Talk:Barbershop arranging
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Is there a Napkin method book? It's not now published by BHS.
User:Rrex 3 January 2006
- - -
- Since barbershop is an art form that is rooted at a particular point in history, the beginning of the 20th century, a great deal has been done by the BHS to preserve the art form as it was then.
I disagree with this:
Gage Averill in his 2003 book 'Four Part No Waiting' says (page 4): 'to many scholars barbershop is all shtick - a corny, nostalgic, pseudohistorical music'.
Liz Garnett in her 2005 book 'The British barbershopper - a study in socio-musical values' has a whole chapter on barbershop music as an 'invented tradition'.
Barbershop music as widely practised now is materially different from that in the early 1900s, when there were no rules whatsoever. The name barbershop itself is thought by Averill to only have become known to whites after 1910. We know little detail about the music made by African-American quartets in late 1800s barbershops - but it was largely improvised and not rule-bound.
I offer these thoughts for comment - prior to making what could be seen as controversial changes to the main page - most barbershoppers know little of barbershop history. This would be my first wiki edit - pardon my caution.
User:Rrex 17 December 2005
[edit] Oh dear
Oh dear. Someone has removed my content on barbershop arranging with a cut and paste job from the Official Barbershop Description. The point of this article was not to remind people of the barbershop style and all that involves, but to explain barbershop arranging. Would someone care to review this? I suggest changing it back again. The Official Description of Barbershop is unoriginal and can be found in very many places. It should better be on the Wikipedia Barbershop page rather than here.
[edit] Response to above
It was I. There are aspects to the previous description that I thought were wrong or at least misleading. For instance, "See that the harmonic progression follows the 'circle of fifths' " - the harmonic progression does not always do this, as reflected in BHS shortform description. Again, there was no previous reference to arrangements needing to be unaccompanied. Faced with this I wondered whether to do some corrections - but it seemed to me that the shortform description had it all - it has after all been lovingly crafted by the BHS to be brief and all-encompassing. There seemed little point in having a new and less accurate/informative version.
Forgive me if I've breached etiquette - I did previously try to start a discussion (above) about other concerns I have about content accuracy, but no-one responded. It would be good to talk through some of the issues here - not just about this page but about the main bshop music page. I'll check back here to see any responses. User:Rrex 16 January 2006
