Like a good amateur journalist, I'm giving you the most crucial thing first... This link.
This is one of the greatest barbershop quartets of all time.
"But, Michael, I thought barbershop quartets were men."
Not always, dear reader. In fact, often not.
Sandi Wright herself once graced me with the chance to sing the tag (what's a "tag"? see previous blog post, Harmonizing the World: The First Falling Pebbles) from this song. I cherish this memory!
Wherever you are on the gender spectrum, barbershop is for you.
But, I'll be frank; I didn't always enjoy women's quartets. My only saving grace is that my mind was open enough to receive new data to change my mind. Four years ago, I got to watch a master barbershop coach work with The Ladies. Beautiful sound. Fabulously cohesive group. They opened my eyes and my heart to women's barbershop. They even inspired me to write a tag specifically in a key for "women's" (in the loose sense of the word; gender is a spectrum, of course) voices. It's called "Bittersweetness". I should probably try to generate a Spanish version now, too, huh?
Monday, May 10, 2021
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Why Do We Insist on Making Learning Music Hard? Episode One
Pick up a sheet of vocal music and tell someone to read it.
Now, try to explain why, in 2021, we aren't printing/displaying sheet music such that the frequency spaces between notes are more to-scale.
Seriously.
It's time.
We ask new singers and new musicians to overcome this pretty-glaring issue of inaccuracy.
"How far up do I go from a C to the note on the next line?", they might ask.
Well, it depends on the key", we say.
WHY???
Why can't we just pinch the lines in for the half-step distances? Surely, we have the technology to do this. The graph-that-is-the-staff should be to scale!
...
...
Now, the barbershopper in me also believes that it wouldn't kill us to do this for chords, too, but there are different schools of thought on whether you harmonize to the melody or to the key. So, for now, making the musical scale a more accurate graph, and thus more intuitive for learners, would be a nice start.
Now, try to explain why, in 2021, we aren't printing/displaying sheet music such that the frequency spaces between notes are more to-scale.
Seriously.
It's time.
We ask new singers and new musicians to overcome this pretty-glaring issue of inaccuracy.
"How far up do I go from a C to the note on the next line?", they might ask.
Well, it depends on the key", we say.
WHY???
Why can't we just pinch the lines in for the half-step distances? Surely, we have the technology to do this. The graph-that-is-the-staff should be to scale!
...
...
Now, the barbershopper in me also believes that it wouldn't kill us to do this for chords, too, but there are different schools of thought on whether you harmonize to the melody or to the key. So, for now, making the musical scale a more accurate graph, and thus more intuitive for learners, would be a nice start.
Harmonizing the World: the First Falling Pebbles
Like the first pebbles of the rock slide, I hope that my goal to harmonize the world can start with my little grad school project of generating Spanish lyrics for barbershop harmony "tags".
If you're familiar with some music terms (and even if you're not), a barbershop "tag" is a coda.
Within Barbershop culture, there is an entire sub-culture comprised strictly of learning and singing tags (there is also a social component).
It took me a couple of years to start to get why people loved tags. I'm going to save you the trouble.
Not an exhaustive list, but this will get you started:
It's almost akin to learning/singing the gist of the entire song. Efficiency!
Arrangers often put the coolest chords into the tags.
You can switch and sing multiple parts.
You get to practice little techniques you've been working on, and putting them into a semi-complete context.
As a teaching vehicle, tags allow a coach/director to provide many opportunities... Give singers chances to have their first taste of quarteting; show the learners that they can do all of the above; develop learning-by-ear skills... And so many more.
Having shown this, you can see part of why I think tags could be a great vehicle to bringing the spirit of harmony around the world: efficiency.
But, there are thousands of extant languages, so how can a barbershopper like me reach out to other people in the world? If I expect them to sing in U.S. English, they're likely to be less comfortable. So, we make versions of the tags in their language! :)
Enjoy the first pebbles!
~Michael
If you're familiar with some music terms (and even if you're not), a barbershop "tag" is a coda.
Within Barbershop culture, there is an entire sub-culture comprised strictly of learning and singing tags (there is also a social component).
It took me a couple of years to start to get why people loved tags. I'm going to save you the trouble.
Not an exhaustive list, but this will get you started:
It's almost akin to learning/singing the gist of the entire song. Efficiency!
Arrangers often put the coolest chords into the tags.
You can switch and sing multiple parts.
You get to practice little techniques you've been working on, and putting them into a semi-complete context.
As a teaching vehicle, tags allow a coach/director to provide many opportunities... Give singers chances to have their first taste of quarteting; show the learners that they can do all of the above; develop learning-by-ear skills... And so many more.
Having shown this, you can see part of why I think tags could be a great vehicle to bringing the spirit of harmony around the world: efficiency.
But, there are thousands of extant languages, so how can a barbershopper like me reach out to other people in the world? If I expect them to sing in U.S. English, they're likely to be less comfortable. So, we make versions of the tags in their language! :)
Enjoy the first pebbles!
~Michael
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