WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BARBERSHOP HARMONY STREAMED TO YOUR LIVING ROOM

Society testing special offer for music educators and outreach participants

 

You've said for years that we need to bring our music to wider audiences, and we are responding. This year, we will be reaching out to music educators from our database, students who have participated in our camps, and other fellow travel\lers in an all-out effort to bring the incredible experience of our international contests to new, excited audiences.

 

The Barbershop Harmony Society is offering a special, lower-bandwidth feed optimized for  mobile devices FREE to students and teachers who sign up using a valid .edu email address.

 

This "no strings" offer will add to our production expense for the webcast, but it's worth the cost if it creates new barbershop fans. Be cool: don't abuse the system. If you would have paid for the webcast before, pay for it now. Don't "game" the system by slipping through a loophole. Do the responsible thing and pay for the incredible experience you already know it to  be. 

Just because they're simple, just because they're time-worn, doesn't mean they're not GOOD. In fact, they might be just what's needed to remind ourselves that "It's the Music" that draws us together.

 

This came to focus recently in a nice note from Shawn York, discussing an "open house night" held by the Westminster Chorus. 

 

 

 

Local Barbershoppers came to listen, yes, but more importantly, they all came to SING. The combined group sang ALL TWELVE POLECATS together. No problem: according to Shawn, the chapter as a group "went through the Polecat program in 2011, and have since retained the old songs as part of our rehearsals in warming up." The reasoning behind it was fascinating, though, and worth considering.

 

"If we are going to target young people, and be viewed as "exclusionary", we better be extra diligent about counterbalancing that by reaching out to older generations and learning the old songs. We want the legacy chapters to view us as part of the solution of a widening generation gap, not part of the problem. This isn't just a "polecat" thing; it's an ideal and a culture, based on reaching out and pulling people together."

 

Make the connection. Sing the Old Songs proudly. 

• Get the Barberpole Cat book 
• Get the Tim Waurwick learning tracks 
• Read about how to implement the Barberpole Cat program in your chapter 

Host Hugh Jackman holds his own with rappers LL Cool J and T.I.

68th Tony Awards - Hugh Jackman, LL Cool J and T.I Rap