Barbershop Harmony Society
The Barbershop Harmony Society or Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America ( "Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America") is the world's largest association organizing the non-denominational Amateur - singing .
Goals and story
The company was founded in 1938 by OC Cash and a few colleagues in St. Louis , Missouri . At that time there was a rampant sky of abbreviations among the public . And the gentlemen who founded the association strived to have the longest existing abbreviation for their young association: SPEBSQSA, better: SPEBSQSA, "Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America".
The aim of the new association was to preserve barbershop singing, an originally American musical genre of amateur singing that threatened to be lost in the new media of radio and vinyl .
Parallel organizations
The "Barbershop Harmoniegesellschaft", also known as SPEBSQSA, was the first of several organizations that set themselves the goal of preserving the barbershop as an art form of music. The organization grew rapidly by promoting the barbershop to men of all ages. As of 2004, more than 30,000 men in the United States and Canada are members of the Society. Her focus is on a cappella music. The company's headquarters are in Kenosha , Wisconsin .
A parallel women's organization, Sweet Adelines International , was founded in 1945. A second women's organization, Harmony, Incorporated , was formed in 1959 as a result of a dispute over membership policy, which at the time tied membership to white skin. (This limitation has long since ceased to exist.) Several internationally affiliated organizations, from Scandinavia to Japan, add their own colors to the characteristic sound of barbershop harmony.
The abbreviation and the names
The original abbreviation was a parody of the literacy agencies of the New Deal policy at the time. For decades SPEBSQSA was the "official" name, while the Barbershop Harmony Society was an officially recognized alternative name. The use of the alternative name was also encouraged because the official name was considered an inside joke that was not understood and appreciated outside. In mid-2004, when membership was declining, it was decided as part of a marketing plan to consistently use the alternative name and to keep the old name only for legal purposes.
In the old name, “Barber Shop” is spelled with two words, while the more common spelling “Barbershop” is used in the new name.
Unofficially, “SPEBSQSA” / 'spEb skw @ / is pronounced in Kirshenbaum notation, as if the last S was a U. However, the Society announces that it “does not encourage attempts to pronounce the name”.
Exterior image of the barbershop and society
Today the barbershop in general and also its flagship, the “Society”, as it is called for short, the only men's society (with approx. 30,000 members, primarily in the USA and England) as “behind the moon”, are very old-fashioned and a little snore, quite in a sympathetic way like an old, lovable, but a little idiot uncle. This is an assessment that certainly applies to many ensembles, but by no means to the entire SPEBSQSA. In this purely amateur association there are voice and performance talents that many professional ensembles would be proud of.
If you had the chance to see one of the big choirs with up to 180 men perform, or one of the highly precise and powerfully singing master quartets, you will quickly distance yourself from the prejudice of being obscure. The barbershop and the society are conservative, which is programmatically based on the name: “preservation”.
Competitions
The association is the organizer of the annual competition to find the world's best vocal quartet, the "International Convention", which takes place in different locations in the USA or Canada. As a rule, the winning quartet provided finances; it is passed around in great honor and can typically charge around 7,000 to 8,000 US dollars per night for performances over a period of around ten years. With 150 to 180 performances a year, other work is both impossible and unnecessary for the quartet members.
In rare cases there is also the chance to hear top American and English ensembles in Europe, e.g. B. at the German barbershop conventions.
The choir directors of the great American barbershop choirs, the "MD", musical directors, are considered icons of the singing scene in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking area with a far greater level of awareness than in Germany, for example Gotthilf Fischer from the Fischer choirs .
The association organizes the training and further education of its members, which takes place in so-called "Harmony Colleges", weekend workshops with intensive work on arrangements, choreography and performances. The choir directors, the arrangers and the competition judges (the “judges”) also get their polish on courses of the “Society”.
In addition to its headquarters in Kenosha on Lake Michigan, which resides in an old industrialist mansion, the association operates a museum, a shop and a publishing house. Coaches and trainers for the sub-disciplines “Music”, “Singing” and “Presentation” are also provided by the Society for a small fee and are available throughout North America to promote the performance of quartets and choirs.