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The Barbershop Singer: Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby PDF

149 Pages·2005·6.361 MB·English
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THE BARBERSHOP SINGER Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby Barbershop singing is often dismissed by its critics as merely an en- joyable hobby. Though long popular with both its public and par- ticipants, it has been relatively neglected in the field of music studies. Robert A. Stebbins demonstrates that barbershop singing is an elaborate and complicated form of serious leisure that provides its participants with distinctive lifestyles. The Barbershop Singer is a unique study of this significant musical genre, describing the social world of barbershop and exploring its appeal for both male and fe- male singers. Robert Stebbins traces the history of barbershop sing- ing and compares and contrasts the worlds of jazz, classical music, and barbershop as serious leisure pursuits. Stebbins also examines its costs and rewards, its complex organizational structures, the so- cial marginality felt by its more dedicated participants, and the main problems facing the art today. Although barbershop singing is clearly a circumscribed social world, understanding how it works expands current knowledge of the variant forms of social participation available to citizens of the modern world. The Barbershop Singer will be of interest to sociolo- gists as well as those involved in the world of barbershop. ROBERT A. STEBBINS isaprofessor of sociology at the University of Calgary. He is author of The Franco-Calgarians: French Language, Leisure, and Linguistic Life-style in an Anglophone City and Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure. This page intentionally left blank THE BARBERSHOP SINGER Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby ROBERT A. STEBBINS UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1996 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-0844-5 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-7829-X (paper) Printed on acid-free paper Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Stebbins, Robert A. The barbershop singer Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-0844-5 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-7829-X (pbk.) 1. Barbershop singing - Social aspects. 2. Music and society. 3. Barbershop singing - Alberta - Calgary. I. Title. ML3516.S841996 306.4'84 C95-933157-3 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. To Dad and the Notable Four This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiv 1 The Social Worlds of American Music 3 2 The Old Songs 20 3 Organized Barbershop 34 4 Becoming a Barbershop Singer 44 5 Why Sing? 61 6 Work in Leisure 75 7 Dissonance in Close Harmony 87 8 Musical Lifestyles 100 Appendix: Interview Guide for the Study of Barbershop Singers 111 Notes 115 Bibliography 125 Index 131 This page intentionally left blank Preface This study of the hobby of barbershop singing reflects substantially my personal lifelong involvement in American music and music as serious leisure. Even though I do not sing barbershop, the 'barber- shopper's social world resembles my own musical world in many respects. In certain ways, then, this book is also an autobiography. I grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota in a family reasonably dedicated to music, a family where classical music and traditional jazz recordings often filled the air. My father was an enthusiastic barbershop singer, my mother an occasional pianist, and my sister, a somewhat reluctant follower of our mother's interests. Some- where around age five I started piano lessons. Later, inspired by the possibility of playing in the grade school orchestra, I switched my musical allegiance to the violin. I liked the violin, I think in part be- cause it put me in contact with like-minded souls in the same school orchestras with whom I could play chamber music on occasion. Then I changed schools. The lure of senior high school athletics and the lack of an orchestra at the new institution combined to temporarily eclipse my career as a musician. I did attend several of the Jazz at the Phil concerts that Norman Granz presented in Min- neapolis during the mid-1950s, where I heard such artists as Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young, about whom I boast today, but about whom I knew little at the time. The impression made byjazz and its performers lingered and was rekindled while I was enduring basic training in the United States Army. On weekends I would listen to the pick-up groups at the post

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