July/August 2001

KEEP THE WHOLE WORLD

Enter and win! Use your Priority Code at www.spebsqsa.org/members This 1910 score had long been the earliest known musical use of the term “barber shop”. (Note black minstrel performer Bert Williams on the cover.) Now the oldest reference dates to 1900—a black music critic’s lamentations about black barbershoppers.

f you’re a Barbershopper, the odds are good that a certain Norman Rockwell print is hanging on some Historical evidence wall in your house. You know the one I mean. First The African-American origins theory is not new. appearing on a 1936 Saturday Evening Post cover, Several of our early Society members and recent his- the scene depicts four men, one with lather on his torians have made the assertion, or at least suggested face, warbling a sentimental ballad: the quintessen- an African-American influence upon barbershop har- tial barbershop . mony. But it was a non-Barbershopper, Lynn Abbott, Barbershop often are characterized as four who in the Fall 1992 issue of American Music pub- dandies, perhaps bedecked with straw hats, striped lished, “‘Play That Barber Shop Chord’: A Case for vests and handlebar mustaches. These caricatures of the African-American Origin of Barbershop Har- the barbershop tradition are not only a quaint sym- mony,” presented the most thoroughly documented bol of small-town Americana, but have some histori- exploration into the roots of barbershop to appear up Ical foundation. Barbershop music was indeed borne to that time.1 In that writing, Abbott draws from out of informal gatherings of amateur singers in such rare turn-of-the-twentieth-century articles, passages unpretentious settings as the local barber shop. from books long out of print, and reminiscences of But modern scholarship is demonstrating with early quartet singing by African-American musicians, greater and greater authority that while the stereo- including Jelly Roll Morton and , to type seems to have successfully retained the trappings argue that barbershop music is indeed a product of of the early barbershop harmony tradition, it breaks the African-American musical tradition. down on one key point. If you visualized the charac- Among Abbott’s recreational quartets, W.C. Jim Henry ters described above as you were reading, you prob- Handy, for example, offers a memory that is quite Music Ph.D. and ably pictured them—like Rockwell did over sixty years telling of the racial origins of barbershop music. Be- of The Gas ago—as white men. And therein lies barbershop fore he became famous as a composer and band leader, House Gang music’s greatest enigma: it is associated with and prac- Handy sang in a pickup quartet who, he recalls, (1993 quartet ticed today mostly by whites, yet it is primarily a prod- “often serenaded their sweethearts with love songs; champ) jim@ uct of the African-American culture. the young white bloods overheard, and took to hir- gashousegang.com ing them to serenade the white girls.” The Mills Broth- ers learned to harmonize in their father’s barber shop

July/August 2001 • The HARMONIZER 13 The African-American origin theory, in a nutshell From the evidence gathered by Lynn Abbot and other historians and other supporting evidence, we might glean the following plau- sible, albeit overly simplistic, scenario of the black origins of barber- shop music. As early as 1900, an African-American 1. Starting in the 1880s and 1890s, blacks harmonized commentator with the self-imposed recreationally the popular songs of the day as well as spirituals and moniker “Tom the Tattler” accuses bar- folk songs, improvising harmonies according to long-standing Afri- bershop quartet singers of “stunting the can-American musical practice. growth of ‘legitimate,’ musically liter- 2. From these sessions arose certain idiosyncratic musical quali- ate black quartets in vaudeville.”4 The ties that are the hallmarks of what we now consider the barbershop 1910 song “Play That Barber Shop style. Chord,” which before Abbott’s discov- 3. The idiosyncrasies of the sound made it ripe for imitation by ery of the Tattler’s commentary was con- white minstrel performers, who used blackface, Negro dialect and sidered the earliest reference to the term musical inspirations to parody the black culture. It should be noted “barbershop,” also associates the genre that black minstrel shows also included the unique musical style. with African-American society. 5 4. The sound became so popular that white professional quar- The song tells of a black piano player, tets, often consisting of minstrel performers, brought the sound into “Mr. Jefferson Lord,” who was given the the burgeoning recording studio scene. Black quartets, on the other plea by “a kinky-haired lady they called hand, were rarely recorded, and when they were, their recordings Chocolate Sadie.” The fact that the bar- were not given the mass distribution enjoyed by white artists. These bershop chord in this case is not articu- white close-harmony recordings included the old minstrel songs, lated by a quartet, but rather by a single but also newly written songs that did not necessarily refer to stereo- pianist shows that by 1910 the flavor of types of African-American culture. barbershop harmony had already taken 5. A hybrid form of the music arose, resulting from two main on a life of its own beyond the bound- factors: (1) whites were singing it and infused it with some of their aries of its usual host. own traditions and (2) the limitations of the recording process at It is unknown exactly when or why that time forced quartets to shed inherent vocal traits and affecta- barbershop music became associated tions that would not reproduce well on the early recording equip- with whites. Abbott cites African- ment, or, perhaps, would not have been acceptable to the public. As American author James Weldon a result, certain so-called “low-brow” elements of the black version Johnson who, in the introduction to of barbershop music were lost. his Book of American Negro Spiritu- 6. Due to the popularity of these recordings, people—especially als, published in 1925, offers a hint at those in the white communities—came to associate the peculiar how the association might have shifted: close-harmony sound with the white quartets that recorded them, It may sound like an extravagant thus sealing the stereotype. claim, but it is, nevertheless a fact that the “barber-shop chord” is the in Piqua, Ohio, and several well known which we still sing today as the theme foundation of the close harmony black gospel quartets were founded in song of SPEBSQSA. The first re- method adopted by American mu- neighborhood barber shops, among frain of O’Hara’s version proceeds on sicians in making arrangements for them the Humming Four, to “Massa’s in de Cold, Cold male voices. ... “Barber-shop harmo- the Southern Stars and the Golden Ground,” complete with its reference nies” gave a tremendous vogue to Gate Jubilee Quartette. to “the cornfield” and vocal imita- male quartet singing, first on the tions of farm animals and a banjo, minstrel stage, then in vaudeville; Early musicians associated barber- all conventions of early black vocal and soon white young men, where shop music with blacks ... music. four or more gathered together, tried Among Abbott’s findings are specific • The earliest white quartet recordings themselves at “harmonizing.”6 early musical referecnes that suggest that are rife with conven- There is additional support for the barbershop was once acknowledged as tions which included negro dialect effluence of barbershop music from black African-American music. Here’s just a and other parodies of the African- neighborhoods into the white main- sampling of the findings: American culture, suggesting an Af- stream, as suggested by Johnson, in its • The illustration on the cover of Irv- rican-American association with the parallel with other forms of African- ing Berlin’s 1912 composition, music. American music. , for example, “When Johnson’s Quartet Harmo- was wrought by African-American mu- nize,” features an African-American ... and the earliest known reference sicians, whose syncopated rhythms and quartet.2 to barbershop music is associated quirky harmonies (which, by the way, • Geoffrey O’Hara’s attempt to accu- with black quartets are the same as those found in barber- rately transcribe what he had heard Finally, the earliest known references shop music) became the backbone of sung by early African-American bar- to the term “barbershop,” as it refers to the white-dominated Tin Pan Alley. bershop quartet singers resulted in a particular chord or brand of harmony, More recently, musical genres such as the publication of “The Old Songs,”3 link it with African-American society. rock-and-roll and country-and-western,

14 The HARMONIZER • July/August 2001 While many bar- bershop chord structures run though clearly rooted in the African- terns where each musical counter to West- with accelerandos, American musical tradition, are now phrase is sung first by the ritards, and different commonly associated with whites. lead and repeated by the ern classical tempi.”9 This metric other three parts. sense is so ingrained in The very first song to conventions, the music of the Afri- Musical support for the be sung at that fateful they’re a natural can Diaspora that it is 1938 meeting in Tulsa stressed “even in the “African-American origin” that christened the part of African- absence of actual instru- SPEBSQSA was “Down ments.”10 theory Mobile,” whose ending— American musi- The African-Ameri- Lynn Abbott’s scholarship regarding bar- at least as transcribed by cal traditions. can quartets bershop music’s roots is unparalleled Sigmund Spaeth in his devised a method and his arguments are utterly convinc- 1940 book Barbershop Ballads and How whereby the feeling of percussion and ing. He limits his scope, however, to to Sing Them8 —is a classic example of meter is created through vocal means. historical data and primary-source rec- call-and-response. The following year, The technique employs a class of de- ollections, and chooses not to delve into in 1939, the Bartlesville Barflies would vices—called “rhythmic propellants” by the inherent musical qualities that dem- win our first “international” competi- recent barbershop theorists—which are onstrate the ways in which barbershop tion with a medley that included a call- designed to maintain the metric pulse music reflects the African-American and-response rendition of “By the Light through held melodic notes and rests. musical tradition. In my recent doctoral of the Silvery Moon.” Like call-and-response patterns (which dissertation, “The Origins of Barbershop themselves can be considered types of Harmony,” I address this important Rhythmic character rhythmic propellants) the rhythmic pro- link.7 Using more than 250 transcrip- Upon listening to nearly any form of pellant is fundamental to the barber- tions and recorded examples of early African-American music, sacred or secu- shop style, and most Barbershoppers will African-American and white quartets, lar, one is immediately drawn to its un- recognize the prevalence of these de- I illustrate how the most fundamental relenting regularity of the pulse. Above vices in the songs they have sung or elements of barbershop music are linked this basic pulse might be found any va- listened to. to established traditions of black music riety of uneven rhythmic patterns. Perhaps the most common rhythmic in general and African-American mu- Tilford Brooks explains that the ele- propellant in barbershop music is the sic in particular. The scope of this ar- ment of rhythm in most black forms of “echo.” The echo is closely related to ticle allows me only to summarize my music can be contrasted with that of call-and-response pattern and usually findings, focusing on the following music in the European concert tradi- occurs at the end of a musical phrase musical characteristics: (1) call-and-re- tion in that “the former makes use of while the melody is holding a note. To sponse patterns, (2) rhythmic charac- uneven rhythm with a regular tempo keep the pulse going under the held ter and (3) harmony. while the latter employs even rhythm note, one or more of the harmony parts

Call-and-response The call and response pattern is one of Why do so few African-Americans sing barbershop today? the most fundamental characteristics of The answer to this question may lie in the early history of black music. Though it has many varia- SPEBSQSA. Barbershop music, both in black and tions, call-and-response can most sim- white society, had almost completely died out by ply be defined as a type of responsorial the late 1930s. Its demise would almost certainly song practice in which a leader sings a have been continued if not for the formation of musical phrase which is either repeated SPEBSQSA, which preserved the style and helped to or extended by a chorus of other voices. spawn and sustain barbershop clubs It is heard in spirituals, gospel, the blues, first across the country and eventu- Cab Calloway’s “Hi-De-Ho” songs and ally world-wide. Because SPEBSQSA— rap, to name a few genres. citing the pre-civil rights norms of fra- The barbershop musical lexicon ternal organizations such as the abounds with examples of African- Shriners and the Elks—disallowed Afri- American-based call-and-response can-American membership until 1963, only technique. Indeed, some of the most rec- whites were benefactors of this resurgence. ognized barbershop tunes such as Barbershop music in African-American circles con- “You’re The Flower Of My Heart, Sweet tinued its decline to virtual extinction. What African- Adeline,” “Bill Grogan’s Goat,” and American barbershop groups remained eventually “Bright Was The Night” are made up shifted their interest to various forms of vocal almost entirely of call-and-response pat- and gospel.

July/August 2001 • The HARMONIZER 15 Even the first refrain in the publication, “The will repeat the last word Old Songs,” pro- siderations. “dominant” sound. The major-minor or words of that phrase. seventh chord in this instance, how- One need only look at ceeds on to The barbershop ever, is clearly not conceived as a domi- the phrase endings in the “Massa’s In De seventh nant seventh chord because it does not song, “Keep the Whole The single most progress in the falling fifth manner dis- World Singing,” to find Cold, Cold telling hallmark of cussed above. Rather, it moves as it clear examples of echo the barbershop style would if it were a simple version of IV. technique. Other rhyth- Ground,” complete is that curious so- mic propellants clearly of with references to nority we call the Three distinctly African-American black origin and com- “barbershop sev- traditions merge to seal the deal monly found in barber- conventions of enth” chord. The So how did above anomaly come about? shop music include in- barbershop seventh It is the result of three African-Ameri- stances where one or early black vocal chord is described as can musical traditions all coming to- more parts sing strict music. a “major-minor sev- gether: (1) an approach to music that is downbeats under synco- enth” chord be- primarily horizontal rather than verti- pated rhythms; counter-melody or “pat- cause it results from taking a simple, cal, (2) a particular penchant for im- ter” (take, for example, the lead patter three-note major chord and adding to provisation and (3) the blues scale. Let’s that accompanies “Down Our Way’”); it a minor seventh above the root, i.e., use the chorus of “Shine On Me” (in “fills” (basses are especially popular the lowest note of the chord).12 If we the key of C for the sake of simplicity) choices to fill this role; every time were to build seventh chords on every to illustrate how it works: you’ve heard “bum bum bum,” “my note of the major scale, the only one 1. The implied chord on the word honey,” or “oh, lordy” you’ve experi- that would yield this sound would be “shine” in the second phrase (after the enced fills); “swipes” (where the chord the fifth note of the scale, sometimes lead sings “in the mornin’”) is a IV (sub- changes or moves to a different voicing called the dominant. For this reason, dominant) chord. It would classically under a held melody note—recall, for many musicians call this chord a “domi- be written as a simple major chord (F- instance, the phrase endings in “My nant seventh,” and give it the Roman A-C) without a seventh, and proceed Wild Irish Rose”); and the ever-popular numeral shorthand V7. to the V (or V7) chord (G-B-D-[F]). In “tiddlies” ( are particularly In Western classical music, this the case of this song we do find the IV adept at performing these little flour- anticipates a chord moving to the V chord two words ishes to color a held chord, and become harmonic return back to the tonic chord later on the word “me.” quite agitated when you try to rush them (called Roman numeral I because it is 2. If a quartet were singing this with through it). built on the first note of the scale, the a somewhat classical flavor, the tenor key note). We call this motion a “fall- and bass probably would sing in octaves Harmony & the tell-tale blue note ing fifth” because the progression from on the root of the chord (which, you’ll Perhaps the most characteristic element the dominant to the tonic is down a recall, is built on the fourth scale de- of black music, the one that pervades perfect fifth. So in the key of C, the gree, F). A singer in the African-Ameri- every one of its incarnations, is the so- major-minor seventh chord built on the called “blue note.” Relative to the West- fifth note of the scale (G) will tend to ern major scale, two blue notes are com- lead back to C. (Go backward down the monly identified: the lowered third and musical alphabet counting each letter: the lowered seventh notes of the scale.11 G-F-E-D-C—five total letters.) The The blue note is a testament to a culture’s major-minor seventh chord as heard in ability to retain musical traits over great classical music is almost always used to spans of time and distance. It is an suggest this dominant function. anomaly by Western standards. No form In African-American music, how- of Euro-centric music gave rise to it. It ever, we may hear the major-minor is this blue note and the scale that de- sound built on, and functioning as, any rives from it that offers the strongest number of chords other than the domi- argument in favor of the “African- nant. A major-minor seventh chord American origin” theory of barbershop built on the subdominant (i.e., the music. fourth note of the scale, Roman numeral In order to support this claim, a little IV), for example, is a common occur- technical background is required. I rence. The natural seventh of this par- apologize in advance to the academic ticular major chord is a major seventh. Want to learn more? Want to hear musicians who will no doubt cringe at Yet in African-American music one will some early quartets? Attend Dr. the generalizations I am about to make often hear it sounded with a minor sev- Jim’s class at Harmony College. for the sake of simplicity and space con- enth, thus giving it a major-minor or Register at spebsqsa.org/hcdc.

16 The HARMONIZER • July/August 2001 can quartet tradition, however, would Harmonize” (New York: Waterson, Berlin be the thinking of his part not only in & Snyder Co., 1912). terms of how it stacks up against the 3. Geoffrey O’Hara, “A Little Close Harmony” (Boston: Boston Music Co., 1921). other parts, but as a line unto itself. The 4. On page 308 of his article, Abbott includes improviser in him would add little flour- the following quotation from “Tom the Tat- ishes (“tiddlies,” if you prefer) that would tler,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 8, no doubt incorporate blue notes. In this 1900. It is valuable not only as the first instance, he would likely pass down from known reference to the term, but also in the the fourth-scale-degree root (F) through insights it offers regarding the musical con- the blue (flatted) third (E-flat) of the stituents of early barbershop harmony: A noticeable advancement along the lines scale. of the profession is the passing of the barber 3. The resultant F-A-C-Eb quality shop quartette with its barber shop harmony. will sound exactly like a major-minor It doesn’t take much of an effort of memory seventh chord. Since it was not con- to recall the time when all quartettes sang ceived as a dominant chord, however, their own self-made harmonies, with their but simply an improvisation upon a IV oft-recurring “minors,” diminished sevenths chord, it will proceed onto the V as and other embellishments. This barber shop harmony, although pleasing to the average originally intended, not down a fifth as ear, and not altogether displeasing to the common practice would dictate. Thus cultivated ear, is nothing more or less than a in terms of function, this particular F musical slang. It violates—at times ruth- major-minor seventh is not really a lessly—the exacting rules and properties of major-minor seventh at all. It is a simple music. All forms, phrases and progressions IV chord with the lowered scale degree of music go down before it. What does [sic] the barber shop exponents of harmony care “three” from the African-American for such delicacies as the forbidden progres- blues scale added to it. The influence of sions of perfect fifths and octaves? What do the African-American musical tradition they care about chord progression in its cor- to this basic barbershop idiom is un- rect form? Their chief aim is to so twist and mistakable and argues forcefully in fa- distort a melody that it can be expressed in vor of the “African-American Origin” so-called “minors” and diminished chords. theory. The melody is literally made to fit their small stock of slang-chords, instead of the chords being built around the melody. 5. Lewis F. Muir and William Tracey, “Play That What’s next? Barber Shop Chord” (New York: J. Fred While barbershop has been an ever- Helf Company, 1910). Abbott discusses the changing musical art form, certain hall- song on page 312 of his article. marks of the style seem to have remained 6. This quotation, found on page 299 of implacable for well over a century. Call- Abbott’s article, is from James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson, The and-response patterns, rhythmic pro- Book of American Negro Spirituals (New pellants and “barbershop seventh” York: Viking Press, 1925), 36. chords are among the many distinctive 7. Completed at Washington University in St. features of the barbershop tradition that, Louis in May 2000; the complete title is when considered alongside the entirety The Origins of Barbershop Harmony: A of found historical evidence, root the Study of Barbershop’s Musical Link to Other African-American Musics as Evidenced genre in the African-American musi- Through Recordings and Arrangements of cal tradition. The road that leads back Early Black and White Quartets. to barbershop, however, is still fraught 8. Sigmund Spaeth, Barber Shop Ballads and with holes that need to be filled. Thus, How to Sing Them (New York: Prentice- while the performer in me looks excit- Hall, Inc., 1940). edly to what our 21st century singers will 9. Tilford Brooks, America’s Black Musical add to barbershop’s future, the histo- Heritage (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, 1984). rian in me prays for more scholars who 10.Richard A. Waterman, “African Influence will dedicate themselves to its rich and on the Music of the Americas.” In Sol Tax enigmatic past. (Ed.), Acculturation in the Americas (Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), Notes 216. 1. Lynn Abbott, “‘Play That Barber Shop 11.It is important to keep in mind that the Chord’: A Case for the African-American degree to which these pitches are bent is Origin of Barbershop Harmony,” (Ameri- not absolute, but may fall anywhere within can Music, 10 [Fall 1992], pp. 289-326). a half step. Wilbur Sparks review of the Abbott’s article 12.If you play every other white key on the is found in the January/February 1994 edi- piano starting on G and ending on the F tion of The Harmonizer.\ above it (to the right of it) you will hear a 2. Irving Berlin, “When Johnson’s Quartet major-minor seventh chord.

July/August 2001 • The HARMONIZER 17