The Wider Barbershop Community

What is barbershop?

Barbershop vocal harmony is a style of acapella music (i.e. vocal music with no instrumental accompaniment),  chacterised by consonant 4 part chords sung predominantly in a homorhythmic texture, with the harmonisation above and below the melody. The arrangement style is often designed to bring out a special, shimmering character of sound called 'Ring'. It is a style for all singers, of all genders, ethnicities, and ages. 

There are four Barbershop voice parts, named Tenor, Lead, Baritone and Bass. 

Tenor: The highest part, performed typically in the falsetto or 'M2' vocal register.

Lead: Sings the melody

Baritone: Harmonises above and below the melody

Bass: The lowest part

Besides Bass, the voice parts have little relation to their Western Classical Music counterparts. As a naming standard, even the higher voices of SSAA (typically all-female gender groups) and SATB (usually mixed gender) ensembles, are named Tenor, Lead, Baritone and Bass. This is done for ease of communication and transferability within the Barbershop world. 

The definitions above provide some fundamentals in what has been defined as the Barbershop Harmony style of arranging music. However, the answer to the question 'what is Barbershop?' can have multiple answers from our own unique experiences within the art form. Community, the joy of singing, friendship, expression of self, artistic excellence, obsession, score-hunting, memes, we all have many reasons for coming back, week after week, to rehearse and perform together.

BABS

What is BABS?

The British Association of Barbershop Singers (BABS) was founded in 1974 with just a handful of clubs. Today there are more than 60 BABS clubs, both men's and mixed, across Britain, representing nearly 1700 singers. BABS is one of the biggest barbershop organisations outside North America. You can find out more at https://www.singbarbershop.com/

BABS is an affiliate of the Barbershop Harmony Society (https://www.barbershop.org/)

BABS is joined in the UK by 2 women's organisations: the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers (LABBS - https://www.labbs.org.uk/) and Sweet Adelines Region 31 (https://sweetadelines.org.uk/)

Why is Meantime a member of BABS?

Meantime joined BABS a few years after being created, in part to compete in the BABS chorus competition. However, there are many benefits of being part of a national barbershop organisation. BABS provides affiliate membership of BHS, meaning if Meantime were to win BABS we could go to America to compete in the International Chorus Contest. BABS also provides membership of the Making Music platform, which has benefits such as our HarmonySite website. BABS also provides Meantime with insurance. As well as this, BABS runs numerous events every year, including Convention, Harmony College in August, QuartetCon/Prelims in November, Directors Academy around January, and many others. QuartetCon is free to attend, as is Directors Academy, and BABS provides lots of free music education, coaching, and support to clubs, as well as financial grants (e.g. the hardship fund). BABS also supports club recruitment, Diversity & Inclusion, and youth barbershop. But one of the biggest things is the contest – without BABS, there wouldn’t be a contest (see below).

What is Convention/BABS contest?

Officially called Sing20XX, but commonly known as Convention (and confusingly often referred to just as ‘BABS’ - "I can’t wait for BABS" or "See you at BABS!"). This is the main event of the BABS annual calendar, where Barbershoppers from across the country meet for a 3-4 day convention. It features the national quartet contest finals, and the national mens and mixed chorus contests, as well as other social and educational events. Convention starts on Friday and ends on Monday (this year there is nothing happening on the Monday, but time to recover from the Sunday night afterglow). 

There are always Meantime Quartet's competing, so be sure to support them on Friday's semi-finals and hopefully on Sunday in the quartet finals! The men's chorus contest is on Saturday, in which Meantime competes when possible. The competition is usually between roughly 40 choruses, and each year we get to support the other Choruses and celebrate their achievements. Each chorus will sing 2 songs to a panel of judges (and an audience), after which results are announced and trophies handed out (fingers crossed!) Each night of the convention features an afterglow of drinking and tagging, so have fun! During the days there are educational events and opportunities to sing with the guests that are invited that year.