Welcome to BarbershopConnections

I have been a barbershopper for over 20 years and I am thrilled to share my website with you. My hope is that it will become a great free resource for all Barbershoppers.

For those new to barbershop music, barbershop is a style of unaccompanied (a cappella) vocal music characterized by 4-part harmony.

The four parts consist of a Lead (who sings the melody), a Bass (who sings the low notes), a Tenor (who sings the high notes) and a Baritone (who sings the notes in between that complete the 4 part chord). When all 4 parts are sung in perfect balance and vowels are matched a "ringing" or overtone sound is produced.

Most people associate barbershop with men's barbershop quartets, however, barbershop music is sung by both men and women, and can be sung in a quartet (four singers) or by larger groups (choruses) where each part is sung by many singers.

I started with a current list of arrangers, organizations and learning track resources. I have now added a master calendar of events.

Events

An event may be a competition, convention, a show, an educational event, a retreat, a camp or some other kind of gathering that is taking place in the barbershop or a cappella world.

Arrangers

Any song can be sung in the barbershop style, however, in order to do that, the song needs to be "arranged" into the barbershop 4-part harmony style. Barbershop arrangers are the talented people who can take a song and rearrange the chords to make it sound and fit the barbershop style.

Organizations

Barbershop is popular around the world and many countries have their own barbershop organizations, many of which preserve the art form and promote traditional barbershop singing.

Learning Tracks

Many singers learn songs by listening to Learning Tracks. Each learning track provides a note and word correct rendition of the song for each individual part (bass, baritone, lead or tenor). The other 3 parts are usually sung quietly in the background. This is referred to as a part dominant track. An additional learning track is provided with all 4 parts at equal volume so that you can hear how your part fits into the song. Using learning tracks generally speeds up the process of learning a song and gives the singer an accurate version to sing-along with during the learning process. Please note that although learning tracks are a great learning aid, singers must also purchase legal copies of music and make sure they have the rights to use that music.

All of the email addresses and websites have been verified so hopefully there will be no broken links! This is a work in progress so I will be adding more content to the website frequently, and gradually expanding the categories on the site.

If you want anything added, find anything is incorrect or have suggestions, please use the Contact Us page to let me know so that I can get the site updated.

I hope you will find the site useful and that you will share it with other Barbershoppers.

In Harmony
Nicola Stevens
Baritone of MOZAIC
Member of Harmony, Inc.