Dear Jim et al, You wrote: "The quartet that did the School Board is out of Canada, named VIP (Voices in Public)" ***************************** Ah! That accounts for the vowels. Thanks for that tidbit. ***************************** Jim: Regarding the Bullalo Bills, remember that the style of Barbershop singing was much brighter back then. It is also my understanding that the director asked the Bills to brighten even more. ***************************** I'm sure you're right. The Bills were that year's international competition winners as well I Billeive.:-) I think one of the guys in the movie was a stand in for the "real" quartet member wasn't he?
I think the reason for the "bright tone" may have been to try and "ring" chords and to "project" (probably what the director was after since in those days stage shows weren't amplified). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "ring a chord", it means to really bring out the overtones on held notes particularly at cadences. Anyway, in recent years it seems that more mainline singing technique seems to be slowly creeping in to Barbershop. I think it's a very good thing. When I directed a Barbershop chorus, I tried to get them to learn a more mainline and vocally healthy technique with no nasality, no straight-tone singing and a nice full sound to the singing. A lot of the old timers have some pretty screwy ideas about all that stuff but the young ones know better. Regards, Les
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