attend the camp, Caperton said he’s looking to recruit three other singers to form a barbershop quartet.

Renner said that he’s always proud to hear that a camper went on to join a chorus or become a music teacher as a result of learning to sing barbershop. He said those students are going above and beyond the Singing Buckeyes’ goal.

“What we’re really striving for is not trying to get them to go home this summer and decide they’re going to join the Singing Buckeyes or (the women’s chorus) the Sweet Adelines, although we welcome that,” Renner said.

“What we’re trying to get them to do is think about singing, not just as a high school activity, but as a lifelong, adult activity where they can exercise a true interest in vocal music.”

Originally posted on The Independent Blog

It is the way of the world that everything fashionable will become passé. And then, as night follows day, it will come back into fashion – first ironically, as sported by inaccessible hipsters, then in earnest by the majority. Then it will be unfashionable again, and the whole process repeats until the end of time.

Disco is a prime example: it was as popular as the plague in the mid-70s, considered the height of naffness in the 80s, and then –thanks in part to a remix of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ – it was back, complete with flares, platforms, and unnecessary covers of ‘It’s Raining Men’ by tired Spice Girls.

With this in mind, I want to wind the clock back to the end of the 19th century, when barbershop singing was fast becoming the latest craze. Everyone was talking about it and doing it, and by the early 1900s it was everywhere – well, everywhere in the US, us Brits were still listening to music-hall and the such-like, but you get the picture.

By 1920 the wheel of fashion had turned and barbershop singing was as dead as boot-cut jeans and curtains. Depression era America had no need for cheerful harmony groups, and troupes of singers had to join the breadline like the rest of the country.

Then, true to form, it got a boost thanks to retro-chic. Just when everything seemed doomed for the medium, close harmony singing’s own inaccessible hipster Owen C. Cash founded the Barbershop Harmony Society as means of preserving the art, and singers and fans crept back out of hiding to join the growing chorus.

Fast-forward to present day and you will notice there is a distinct lack of barbershop music in the hit parade. There was a Christmas number one by The Flying Pickets in 1983, and there are the obligatory harmonies thrown in by JLS and One Direction, but it’s not really barbershop in the truest sense. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the art has died out in the mainstream.

However, if you take a closer look, the corpse of close-harmony singing may just be twitching a bit. On the periphery of popular culture there are signs of life.

As is traditional for anything of any popularity whatsoever, Barbershop singing has made occasional appearances in The Simpsons. Homer forms The B Sharps, a quartet whose career rise is so monumental it can only be compared to that of The Beatles, and in another episode the whole town bursts into harmony singing about a monorail – a direct reference to The Music Man, a musical that heavily features a barbershop quartet.

More recently, we can see regular appearances from harmony groups in Family Guy and Scrubs. In both instances the music ticks all of the relevant barbershop boxes – it’s a cappella, it uses cycles of fifths, etc. – and is given a very prominent place in the show, which is great for the resurrection of the art: very little for the serious aficionados to complain about.

The purpose, though, doesn’t seem entirely honourable. More often than not these shows tend to ridicule the medium, rather than to rejoice in it. In Scrubs, for example, it’s the downtrodden Ted who leads the quartet, and it’s just another weapon to beat him with: not only is he a disappointingly pathetic man, he’s also a barbershop singer – what a loser!

Can this be good for barbershop or is it just popular media figures kicking an ailing tradition while it’s down?

My belief (slightly biased, being as I am a close-harmony singer myself) is this is the beginning of a Lazarus-like return. Nothing attracts inaccessible hipsters (the Jesus Christ of this analogy) like something being considered the height of naffness. May I bring your attention to thick-rimmed NHS glasses: early 2000s you couldn’t give a pair away, now Jay-Z has them, and every grinning T4 presenter (male and female) looks like Deirdre Barlow.

Barbershop isn’t cool. At least it isn’t cool now. And that could be its secret weapon. Give it time and in a year or so the streets of Hoxton will see a lot more candy-stripes and straw boaters, the synthesisers will be put away, and the air will be thick with the sound of close-harmony singing. And before you know it, you’ll all want to be those losers from Scrubs, like I do.

The Barbershop Harmony Society is pleased to announce the appointment of its new CEO/Executive Director. Twenty-three-year member Martin “Marty” Monson was named to the post after an extensive search process conducted by the Barbershop Harmony Society’s Board of Directors and the search firm Genovese, Vanderhoof & Associates. Nearly 60 candidates, many with extensive musical and association management experience, were considered for the position.  

Marty is currently president and owner of Visual Communication Advisors, a strategic planning consulting firm. Prior to that, he was vice president of business development for Glowpoint, a telecommunications and teleconferencing company.  

“I am honored by the opportunity to serve the Barbershop Harmony Society in this capacity,” Marty said. “I’m eager to get started.” Society staff was informed of the decision on the morning of Friday, July 20. They will meet with the new CEO on Tuesday, July 24.  

Marty has been president of the Hilltop, Minn. Chapter (LOL) of the Barbershop Harmony Society for the past five years. His leadership has helped to significantly grow membership and transform the Hilltop chapter (and its Great Northern Union chorus) into one of the Society’s most dynamic organizations. An article about this transformation appears in the November/December 2009 issue of The Harmonizer magazine.  

“Marty brings unbridled passion and enthusiasm to this role,” said Alan Lamson, president of the Barbershop Harmony Society and interim CEO. “His ideas for the future, his successes with Great Northern Union, as well as his business successes, gave the Board the confidence that he was the right person at the right time for the Barbershop Harmony Society. We are also excited by his ability to work with staff, committees, the Board and the membership to move us forward.”  

“The search committee was looking for a strong blend of skills, experiences, energy and vision as demonstrated in business and barbershop,” added Shannon Elswick, Society executive vice president. “Marty’s success at the chapter level is undeniable, his energy is boundless, and he brings a vision that we believe will engage current members and attract new ones. We also believe Marty will use the great resources we have as an organization to broaden and enhance overall awareness of barbershop harmony.”  

Marty, his wife, Amy, and their children, Stefany and Luke, will relocate to Nashville, Tenn. in the near future. The newly appointed CEO will meet with the Operations Team and deliver the keynote address at Harmony University on Sunday, July 29. He will officially begin his duties at the Society’s Nashville headquarters on August 13.

Originally posted on PRI's The World website (click to listen to this radio story)
Soundclip available here >>

The latest winner of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s quartet competition is Swedish.

Ringmasters, from Sweden, is the first quartet from outside North America to win the Society’s gold medal. Barbershop singing is a quintessentially American music and the Swedish singers spent years learning and refining their technique.

Ringmasters won the competition in Portland, Oregon earlier this month at the Barbershop Harmony Society’s International convention.

The editor of The Harmonizer magazine, Lorin May, called their victory “unprecedented”. Listen to the broadcast >>