A barbershop quartet is a group of four singers who perform music in the barbershop style. This style uses four-part harmony and does not include instruments; the singers perform without musical accompaniment, a style called a cappella. The four voices in a quartet are called lead, bass, tenor, and baritone. Barbershop music is known for close harmony, where the three highest voices usually sing within one octave of each other.

Historically, barbershop quartets were mostly performed by men. Today, quartets can include singers of any gender. In the past, all-female quartets were sometimes called beauty shop quartets, but this term is no longer used.

The exact origin of barbershop quartet singing is not completely agreed upon. However, groups that support this style describe it as an "old American tradition." While the style is most popular in the United States, barbershop organizations also exist in countries such as the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, South Africa, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

Barbershop quartets have appeared in popular culture, such as in the musical theater production The Music Man. They have also been parodied in television shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy.

History

Barbershop singing is often said to have started in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the United States. However, some people believe its beginnings are unclear. The style combines musical traditions from both White and African-American communities. Even though African-American contributions are sometimes not noticed, these groups played an important role in shaping the style.

By the 1920s, the style was no longer as popular. It was brought back in the late 1930s with the creation of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), now called the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS). The first meeting of this group took place on April 11, 1938, at the Tulsa Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At that time, only men could join. In 1945, a separate group for women, called Sweet Adelines International (SAI), was formed in Tulsa. Another group for women, Harmony, Incorporated (HI), was started in Rhode Island in 1959. In 2018, BHS allowed women to join, and a new group called the Worldwide Barbershop Quartet Association (WBQA) was formed to focus on all-male singing.

In 1971, BHS president Ralph Ribble started the "Barberpole Cat Program" to help spread barbershop singing. Songs were published and promoted to create a standard set of music for quartets. In 1987, 12 songs and parts of two others were chosen as the official collection.

Style of dress

In competitions, barbershop quartets usually wear matching outfits to show they are part of the same group. The Society Contest and Judging Committee of the Barbershop Harmony Society explains in their rule book that appearance matters for success: "Judges consider both the singing and the visual parts of a performance, but they mainly look at how these parts work together to create the image of the song."

Traditionally, barbershop quartet clothing included a vest, straw hat, and spats, often with bow ties and sleeve garters. This style is called the Gay Nineties look. In popular culture, this style is often used to represent barbershop quartets. Several Walt Disney theme parks have a barbershop quartet group named The Dapper Dans. Their outfits change based on the park, but they always wear vests and straw hats.

Roles of vocal parts

Male barbershop quartets use TTBB (tenor—tenor—baritone—bass) arrangements, with the second tenor singing the lead. Since the 1940s, barbershop singers have tuned their seventh chords with a specific tuning method to create strong overtones, producing a unique "ringing" sound.

Female barbershop quartets use SSAA (soprano—soprano—alto—alto) arrangements, using the same range names as TTBB arrangements. Mixed barbershop quartets use SATB (soprano—alto—tenor—bass) arrangements.

Tenor: The tenor usually sings above the lead, making it the highest part in the quartet. To avoid overpowering the lead, who sings the main melody, the tenor often uses falsetto, a softer voice compared to the normal singing voice. Some groups use tenors with a softer full-voice sound instead. Examples of groups that used full-voiced tenors include The Buffalo Bills, Boston Common, and Vocal Spectrum.

The range of a tenor in barbershop music does not always match the range of a tenor in classical music. It is often similar to the range of a countertenor in classical music.

Lead: The lead, usually a lower or second tenor, sings the main melody.

Baritone: The baritone fills in the middle of the chord, singing slightly below or above the lead. While the baritone's part is not as melodic as others, it is essential for completing the chord and creating a fuller sound.

Bass: The bass sings the lowest notes, often providing the root of the chord for root position chords or the lowest note of the chord for inverted chords.

In popular culture

• The TV sitcom I Love Lucy used the cast in a barbershop quartet performance in the 1952 episode, "Lucy's Show-Biz Swan Song"; some of the same footage was used for a flashback in their 1956 Christmas show.
• The Buffalo Bills barbershop quartet (Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Champions of 1950), who appeared in the 1957 Meredith Willson Broadway musical The Music Man, were also cast in the 1962 film adaptation starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.
• In the 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses a barbershop quartet as a symbol to connect between Billy's worlds.
• Barbershop music is featured extensively in the 1975 post-apocalyptic film A Boy and His Dog.
• Cheers features a barbershop quartet in the season 4 episode "Dark Imaginings" (1986), and in the season 8 episode "The Stork Brings a Crane" (1989).
• The Forever Plaid musical (1989) tells the story of Frankie (lead/second tenor), Jinx (tenor), Sparky (baritone), and Smudge (bass), a barbershop quartet that gets the chance to return to life after dying in a bus crash.
• Sesame Street has included barbershop quartets of humans and of Muppets who copy the genre with the songs "When You Cooperate," "Long Time No See," "Small B," "Same Different Barbershop Quartet," and "Counting Floors," among others.

• A 1993 episode of The Simpsons, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," makes fun of The Beatles' journey by pretending they are members of a barbershop quartet named "The Be Sharps." The episode stars The Dapper Dans, a Disneyland quartet.
• In the 1997 Friends episode titled "The One with All the Jealousy," Ross Geller hires a barbershop quartet and sends it to Rachel's office to sing her a love song.
• Frasier features a barbershop quartet in the episode, "Frasier's Curse" (1998).
• In the 1999 Family Guy episode titled "Brian: Portrait of a Dog," Brian Griffin does an impression of a barbershop quartet.
• In nearly every episode of Nick Jr. Channel's television program Blue's Clues (1996–2006), a barbershop quartet sings the word "Mailtime" in harmony, after which the show host sings the mail time song as the mail arrives at their house.

• Episodes of Family Guy in 2005 and 2006 used songs by a barbershop quartet to tell a hospital patient he has AIDS and to describe a vasectomy.
• Episodes of Jack's Big Music Show frequently feature the "Schwartzman Quartet" of four puppet brothers; in the season 2 episode "Jack's Super Swell Sing-Along" (2007), they sing about being a barbershop quartet.
• Psych's fourth season's seventh episode, "High Top Fade-Out" (2009), prominently features the murder of a member of Gus's college barbershop quartet. Originally called "Blackapella," the quartet is renamed "Quarterblack" once Shawn (a white man) joins.
• The Internet webcomic Homestuck (2009–2016) features a barbershop cover of the Eddie Morton song, "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew." The cover was sung by a fan of the series and was put into the comic on the page, "DD: Ascend more casually."

• The 2010 video game, Toy Story 3, includes a Pict-O-Matic scene where dressing four characters in barber outfits makes them form