There are always new songs in the pipeline both for competition
and for social bookings which means that we rotate our numbers to
give them all an airing.
For those interested in the nitty gritty.......
The Genre.....Barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music
characterised by consonant four-part chords for every melody note.
The melody is consistently sung
by the lead (mostly!), with the tenor harmonising above the melody, the bass
singing the lowest harmonising notes and the baritone completing the
chord. The melody is not sung by the tenor except for an infrequent
note or two, in tags or codas, or
when some appropriate embellishing effect can be created. Occasional
brief passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.
Brief history...
Barbershop
started in the USA at the time of prohibition when men used to find
entertainment singing together in quartets.
The society for the preservation of barbershop singing in the
USA (SPEBSQSA) is responsible for much of the revival of the genre
taking it into schools and colleges and having a regular injection
of young people leaving college and joining barbershop choruses.
The ladies decided that they enjoyed the harmonising too and finding themselves left at home they
very soon formed an
association in America just for women called Sweet Adeline's.
Our
Association.....
Silver Lining
belongs to The Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers
(LABBS), which was established in 1975. There are now clubs
from all over England and Wales and we have a thriving,
fun-loving, educational Association, which is constantly evolving.
