Barbershopping: Musical and Social Harmony

This is the first comprehensive examination of the remarkable singing groups in the U.S.A., Canada, and Europe known as "barbershoppers." In both male and female a capella quartets and choruses, the barbershop singers concentrate on a song literature that was popular in the period 1860-1930. Their purpose is spelled out in the title of a male group founded a half century ago in Oklahoma: the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA). Today, the SPEBSQSA consists of approximately 40,000 men in the United States and Canada, with affiliated chapters in thirty other nations. Two women's groups who share the ideology of the SPEBSQSA are Sweet Adelines International and Harmony, Inc. The entertainment provided by these groups - in both concert performances and international competitions - is enjoyed by a wide public. In 1988 a special committee began to reexamine SPEBSQSA's basic purposes and organization - vis a vis social and aesthetic changes. The committee members decided to create for this reexamination a task force of distinguished scholars with expertise in sociology, ethnomusicology, and music education. Each scholar was invited to research barbershopping as it related to a specific discipline. The historian emeritus of the SPEBSQSA was asked to provide a broad history of the movement. Their work is presented in the current volume - a book that will be of interest to many people: educators, musicians, counselors, social scientists, historians, recreationists, health workers, gerontologists, and - of course - the 75,000 men and women who call themselves barbershoppers.