It used to be that a 92.3% score was knocking at the door of a gold medal. In this year’s record-setting contest, that was good enough for 4th place for Sound of the Rockies, who presented an amazing military set. Director Darin Drown didn’t get the color of medal he wanted from his troops, but the bari of Storm Front still went home happy with quartet gold.

Beat that caption, PLEASE! The best one gets published in The Harmonizer!

To read the rules, click here to go to the initial post.

Have at it!

We’ll let the VM’s press release speak for itself:

PHILADELPHIA CONTEST TO BE LAST COMPETITION FOR VOCAL MAJORITY DIRECTOR JIM CLANCY

Dallas, TX (May 18, 2010) — After nearly forty years and an unprecedented eleven gold medals in international competition, Director Jim Clancy has decided to make the 2010 Philadelphia performance his last international contest at the helm of the Vocal Majority Chorus®. He will continue as Musical Director and primary arranger, but will leave preparation and execution for future contests to Jeff Oxley and the rest of his music staff.

Formed in 1972, the Vocal Majority Chorus® won its first gold medal in the 1975 International competition in Indianapolis and is now preparing for competition in Philadelphia. When asked about the upcoming contest, Clancy says, “I’m very excited about our preparation for this upcoming international competition. I believe that the Vocal Majority Chorus® is singing better than ever, and I am honored to lead the men into competition one last time before our wonderful family of barbershoppers.”

The Board of Directors of the Vocal Majority asks that any questions and comments regarding this announcement be directed to:

Todd Roberts

President, Vocal Majority Chorus

Email: TR3336@aol.com

Wow. The man absolutely defined what a barbershop chorus could be–heck, what a men’s chorus could be. The man changed thousands of lives, and not just those among VM members and audiences.

What are your best memories of Jim Clancy and the VM? What do you expect for Philly? How should we remember Jim’s historical legacy?

This question comes from a younger Society member who belongs to 52Eighty, 2010 Youth Chorus Festival Champions and Sound of the Rockies, 2009 international bronze medalist. He was a barbershopper elsewhere before moving to Colorado. We’ll keep him anonymous so he can be blunt. Here’s his question:

Having come from choruses that post scores no higher than a 55% [high C-level], and now singing with a chorus that can sing in the 90s, I can’t put my finger on what exactly makes a chorus strive to do well enough to reach the A-level category [81 or higher].  I know that one of the chorus I sang with in [prior residence] can certainly produce the types of sounds you hear from the Vocal Majority or the Ambassadors of Harmony, but the discipline isn’t there.  Obviously, not all choruses start out like Westminster, in fact most choruses don’t start off as an A-level chorus.  What is needed in order to get the average and below-average choruses to obtain the discipline and work ethic needed to become A level?

Thoughts?

We would like you all to think over a suggested change to our competition schedule, for choruses only. We’re in the early “what if?” stage right now, but the Society is investigating the possibility of switching our international chorus competition to a two-year rotation.

Currently, we allow approximately the 28 best Society choruses from each fall district contest (district champs and wild-cards), in addition to a few international affiliates, to compete at the next international contest, which takes place 8-9 months later. We want to gauge reaction to the idea of a system in which (approximately) the 56 best Society choruses would compete on alternating years (an equal top-down mix of still roughly 28 per year). They would also qualify roughly 20 months before the international contest, to give them more time to financially and artistically prepare.

This PDF is a hypothetical example of how a two-year cycle switch could be implemented.

This Excel spreadsheet shows an example configuration based on 2009 scores. (Please note that the spreadsheet opens to a tab that shows the final results. There are two other tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet that show how those results were generated.)

Sweet Adelines International has used a two-year rotation since the early 1970s. Initially, they experienced alternating “strong” and “weak” years, but the “second tier” competitors raised their competitive level, and soon all years were strong years. As seen in the above hypotheticals, were the Society to implement a two-year rotation, we would avoid the “weak year” challenge from the outset. Read the rest of this entry »

Yea, I know, who cares?  Right?

BUT…As a competitor, judge, and staff guy, I get around to many contests each year in several different districts and I always find it interesting how varying barbershop audiences can be with the way they welcome the competitors to the stage.  Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s something for all you snowed-in barbershoppers to chew on: How would we have structured things if 30,000 barbershop singers had somehow gotten together just today to form a singing Society? How would we be structured? What would we do that we don’t do now? What would we modify or drop that we are doing?

On balance, we’re far too critical of ourselves as barbershoppers. We’re so intimately aware of our own warts and unrealized hopes that we rarely realize that the outside world is far more impressed with us than we are. Ever heard the “Wow!” from a sharp music professional once he starts to become familiar with our educational system, our contest and judging system, our organizational structure, youth outreach, fraternal culture, etc.? (Maybe that’s a post or Harmonizer article for another time!) So I don’t want this to devolve into a gripe session of “What’s wrong with the Society,” cuz frankly we hear plenty of that already.

That said, organizations can be like computers. After you’ve had one for a while, installed this program, tweaked that, added this data, both a computer and an organization can start become sluggish. There’s really no way to avoid it, but all those necessary tweaks and changes can build up “lint” that can hamper system performance. For all the customizations you can’t live without anymore, you still wish your machine were operating the way it did when it came out of the box. Read the rest of this entry »

The long anticipated release of the 2009 Anaheim Convention DVDs has finally arrived … TWO DAYS prior to our original projected shipping date!

Your HQ staff plus several of our wonderful volunteers worked together to get these out the door to you as quickly as possible.  And I mean quick!  The DVDs arrived to Harmony Hall from the duplicator this morning at 9:15 a.m., and as I write this at about 11 a.m. they are all out the door and in mail streams!

If you haven’t ordered your’s yet, there is still time to do so and receive it in time for Christmas.  But you must act fast.  Visit the Harmony Marketplace online to learn about what shipping options are available for the quickest delivery.  Or call 800-876-7464 and order yours today!

God bless the realists, the folks who tell it like it is—who call a spade a spade, who never stick their head in the sand, and who know they aren’t doing anyone any favors in varnishing the truth. The Barbershop Harmony Society needs all the reality it can get. If the preceeding words describe you, this post isn’t directed at you.

On second thought, this post may be ESPECIALLY for you.

What I say next will probably brand me as a blind Pollyanna skipping to the precipice, but oh well:

STOP BEING SO NEGATIVE! YOU’RE ONLY MAKING THINGS WORSE!

Realism is vital, but it is severely overrated. If that last sentence made you cringe, I’ll point out that science is on my side for this one.

It turns out, a large portion of self-described realists are also pessimists. And because they are pessimists, they will not have access to the thoughts and actions that will lead their chapters and our Society to better days. Want proof? Want examples? Keep reading. Read the rest of this entry »

You told us loud and clear in surveys that the convention schedule must change. You wanted fewer overlapping events, fewer awards and more singing, and events that ended early enough that you could get an hour or two of tagging in before bed and still get a decent night’s rest.  Take a look at the Philly convention schedule and you’ll see some exciting changes that will give you more breathing room–more time to convene at barbershop’s international showcase.

But you didn’t want us to drop any of the events that have always packed our week. To give you that more open schedule you want (and not by inviting fewer competitors) we went back to hosting our first major event on Tuesday evening. (As an added bonus, it also helps keep the registration costs as low as possible–we actually reduced it from 2009!)

Here are some highlights from the schedule: Read the rest of this entry »

26 Society choruses and two affiliate choruses will compete in the 2010 International Chorus Competition in Philly.  Order of Appearance: Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for visiting the blog concerning the 33% criterion.  The position paper mentioned on page 24-25 of the July/August 2009 edition of  The Harmonizer is here: 7th Chord Position Paper. A copy of the article in The Harmonizer is here: The Hallmark 7th Chord.

Although this is not technically a change to the definition of the barbershop style, this criterion has been used for almost 40 years in defining the style that we are treating this change as such.  Given that, the process for change is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

This is a VERY important post—so important that staff will be meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 16 to discuss your replies. It’s a little long, but worth it.

If you can fill in the above blank without hesitation, you probably misunderstood the question. Read on, your answer will require some pondering. Your answers could also help focus staff, Society, district and chapter efforts for years to come. We look forward to some thoughtful discussion! Read the rest of this entry »

I have been musing about the variety of music we hear on the International stage and how much of it is, well, not so good. I don’t mean it’s not performed well – of course it’s performed well, these are the best practitioners of our style in the world! I mean it’s not all the very best music. Seems that, in an effort to do something unique, many of our competitors find some obscure song no one’s done before and, after it’s arranged to the hilt, they sing it for us.

This put me in mind of an experience I had ‘way back in school. I was opining (I tend to do that) about how contemporary music – 20th C. stuff – just didn’t hold up against the “classics”. Didn’t have the musical depth and value of the earlier stuff. A musicologist professor of mine said, “Well, you must remember that you’re hearing almost all the music that’s being written now and the music you hear from earlier centuries is only the best of the best. Time has winnowed out the stuff of lesser quality.” When you think of it, that’s true about all music of all times. I have a 40s channel on my Sirius radio. All 40s all the time. And lots of it is pretty bad stuff. Once in a while a “classic” will pop up, but for every “I Thought About You”, there’s several lesser tunes that have faded from the scene. Same is true of the 50s hits I hear at Wendy’s or whatever. Just the best stuff survived.

So, consider that we’re pretty much hearing everything anyone wants to sing on the contest stage each year. And that the “good old songs” that we remember as great (Thank you, Old School) represent a small fraction of all the songs that were sung on the contest stage in the 50s, or 60s, or 70s, or…

Just a thought. Might help with your bloodpressure next July. I know it will with mine.

I received the following email a while back from a member, who appears to be concerned about whether a chorus will inevitably decline if they keep the same musical leadership. Here’s his question and here’s my answer. When you’re done reading this, please comment on the following two questions:

• Was my answer correct?
• Was he asking the right question?

First, the question: Read the rest of this entry »

A sensitive topic here, because we don’t need to eulogize people who are still with us! But I need to come out and ask this: Who are some of the barbershop icons that we need to talk to and interview now, just in case we never get the chance again? Read the rest of this entry »

We are beginning to plan all of the small details (schedule, classes, etc.) for next year’s convention.  Each year we take into account survey responses from those of you that came to the most recent convention to help us better prepare for future conventions, but we’d like to have an open dialogue here where we can share ideas with each other.  Here are a few questions to get you started: Read the rest of this entry »

I received this email from Bill Rohlin (a 40-year member of the Society) the other day which he’s given me permission to share here on the blog:

I’d like to see some songs in the BBS style from the top 100 hits from the years when our target demographic was in its teens.  We need simple arrangements.  If the tune could be contestable it needs to be clearly stated that the easy-to-learn version is not. If choruses and quartets could learn some of these songs they might generate interest in the 35 – 50 age group. Simple arrangements with gangbuster tags of songs from 1975 into the early 90′s would be my suggestion.  Surely there must be some songs from that time period that were not rap or heavy metal, some that can fit in. Just my thought.

Sing-cerely, Bill

We’ve seen many arrangers select pieces from the era of music and many of those songs have worked quite well for barbershop groups.  Many are not contestable but certainly make for good show material.  The Society has also published several titles from this era.  “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” “God Bless the USA,” and “You Raise Me Up” come to mind.

So what do you think about this idea?

AND MORE IMPORTANLY…what are some songs from this time period you think would fit the bill?

I know, I know, Aptify progress seems to be an oxymoron, a two word phrase where the words mean opposite things. But seriously, folks, some very dedicated people have been working diligently to bring progress to our database. Remember, it took many years before the old AMS was useful, and Aptify is already churning out many, many more bits of useful data. Most of our data fields are dependent on the local chapter and or member’s input. Garbage in, garbage out, but that’s what we have to work with. So here’s a short progress report: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I sent an email to all the men who joined the Society in the first quarter of 2008, asking for comments about their first year in barbershopping. The following is one of many replies. Read the rest of this entry »

So far registration numbers are ABOVE last year at this time but we can always use more help in getting the word out.  Please tell your chorus mates, local music teachers, friends in the Sweet Adelines and Harmony Incorporated organizations, or pretty much anyone that you meet that Harmony University is THE place to be July 26-August 2 this summer.  Let’s work together to make this year’s event the most fun and exciting HU yet!

 If you haven’t registered or decided on your final schedule yet here are few class titles you should consider.  Read the rest of this entry »

I am writing an article (probably for the Harmonizer) about choruses that have some sort of private voice instruction (PVIs) included either in their weekly meeting or available for their members outside the meeting night.  I would appreciate any feedback you can offer about this topic.  Here are a few questions that may guide you: Read the rest of this entry »

In the blog article “Are our 20 percent most devoted members unwittingly the barrier to growth?” one of the comments (#19 from Keith Eckhardt) says:

My chapter has recently added a youth chorus as a second chorus. They have their own director and meet on a different night from our adult chorus. Several of the youth are also members of the adult chorus. The youth chose to join us this way to get instant Non-profit protection, liability coverage, an experienced treasurer to handle their money, and a youth team to act as consultants when they need help.

In a year we will have a problem with the current C&J rule that only one chorus from a chapter can compete in the same contest. I would like to see this changed.

Isn’t it time for us to give choruses the freedom to compete in the contest that best fits them? The only real change I would want is to allow a youth chorus to compete in the regular contest along with the regular chorus in their chapter. I would expect each chorus to submit their average ages such that the youth chorus would average below 25-30 and the regular chorus be above 40.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mike O’Neill, Society Music Specialist for Chorus Director Development, recently sent an email to the Director’s Listserve asking the following:

Does your chapter, or are you aware of a chapter, that is really
great with the fraternal side of barbershop? Read the rest of this entry »

A request has been made that each of the 57 songs from the Heritage of Harmony Songbook should have learning tracks made for them. This project will likely cost any where from $6000-9000 of unbudgeted spending and take almost a year to complete. Before we react one way or another based on one member’s request, here are several questions: Read the rest of this entry »

Many people got their first whiff of barbershop harmony watching the Buffalo Bills sing in Meredith Willson’s The Music Man.  Now, a new generation will have the opportunity to see barbershop on the solver screen once again, as the award-winning documentary“American Harmony” comes to theaters across North America this spring. Read the rest of this entry »