The following statement was recently released by Society President Alan Lamson:

In July of 2011, the CEO Search Task Force, appointed by Society President Alan Lamson, was charged to solicit, accept and review applications for the position of Society CEO and present qualified candidates to the Board of Directors for consideration. The task force’s robust and thorough process sought candidates with a unique set of skills and qualifications to lead the Society into the future. During the Midwinter Convention in Tucson, the Society Board conducted interviews with the candidates presented by the CEO Search Task Force, and, while the slate of candidates was excellent, the Board has decided to continue its search for our next CEO.

Larry Deters, current Interim Executive Director will continue in this position until the Board of Directors completes its search.

In the last issue of The Harmonizer, my column discussed the coming Operation Harold Hill and that the only impediment for finding potential singers for your chapter among total strangers is ourselves.  As Poag says, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  (Here is a copy of the column in PDF form: Lamson column 10-2011)

Many barbershoppers have told me how easy it is to simply ask someone whether he likes to sing. Nobody is ever offended by that question, and the worst anyone can say is “No.” But many of the people say yes, or they know someone who likes to sing. Many are also looking for a place to sing. The next enthusiastic member of your chapter could be standing right next to you in a grocery line.

If you wear my button, you don’t even have to bring up the subject of singing — somebody else may start the conversation for you!  It has worked for me exactly like that on several occasions.

In either case, once this conversation has started, what do you say next?  Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a note from John Schneider, who spent more than a decade on staff in charge of the Society’s conventions and events, as well as the Society’s legal counsel. Last weekend in Dallas there was a Society Board meeting, along with a mini-forum, or training session for many of next year’s upcoming leaders. He has attended dozens upon dozens of Society board meetings and had this to say about last weekends:

I have been fortunate enough to sit in on the Society’s Board of Directors meeting in Dallas this weekend.  Being a former Board Member myself, I had some expectations of what the Board would do and how they would handle their duties.  I have been completely blown away by their meeting this week.  The depth of knowledge, experience, professionalism and dedication shown at this meeting has been extraordinary.  Each and every member of the Board (and the two Members-Elect) had something valuable to contribute to this meeting.  You, the members of the Society, should be very proud and appreciative of their efforts and feel that you are in good hands with this Board and that they are committed to making sure that the Society moves forward and that the sharing of ideas and successes will be continue.  I offer my thanks to them for their diligence and willingness to spend their time and talents to make the Society better.

Hear, hear.

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: Lunch Break.

The funny guys from Nashville somehow ended up being — SQUIRREL! – the mic testers for the second straight year. Too bad for them (had their quarterfinals score been as good as their semifinals score, they wouldn’t have only made the finals, they might have made the medals), but good for us. This time, the judges couldn’t complain about all the semifinalists on stage for the second year in a row, and the audience couldn’t have been happier about a second round of Old McDonald had a Deformed Farm.”

Top that. (PLEASE!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: The Suntones.

***Spoiler Alert***

They were awesome!

***Spoiler over***

You say the rest. (Hint: You don’t have to say something funny!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: Four Man Fishin’ Tackle Choir. You may have guessed by their name that this Pioneer District quartet doesn’t take itself too seriously. They were the 50th and last quartet to perform in Kansas City’s quarterfinals, and they finished in 50th place. But these seasoned entertainers earned something that only a handful of the other 49 quartets got: A big standing O. The judges knew their stuff, but so did the audience: Quality entertainment is always richly rewarded!

Top that. (PLEASE!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: Music City Chorus. The most complex staging in Kansas City came via the Nashville Chapter’s take on Disney’s Aladdin. With special effects, complex props (including a motorized “flying carpet”), and some of the bluest makeup of all time, there was plenty of on-stage magic.

Top that. (PLEASE!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: FRED meets Storm Front. You knew that something was going to happen when the 1999 and 2010 champion yucksters shared the same stage. Turns out, all that happened on the AIC Show was a run-of-the-mill, friendly brawl among friends.

Top that. (PLEASE!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: Old School. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the 2011 international champion quartet:

• Kipp Buckner‘s (left) third gold medal and Joe Connelly‘s (second from left) record 4th.
• The fact that the new champs intentionally re-used repertoire from legendary quartets of decades past on their way to gold, putting on a clinic for why traditional barbershop never stops being cool.
• The official induction of Joe “Beast” Krones (third from left) into an extremely elite fraternity, and we’re talking about one not occupied by bari Jack Pinto (right). Let’s just say the only other current members are Brett Littlefield and Jeff Oxley. (Anyone who has followed barbershop over the past 20 years — or who was in Kansas City this year — likely needs no further explanation.)

But what do YOU have to say about the above photo?

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s picture: Society Director of Operations Rick Spencer directs the MegaSing at the Power & Light District Saturday, just before the Harmony Foundation Show.

Top that. (PLEASE!)

See round 1 for the rules.

Today’s group: Kentucky Vocal Union decided to “Rock This Town” with a new chart by director Aaron Dale and dance moves never before seen on the international stage. Their high-energy presentation, combined with a sound that was much bigger than the 30 men on stage, earned a huge standing O and narrowly missed the medals in a memorable sixth-place finish.

Top that. (PLEASE!)

Just like last year, you can get your name and work in the convention issue of The Harmonizer by writing the winning caption for the above photo.

We’ll be adding one new caption contest post EVERY BUSINESS DAY for the next little while. Each of these photos will appear in the Sept/Oct 2011 issue. Contest closes when I’m good and ready to wrap up this issue.

A bit of background on this picture of Sound of the Rockies: The chapter claimed that arrangers David Wright and Aaron Dale never return their calls, so they needed to figure out how to put together a gold medal-winning package on their own. They attempted the trademark routines of several past championship choruses, with less than stellar results.

Top that. (PLEASE!) Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that Australian Seniors champ Benchmark is in the FINALs of Australia’s Got Talent? And there’s much more to the story than that. Check out the most recent video below, but not until you’ve grabbed a tissue:

Read the rest of this entry »

Click this link to read my column from the May/June issue of The Harmonizer. In it, I discuss the concept of an “elevator speech” or an “elevator pitch.” It’s a business term for having a quick and impactful way to explain who you are and what you do to a total stranger — one that could take place in less than the length of a ride in an elevator. (Explanations and examples from the business world are here, here and here.)

In my column I discussed how wearing the pin at the left (get your own here) has helped me and members of many chapters start conversations about barbershop harmony and about their chapters. People see the pin and want an explanation. The natural next step is to know what you are going to say to them in response. Here’s your opportunity to share and refine your own!

What’s yours? Share it here!

Do you have any other successful conversation starters? Any other openers for sharing the message of barbershop harmony with friends and strangers alike? Share them here, too!

Larry Deters (center) was introduced to Society staff in Nashville on Friday, June 17. With Larry are Society President Alan Lamson (left) and retiring Society CEO Ed Watson.

Society President Alan Lamson has announced the appointment of Larry Deters as the Interim Organizational Manager of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Beginning Monday, June 20, Larry will work in tandem with Ed Watson until Friday, July 15, Ed’s final day as Society Executive Director/CEO. (Ed announced his resignation on March 28, 2011.) As Interim Organizational Manager, Larry will direct all the day-to-day activities of Society staff and will assist in the transition to a permanent CEO/Executive Director, who will likely begin work before the end of 2011.

Larry is a resident of Brentwood, TN and is currently the Executive Vice President of the Dixie District. He provides a wealth of experience as a barbershopper and as a professional executive. A 41-year member of the Society, Larry has been a member of four districts and has held many chapter offices, including music director, Music VP and Chapter Development VP. He has also been district VP-Chorus Director Development and VP-Contest and Judging.

A 30-year member of the contest and judging community in Singing and the former Sound category, Larry was a member of the category’s board of review, a category specialist and a member of the Society Contest & Judging Committee. He has also performed on the International stage in both the quartet and chorus contests and holds a chorus gold medal. Larry has judged more than 100 contests, including six at the International level plus an additional three Harmony, Inc. international contests.

Larry has been on the faculty of Harmony University, is a certified Standing Ovation evaluator, and is a certified CDWI instructor.

Prior to his retirement, Larry was employed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, concluding his career with 15 years service as Medical Center Director in Nashville, TN, with oversight of 1,200 employees and an annual budget of $380 million. He also spent three years as Mid-South Region Medical District Director (CEO) of seven hospitals and 14 outpatient clinics, with responsibility for 12,000 employees and an annual budget of $1.5 billion.

“We are extremely fortunate to have a person with such outstanding barbershop and professional credentials for the interim position,” said Lamson. “Larry is excited by the opportunity to serve our Society and he already lives in the Greater Nashville area. His service will allow the Society Board and the search committee to focus on recruiting our new CEO, knowing the staff functions of our Society are in very capable hands during this transition period.”

Job requirements for the new CEO have been drafted and are pending approval by the Society board during its July meetings at the 2011 International Convention in Kansas City. Soon thereafter, a CEO Search Committee will likely be appointed, which will release further details about the CEO search.

Larry can be reached at LDeters@barbershop.org.

You couldn’t turn anywhere on the Internet or Social media last week without seeing everyone pile on with jokes or references to Saturday’s coming “rapture.” Many barbershoppers got in on the action–and one chapter turned out to have been prepared for the rapture … or, at least for the rapture jokes, even if unintentionally.

I learned about this in a note from Gary Forsberg, my old friend from the Wasatch Front Chapter (my very first chapter, which I joined shortly after college back in 1994 along with the rest of my quartet). Gary just wanted to share how excited The Saltaires were after their near sell-out spring show featuring 2009 champ Crossroads, and he also wanted to share the great audience reaction to their improved singing and the positive buzz currently pervading the chapter. But Gary’s postmark at the end of his note just needed to be shared, before the rapture jokes go completely out of style:

It was coincidental that our show, entitled “It’s a Great Day!” was scheduled on the day predicted to be the day of the Rapture and beginning of the end, but when we realized that over the past week, we took full advantage.  Our closing number was “Goodbye, World, Goodbye!”   Not everyone in the audience got the joke, but those that did spent a few minutes explaining it to those around them who wondered at the mirthful reaction to a great, rousing arrangement of the old gospel song!

Thanks, Gary!

If your chapter wasn’t taken up into heaven, do you have any “rapturous” stories to share from this past week? Or other fortunate coincidences that made for a great story?

Share them here!

Dennis Gillis was inspired to write this after reading the article by Wil Snuffin that appeared in the March/April edition of The Harmonizer. Dennis sings with the Cape Breton (N.S.) Chordsmen.

Thanks to the article, “Never forget what it was like to discover bbshop!”, the urge to respond was overwhelming!

I can relate to Wil Snuffin’s article about his love affair with barbershop on several levels. It has really made me think about my introduction to barbershop and the impact that introduction has made upon my life.

I’ve been told I have a great performance face. These kind of comments garner me my fair share of ribbing from my fellow barbershoppers, especially when the songs call for that certain look of love. “Easy for him,” they say, “he really is in love.” They are not wrong; but they seem to think this love is for my fiancée, and that is not entirely true. Read the rest of this entry »

Submitted by Andrew Shackleton, chairman of the Society’s membership committee.

I have a great little story to share with you. I was working with the Operations Team a few weekends ago at headquarters in Nashville. It was lunch time and we were just finishing our box lunch and chatting. Apparently Ed Watson was looking out the window and noticed a young couple peering into the front windows. Ed asked Patty Leveille (his executive assistant) to pop down and see if they would like a tour or if she could answer any questions they might have. This was the start of a fantastic barbershop moment for 19-year-old Michael Pugh and his girlfriend, Apryl. They were in town from Evansville, Indiana, and he wanted to show her the home office of the Barbershop Harmony Society, which he joined the summer of 2009.

Patty took them for the grand tour, showing them where all the staff works, some of the neat design in the office layout and meeting rooms, and showed them the Wall of Fame. At this point, Michael was blown away that he and Apryl had been invited in to the office, on a Saturday afternoon when nobody should be around to notice them. Quoting Michael:

“That day was really something for me. As a young barbershopper, still learning and discovering the wonders of what the Society and the art of barbershop itself can present, I was very excited to see the headquarters. I saw it as somewhat of a homecoming. It’s where everything is centered for our passion. I didn’t expect to actually be able to get to go inside, just being there, and seeing it was enough. But when Patty Leveille opened the doors and offered us a tour I was so excited. It was dream coming true right in front of my eyes. She showed us all over telling us about the past present and future of the Barbershop Harmony Society headquarters. I was amazed. Read the rest of this entry »

After six wonderful years of hard work and dedication to the cause of preserving and encouraging barbershop harmony, I find I must move on. Quoting from my upcoming column for The Harmonizer:

I have asked the Society Board to accept my resignation effective July 15, 2011. I am doing this for my own good and the good of the Society. It is with pride and humility (an odd combination, don’t you think?) that I step down from the greatest job in the world, and yet also with regret at the things I did not accomplish. I could never hope to match the superb and superlative nature of this career, so I will be retiring and enjoying my family.

The regret I feel is that I could not, no matter my personal level of effort, stop the slide in Society membership that began in the late 1980s and continues to this day. Last year we slowed the decline, and so far in 2011 we are showing positive growth, but we have many pitfalls ahead and much to do to grow like we should.

The new Society CEO will be chosen by the Society Board of Directors; details of the search will be released as they become available. An interim manager (to be determined) will begin working with me sometime in June and will serve as the bridge to the new CEO until the transition has been completed.

Quoting from the Society Board’s response to my letter of resignation: Read the rest of this entry »

Quoting from page 6 of the soon-to-mail Jan/Feb 2011 issue of The Harmonizer (soon to be online):

2-year rotation plan off the table

Society leaders continue to study potential modifications to the Contest & Judging system; however, the two-year international chorus rotation proposal discussed in the July/August 2010 issue of The Harmonizer is no longer under consideration.

The two-year proposal was neither voted upon nor rejected, but simply supplanted by other ideas that have bubbled up during the last few months of studying the C&J system. The new ideas will be studied by district and Society leadership throughout 2011.

More than 3,000 Society members and Associates shared their views on the two-year rotation proposal in an Internet survey and on barbershopHQ.com last fall.

 

The above should be self-explanatory, so I’ll offer no other commentary other than to say that whether “no news” is good news or bad news to you and your chapter, the study that went into this proposal was highly profitable on multiple fronts. The feedback from Society members and Associates definitely played a major role in where things stand as of today. I’m not yet ready to discuss the “other ideas that have bubbled up,” but I will say that these new ideas would not be on the table if the the study and very public discussion of the two-year rotation proposal had not taken place. (See here and here.)

Results of last Autumn’s survey

As the original proposal is no longer under consideration, we are now free to disclose your reactions to the proposal. Nearly 3,300 of you responded to an online poll, which I believe was an amazing number. We also received 2,515 open-ended answers, which together added up to a 573-page Word doc. Those open-ended answers brought up many concerns not addressed previously, a few benefits not mentioned previously, and included many alternatives or modifications to the plan. So without further ado, here is a summary of the results that were shared with the Society board on Oct. 30, 2010:

Read the rest of this entry »

1. We shall do everything in our power to perpetuate the Society.

All of us have a copy of the Society Code of Ethics on the back of our membership cards. How often do you read them? Are you clear on what they mean?

I bring this up after talking to someone about relatively recent activities in his corner of the Society. I won’t go into any details, but basically, some members were dissatisfied with an aspect of their barbershop experience and arguably made a short-sighted and self-serving decision that may negatively affect several chapters in the area. If historic patterns follow, there may be a lot fewer folks singing barbershop harmony in that area in coming years. Bad feelings and bad behavior abound — it’s like watching a divorce unfold.

This member brought up several alternative routes that could have been followed, each of which would have allowed all parties to get what they wanted out of their barbershop experience. Both sides would have had to bend just a little. He lamented the zero-sum mentality he observed — the decision on both sides that there were going to be winners and losers, with no visible effort to negotiate for a win-win. Most of all, this member lamented that no one in this saga seemed to have the slightest inkling that they should be weighing their own actions and motives according to the Society’s First Ethic: We shall do everything in our power to perpetuate the Society.

Our founders could have worded that differently. They could have said, “We shall do everything in our power to perpetuate barbershop harmony,” but they knew better. They knew that all the other objectives hung from the formation of a Society that is strong enough to accomplish those outcomes. The perpetuation of the Society itself had to come ahead of all other considerations. Read the rest of this entry »

About this time last year, I was putting together the Jan/Feb 2010 cover story about the Cape Breton, N.S. Chapter called “Thinking Big.” (Read the article here.) They grew from 12 men to 40 in less than a year, and I wanted the barbershop world to understand how, seeing as I’m always on the lookout for the next big thing that could help chapters or the Society at large.

In hindsight, maybe I was thinking too big.

No, I’m not apologizing for the story – I wouldn’t retract a word. I might write it differently today, however, based on what I’ve learned from several books over the past few months. I’m starting to understand that big changes are most often traced to seemingly small things. In hindsight, that principle applies to Cape Breton in spades.

Smallness of ambition, smallness of hope – those are dangerous. But there’s also a danger in assuming that your chapter (or this Society) can only get big results from big, painful upheavals. That assumption could delay action because problems appear bigger than they are, or worse, distract our collective focus from the little changes that actually could make a big difference. Read the rest of this entry »

There can be too much of a good thing, and learning tracks are one of those things.

Look, we sell learning tracks here at the Society, and some awesome musicians among us are creating masterpieces. They can be really helpful for learning.

But has the pendulum swung too far?

I’ve seen chapters scrap songs that were perfect for them, and only because there wasn’t a learning track available! I fear that one of a musician’s most important skills sets — the ability to read music — could atrophy among barbershoppers if we aren’t careful.

Quite often, when new music is handed out I’ll hear, “I can’t sight read.”  [Insert sigh.]  Many shrug and accept this as an unalterable fact, as if they’d stated “I’m left-handed,” “I’m allergic to peanuts,” or “I’m a Sagittarius.” While barbershop has strong aural traditions (consider woodshedding and the way most of us learn tags), completely ignoring sight singing skills is like going through school and never taking a math class; sure you can still function, but not without a handicap.

I can tell which barbershoppers play instruments because they generally have better sight singing chops, they learn faster, and are better with rhythm songs. All of us could use some of that. Wouldn’t it be great if you could literally learn a piece of music in one night? Read the rest of this entry »

Every Thanksgiving morning, I join my wife and four kids in the living room to fill what our kids call the “Thankful Jar.” We start with huge bags of Jelly Bellies, M&Ms, Skittles and other small candies and fill the jar one piece at a time while stating something for which we are thankful. You get to repeat what someone else said but not what you’ve already said.

The jar is probably at least couple of quarts (that’s 2.2 liters, if you’re Canadian), maybe three, so we usually take a small handful when it’s our turn and rattle off a bunch of items at a pretty fast clip. A lot of the big stuff goes fast, and after a while you find yourself needing to come up with a lot of little stuff to keep the pace:

“I’m thankful for:

Grandma May

The Bill of Rights

George Washington

Instant Replay

Central air conditioning

2nd Thessalonians

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

The feel of grass under bare feet

E=MC2

Peace on our shores

Uncle Allan’s safety in Iraq

Surge protectors

and Popsicles”

After a while, the kids find themselves trying to out-random each other and make everyone laugh. But it turns out that even the random “little” stuff isn’t that little after all. We feel so blessed when we realize just how much we do have–and how much we’d miss it if we didn’t have it.

Barbershop harmony has a lot of that. Read the rest of this entry »