INSIDE: Get ready for Anaheim! • 2008 District Champs • Where your Harmony Foundation donations go January/February 2009 There’s Nothing Like This...Anywhere! Courses: UÊ More than 130 classes available UÊ Quartet coaching UÊ Chorus coaching Check out ALL the NEW classes for 2009: UÊ Discovery Singing UÊ The Power Special guest quartet: OC Times, Saturday night show UÊ Recording Barbershop of Presentation UÊ Make it Believable or UÊ Quartet Surgery Keynote Address: Don’t Bother UÊ Care and Feeding of Dr. Burt Szabo, Sunday opening session UÊ Song Writing I and II the Assistant Director UÊ Owning the UÊ Coaching Under Glass Harmony University eXtreme Stage Concepts UÊ Directors Relationship Quartetting Brigade: It’s back! with the Chapter UÊ Seven Habits of We have class recommendations for those Highly Effective Leadership Team Chapter Leadership UÊ Designing Your who attend the entire week and participate UÊ Powerful Oral Chorus Repertoire in HUXQB on the weekend. Communication Skills UÊ Designing Your for Everyone Quartet Repertoire Open to men and women who love UÊ No Business Like UÊ Developing a Voice barbershop harmony! Show Business Training Regimen UÊ Music from the UÊ Youth Outreach You Inside Out Can Take Home Get the course Catalog and all UÊ Two Steps to UÊ Advanced Arranging registration materials at the Future UÊ Rehearsal Techniques www.barbershop.org/harmonyu. UÊ How to be a for Directors Vocal Coach New Faculty: New faculty for 2009: Tom Metzger, Sean Devine, Paul Olguin, Shane Scott and Denny Shankland join veterans like Joe Liles, Joe Connelly, Tom Gentry, Alan Gordon, Kim Hulbert, David Wright, Kirk Young, Burt Szabo, Mark Hale, Royce Ferguson, Kevin Keller, Tim Brooks, Tim Waurick, Brandon Guyton, and many more. For more information, including a tuition schedule, visit www.barbershop.org/ harmonyu or call 1-800-876-SING (7464) January/ February 2009 VOLUME LXIX NUMBER 1 “What is Barbershop really all about? The suc- cess? The District Champion Pin? The Interna- tional Medal? No, it is about the people who surround you on a daily basis and the “family” who support us in this wonderful hobby. Being a part of this fraternity is an honor that we all enjoy! McPhly chose to include some of those people in our district photo because to us that is what this hobby is all about. We enjoy the opportunity that we have to sing for those we love and care about. To find out who is in 29 McPhly just look for the shoes....” – Curtis Terry, Lead McPhly Quartet Features Harmony Foundation stats Entire chapter to Harmony U! 12 Here’s where your donations to Harmony Foundation 24 Forget a couple of guys bringing knowledge back to have been going—interesting facts and figures their chapter—bring the chapter to Harmony U! RANDY PETERS You’re gonna need this vacation 14 No one ever wishes they’d stayed home from American Harmony in your town international—plan for Anaheim while you can! 26 American Harmony could be to us what The Music Man was in another era ... but we need your help We’re little but we’re loud! ED WATSON 19 They have fewer than 30 members, but these chapters know how to provide a quality experience every week 28 YiH 3 / Membership Task force VARIOUS AUTHORS Two articles in the space of one—James Estes and Bill Biffle are looking into the future “I WISH THEY ALL COULD BE CALIFORNIA CONVEN- JAMES ESTES, BILL BIFFLE TIONS ...” There’s plenty to do before, during and after our convention in America’s On the Cover: playground. See page American Harmony 14 to get started on an Poster by Jen Silbert. Max Q an unforgettable vaca- Departments photo by Miller Photography; tion in Anaheim! Theater and other quartet photos by Lorin May; corner photo: Hi-Country Harmonaires, 2 10 Apply Valley, Calif. THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE HARMONY HOW-TO The secret to growth: fun meetings every week Develop musical leaders / Are you director material? 3 35 LETTERS STAY TUNED It’s settled, have Mike Rowe write in every issue Barbershoppers in Spain and Mexico 4 One show, eight musical styles, barbershop wins STRAIGHT TALK 38 American Harmony: our generation’s The Music Man MEMBER SERVICE DIRECTORY 5 Where to find answers TEMPO 40 Media attention for three heroic barbershoppers THE TAG Off-key: Real news, with a few punchlines “Danny, My Boy” January/February 2009 • The HARMONIZER 1 THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE Bill Biffle, Society President • bbiffl[email protected] The secret to growth: fun meetings every week ’ve spent much of the past couple of months think- Fun. At chapter meetings. On purpose. And the ing about this, my first column as your president. guide they used has been around for a long time In fact, I’ve written about a hundred versions of it! and is readily available on our wonderful, new, im- Then last Saturday night—Sunday morning, re- proved, user-friendly Society web site. I ally—the problem solved itself. About 1:30 a.m., I By now, many of you know that growing the So- stopped into the AHSOW room at the headquar- ciety will be the main focus of my tenure as Society ters hotel in Pasadena as our Midwinter conven- President. I have initiated a Society-wide conversa- tion was drawing to a close. There I found Dave tion on this subject. (To join in, email me at bbif- Calland, about whom I’ll say more below. ÀH#EDUEHUVKRSRUJ using the word “membership” in After we sang a few (Dave made me sing lead; he the subject line.) Hundreds of members—present was working on his baritone and tenor woodshed- and past, and dozens of ladies, too—have sent me ding skills), Dave said to me, “We’re one of the their ideas about what we need to do to reverse our few chapters in the Society that’s growing!” membership decline. How we can guarantee that “What’s causing that?” I asked. “We put the our grandchildren’s grandchildren will have the op- ‘Eight Points to Fun’ in our meetings,” he re- portunity to have their lives enriched by this hobby plied. “That old thing that Joe Liles came up as ours—mine and yours—have been. There are with way back in the ’70s?” I exclaimed. “Yep,” lots of opinions, of course, and it’s too early in the he rejoined with a great big smile. process to draw final conclusions, but one thread “What eight points?” you ask. (It’s your that keeps reappearing is the importance of having Men keep tell- turn, now.) Well, sez I, “the Eight Points fun on chapter meeting night. To woodshed, to gang you can find at www.barbershop.org/ sing, to quartet. To have fun. On chapter meeting ing me the 8points.” For the record, here’s the list, but night. Every week. The very thing that Dave and you’ll need to look at the whole document the boys in Columbus decided to try. importance of for the complete scoop. (For instance, you For a very long time we have wedded two impor- having fun on don’t do them in this order!): tant aspects of barbershop life together – musical • Vocal warm up achievement and fraternal bliss. And we’ve done chapter meet- • Gang singing that pretty successfully, too. In our healthy chapters, ing night. To • Craft we’ve done it in spades. How about your chapter? It • Break is, after all, your chapter. Is the balance right? Are woodshed, to • Quartet activity men coming back week after week? Are they invit- gang sing, to • Woodshedding ing friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow church • Business meeting choir members, strangers on the street to come see quartet. To • Rehearsal what happens every week at their barbershop chap- Let me tell you a little bit about Dave. ter meeting? If so, quit reading now and go spread have fun. On He sang lead in the silver medalist quartet the word to others. If not, maybe, just maybe, your chapter meet- Uptown Sound and directs the eight- chapter life may be a bit—just a bit—out of balance. time JAD champion—and consistent If you think your chapter meetings could be more ing night. top 10 chorus—The Alliance from Co- fun, why not open a dialogue with the leaders of Every week. lumbus, Ohio and sings lead with 2008 your chapter about changing things up just a little? international quartet finalist The Allies. If we’re going to grow, our “product”—the quality (He’s also the current Johnny Appleseed District of life in our chapters every week—has to be satisfy- president, just to close the circle.) This is a man to ing enough—fun enough—to justify men spending whom competing—and winning—is important. And valuable time away from the other things in life this man who has dedicated his entire barbershop life there. It’s working for The Alliance. It will work to musical achievement has “discovered” the “secret” for you, too! (Where’s that phone number of my to chapter growth. chapter’s Program Vice President?) By almost every measure, The Alliance is a suc- Those are some of my thoughts. Let me have cessful barbershop chapter. But they had one persis- some of yours. tent problem—they did not grow. Not consistently. Not predictably. Why not? They sing like angels. They’re great guys. They have wonderful musical and administrative leadership. Why not meteoric growth? Well, Dave and the boys decided to try something “new” to attack this problem. Variety.