2011 Men's International Barbershop Contest - Day 4 Observations

Today was the chorus competition. It was a very long day given the very early start to it and no time to nap if I was going to hear all the choruses. That said, the actual time spent in the audience pretty much flew by. The choruses were an interesting mix of choruses performing their two songs and choruses performing two songs with a theme. Some choruses sang clearly barbershop arrangements and some sang songs that I would struggle to classify as barbershop.

Notes from today:

• The camera people still haven't figured out how to pan the whole chorus or quartet. I'm beginning to think they need another camera or something. They have gotten better as the week has progressed but even in the chorus competition, there were many shots of one person from belly to head and two chins over his shoulders. Had they focused the camera nipples up, they'd have had the heads to go along with the chins. Worst problem in my opinion is that they keep going back to the same faces in the chorus most of the time. Once they'd made you into a head with two chins, they'd do it again later in the song.
• Either mic testers need a job description or someone needs to make sure they actually read it. It's lovely to be chosen as a mic tester but you have a job to do. The sound people are supposed to be using your sound to set levels. If you aren't placed where everyone else will be placed, the sound people can't set the levels. I realize this limits your artistic creativity at times but this should be worked out ahead of time. Perhaps offer mic testers three songs so that one can be off the risers or one that invites quartets 20 through 12 onto the stage ;-) While part of me really enjoys the show, if the mic testers don't do their job, the show starts running late from the very beginning. Often shows have strict times they have to be done before they start to pay overtime to the staff so having to add mic testing time can literally cost the show thousands of dollars.
• BHS has a real push to get everyone singing the older songs. We've had mini-mass sings while after intermissions or as stretch breaks. While I love this idea and wish SAI did more of it, it would be so much easier if they ran the lyrics across the bottom of the TV image with the director on it. It's hard enough to woodshed if you haven't a clue what the melody is but when you don't know the words either, it is nigh onto impossible.
• The men's risers have a constant creak to the point of having a fifth note into virtually every chord. While you can't hear it during the louder parts, the riser squeak was louder than most chorus' quiet moments. I think the person who develops silent risers will make a fortune!
• Most of the choruses are completely hooked on the director during the ballad where the chorus members are clearly trying to create characters and sing directly to me as an audience member. The uptunes are all performance numbers which the director participates in and I get to watch but I am not involved in. At some point, I hope I understand why choruses need a director to talk to me. My comparison was that the chorus was Cyrano writing the poetry and telling the director what to tell me except that all I saw of the director during the ballads was his/her back.
• I like SAI's division of choruses into size categories and I think I wish BHS would have some sort of divisions for its choruses. Whether they use size as the divider or use choral vs. performance or some other criteria, some of the choruses were sufficiently different as to barely be in the same contest. How does a 21 person chorus doing a choral presentation of two songs fairly compete against an 80+ person chorus performing two excerpts from a recent show they put on?

After four days of listening, I begin to really understand why some people are irritated at what they perceive as the lack of barbershop sound in some of the competitors. Westminster sang three songs for their swan song while the judges were compiling results. This was my first time hearing them live and it was a real treat. I did find it very sad that the champion barbershop chorus for 2010 only sang one identifiably barbershop song out of their three. What they sang was amazing but at the same time, I felt sad that the champions who are supposed to be our best barbershop chorus didn't sing much barbershop. I think if I had been singing barbershop since I was knee high, I might be concerned for the longevity of barbershop, too.

Let me be very clear that I do not have the best ears. I'd probably have to say that my ears are pretty bad. One of the things I work at during all the conventions I've been to is to get to the point where I hear the barbershop chords and progressions to the point that I can predict them. I view that as an essential skill if I am going to be a good barbershop singer. I want to get to the point where I may not be able to define barbershop, but I know it when I hear it. I don't have a problem with a cappella music being sung, but I would hope that after listening to 4 days of music at a barbershop convention that I would be pretty good at identifying the barbershop sound, and I'm not sure I can. As someone new to the artform

In SAI, the winning chorus and quartet for each region go to international. In addition, the top 5 scoring quartets and choruses who didn't win their region wildcard into international. SAI adds a little twist as well by offering small choruses (under 30 members) and mid-sized choruses (under 60? members) to compete at Harmony Classic. The top 5 scoring choruses in each category who aren't competing at International get to compete on the international stage with similarly sized choruses.

I think BHS quartets qualify for International by a percentage score which makes it easy to see the relative strength of the various districts. The Johnny Appleseed District is clearly a powerhouse region for men's barbershop. They had 2 collegiate quartets (one of which won), 4 quartets in the quarter-finals (1 is in the top 10) and a chorus at this year's competition. That's not to say other districts aren't as strong; merely that with this sort of a qualifying method, it puts the spotlight on the strongest regions. Since quartets are attempting to be a percentage rather than their fellow competitors, it adds to the camaraderie at the district levels.