It's not all that amazing. The standard arrangements of the standard songs are all well-known by all but the newest barbershoppers. And since almost eery barbershopper carries a pitch pipe with him at all times, especially at a convention, they can and do burst into song at the drop of a hint. Barbershoppers also teach their members how to sing, so no matter how many of them there are at any given moment, it can still sound pretty good. I sang barbershop for about ten years, before I went back to my first love, the trombone.
Horace On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 11:35:01 -0400, you wrote: >>But I gotta say that it's almost chill-making >>to be in a convention room with about 400 Sweet Adelines from 30 >>different choruses in a widespread region when somebody starts a >>song, and they all join in in perfect 4-part harmony! > >I was in St. Louis about 20 years ago during one of the international >barbershop convention/competitions. In between quartet acts, when the >judges were judging, the who crowd of *thousands* starting singing >the same tune, same arrangement. Pretty amazing! > >(I got tickets to the event the day before *in* the St. Louis arch, >when my then-SO and I coaxed a song out of the conventioneers who >were in the arch with us. And no, they weren't carrying their music >with them!). > >Andrew Levin >_______________________________________________ >Finale mailing list >[email protected] >http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
