A CAPPELLA ALCHEMY 1

The ROOTS of A CAPPELLA SINGING and the DEVELOPMENT OF BARBERSHOP HARMONY

J. Sutton (with acknowledgements to David Wright & Dave Stevens of S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A.Inc & The Penketh family of LABBS) Permission to copy given to anyone visiting the LABBS WEBSITE

1. It is rooted in the physics of sound: harmony made initially from people singing a single pitch which (if/when sung it tune) would have produced the "above" harmonics. The earliest form recorded are the Psalms and Hebrew chants & these were based on a conversational rhythmic pattern.

2. 6th Century Eastern European Chants & earliest written Western European 11th and 12th century Gregorian chants emphasised a cappella singing - literal meaning "in the chapel". Initially singing in unison, the monks & nuns in the beautiful abbeys would have heard the harmonics - the overtones as their meditations encouraged in-tune singing. Thus they began singing the melody and the parallel octaves which in turn would have then generated the 5th, & then the subsequent 3rd. Thence singing in 4 parts in just intonation, further overtones would have been created and the basis of our harmonic heritage was established. It was St. Augustine, sent to England by Pope Gregory, who said "He who sings to the Lord prays twice" - he must have heard the overtones, the "ringing,in-tune sound" of "good quality", due to the emphasis on the meaning of the words & a keeping of a respectful conversational rhythmic flow "suitable to the performers" in their role of devout believers who thus sang "from the heart", giving their musical offer-ings believability. The quotations are taken from the common ground aspects expected in a Barbershop performance.

3. 14-16th century church music introduced major & minor triad chords. For the people ie congregation to join in the musical worship, the melody for certain verses of common hymms was placed into the tenor line (of SATB - the 3rd part) as the soprano & alto lines featured boy trebles & counter-tenors/castrati & were impossible to sing for the majority of people; and thus the music was made "suitable to the performer". Sometimes descants were & still are used placing the melody in the second part. (These tradition continued in England through various styles of a cappella singing & can still be heard today in the various arrangements performed by The Swingle Singers, The Kings Singers, The Hilliard Ensemble & also in the recordings from the hymnals of the churches & arrangements of hymns/anthems for the Royal School of Church Music choirs, where there is opportunity for the congregation to join in.) The a cappella music in these centuries (mostly based on major/minor triads), had embellishments using canon/rounds & contrapuntal ideas to replace any instrumental backing to keep the flow of the music where necessary. However, attention was also placed, & is still placed today, on ensuring the meaning of the lyrics is enhanced by the timbre, texture, rhythmical conversational subtext & dynamics used by the singers. This is still shown in the instructions for singing to choristers in the preface to psalters etc & relates to our concepts of presenting our own belief in the music & lyric of a Barbershop song

4. In Elizabethan England, as written in the diary of Samuel Pepy's, "Barber's Music" was used first as a term to describe spontaneous music heard in the Barber' s shop where people entertained each other whilst waiting. It was also performed by the barbers themselves, (who were also surgeons,) to drown out the noise of their patients & many learned to harmonise by ear! The music made was not necessarily homophonic (all parts harmonising each chord to same lyric sound), but would likely have used the harmonic principles learned from the monks. It often featured cathedral & church choir members on a break eg. there is evidence that Purcell's chorister's from Westminster Abbey sang in the local inn. They, & the Barbers on their breaks, began singing folk melodies and the "pops" of the day - the madrigal - picked up from other frequenters & travellers in the inns. There is evidence from this era that humour crept in to the a cappella choristers' repertoire possibly as a result of the drinking habits and as a release of tension from the necessary intensity of singing to God. Also much of what they sang was still in Latin, & hearing the English lyrics of the folk, madrigal and strolling minstrel (golliads) singers encouraged them to experiment with English words. Such irreverences as "Bury the cat bury the carthorse" as a grace (Benedicat, benedicamus...), "O Come let's kick the door in" (Venite et adoramus - the chorus of "O Come all ye faithful") were born around this time introducing the English style of parody.

5. 16th and 17th Century European composers developed the seventh chord (dominant) from the natural ear-harmonies they heard being sung by the people and encorporated them into their own compositions creating a richer variety of harmony & chord progressions leading "back home" to the key/tonic chord where the music had begun - eventually Bach arrived at the definition of the circle of 5ths.

6. The explorers, missionaries, sailors and traders carried their wares & the magic of a cappella singing all over the world - only for it it to be met by local musical traditions which were then gradually blended into the melting pot of un-accompanied singing for the people and by the people

7. In the late 1700 Barber's Music was transported to America, where it developed along with the musical melting pot brought by the influence of the slave trade, & spontaneous harmonizing naturally by ear continued, especially in the South amongst the negroes who were often barbers by trade.

8. Minstrel shows became popular around the 1850's & frequently featured a quartet as one of the acts - 3 people improvising (woodshedding - because it was sometimes rehearsed out of sight and sound in a shed or barn) by ear to a lead singer who could sing the traditional songs & songs that composers like Stephen Forster could produce - simple melodies which could be easily be hummed by anyone and harmonized easily. Meanwhile the classical melodies/opera and church music was still being parodied and ear-harmonised now whether the original lyric was in a "foreign" language or not eg (see if you can work out the well-known opera chorus this parody used from the lyrical rhythmical flow)

   Oh Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim,
   He's in the duck pond learning how to swim.
   First he's doing the breaststroke,
   Now he's doing the side,
   Now he's under the water,
   Swimming against the tide.

9. Popular songs became even more singable with more varied harmonies implied by their melodies late into the 19th century, as people began to buy music and sing as a family at home for their own amusement.

   Negro quartets were also growing on street corners particularly in the South of the USA. Minstrel shows & street corner entertainment continued to flourish on both sides of the Atlantic as information as to shows etc was disseminated not just by poster but by the newspapers of the time. Street corner entertainment was also developed by the young newspaper sellers - paper boys & shoe-shine boys who with other street sellers developed their own musical "cries" to sell their wares or entertain in the hope of a larger tip. A link to the a cappella background was maintained - here is an example handed down from young cathedral choristers in the English midlands who earned money to enable them to stay at the cathedral choir school & Blue Coats School by selling papers (to the hymn tune of "Daily daily sing the praises of the city God hath made")

   "Where'st thee bin lad?" - "Hawking papers."
   "Who for?" - "Me Uncle Dick".
   "What's 'ee give thee?" - "On-ly a Ha'- penny."
   "Skinflint ol' devil - give it 'im back"
   "Shut thee gob man, the cantor's comin'"
   "We love Jesus, yes we do"
   

10. Vaudeville (USA) -(UK) musichall became popular with a wider variety of entertainment & the minstrel shows began to wane although one of the variety acts would often be a comedy quartet. Songs both popular, classical and religion were parodied in keeping with events of the day not just by the singing acts but by the comedians too as short 1 or 2-line musical jokes. Examples handed down include:
    • Valencia- put your nose beween your toes and smell your sweaty feet.
      (Again a melody with "foreign" words)
    • We stood in the choir(or on the stage) at midnight
      When a thought came into my head,
      What a fool I was to be singing
      When I could have been in bed.
      (To the hymn tune "Oh happy band of pilgrims")
    • Oh we've got chickens in our backyard & we feed them on cod oil (repeat)
      But Aunty Mary's got a canary - he's the cock of the north (repeat)
      (Scottish traditional melody)
    • A ballad to the night soil men who emptied the so called toilets in the back yards of the growing towns ( to the tune "There's no place like home")

      The corporation muck cart was filled up to the brim
      The driver overbalanced and found he couldn't swim.
      He sank right to the bottom just like a little stone.
      That's when they heard him singing "there's no place like home"

    This also was the era of Gilbert and Sullivan who parodied not only the current politicians and public figures but also the very opera itself and the new scientific discoveries.

11. Thomas Edison's phonograph and music publishing at the turn if the century helped the spread of the music of the people as well as the more traditional classical styles. Quartet singing & harmonising in general began to spring up as party pieces in the homes of families and friends; amateur groups spread under sponsorship of clubs, churches, businesses & even sporting clubs & of course to the university & college scene. Either side of The Pond developed in its own ways.

12. The songs of the day were written for the people. The chords suggested to the ear, with progressions to harmonise from home (tonic) out to some "destination" found an easily identifiable way back home again.

13. In 1910 the term "Barbershop" was identified by recognised music scholars of the day & recorded as "harmony featuring the seventh chord and associated with negro music".

14. Ragtime composers developed further rhythm & harmony that moved quickly "around the clock" - going far out on Bach's circle of 5ths but progressing anti-clockwise back home to the tonic chord providing continual suspension til the final release. This innovation was exciting "edge of the seat music" and disturbed the more classical composers hence the nick - name "rag" meant as a derogatory term, as they were more used to the gentle progressions and more relaxing music not anything they felt was ragged.

15. These innovations were adapted by the composers of the day such as Irving Berlin and the lads of "Tin Pan Alley" who jumped on the bandwagon and treadmill to make a living hammering out ideas on the pianos with the windows open so that in the street the sounds heard mingled to sound like a riot in an ironmonger's store. The songs were becoming harder to improvise harmony by ear, partly as so much composing was done on the even - tempered piano. They were however singable by the amateur quartets late into the 1930's.

16. Later songs were written for the professionals with wide vocal ranges, instrumental accompaniment & even more complicated harmony unnatural to the ear. It was written to satisfy the thirst for the new entertainment media of the radio, film & thence TV etc as well as the stage musicals - whoever heard of anyone easily humming a harmony part to "Aquarius" , "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "Goldfinger"? So the art of singing more modern songs at home & in the schools began to die out & it was left to the professionals.

17. But A Cappella singing in the Barbershop Style survived thanks to O.C. Cash & thence S.P.B.E.B.S.Q.S.A. Inc

TO ACCOMPANY The History of A Cappella Singing the following are available for each stage of development:

1. Suggested listening list:
   • None -try singing some rounds!
   • Greek Orthodox 6th century chants
     "St. Romanus The Melode" - Madrigal Ensemble of Moscoe
   • Gregorian Chant 12th Century (male voices)
2. Music to sight -sing or learn including:
   • Rounds & Canons
   • Unison developing to 4 part chant
   • Tallis Canon as a round developing into a B/shop arrangement
   • Old Hundreth in 4 parts stndard & B/hop arrangements
   • exercises on Basic Harmonic Highways
   • exercises incorporating the B/shop chord vocabulary
   • exercises on & an arrangement of Beethoven's 'Ode To Joy'
   • arrangements of "Aura Lee", "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", "Auld Lang Syne" & Blow The Winds Southerly" ( other appropriate music not in public domain ie most 20th Century Music can be ordered from LABBS Music Library).

You may order the above at a cost of £5 per set or 75p per item including p&p
( cheques made payable to LABBS Music Committee) from:
Jean Sutton, 23, Roker Park Road, Sunderland SR6 9 PG, Tyne & Wear.