Fuse: A Barbershop Project

Barbershop. What comes to mind when you hear that word? A quartet of older men in striped waistcoats and straw hats singing Goodbye My Coney Island Baby or Hello, My Baby? If you’ve ever been to a Disney resort and seen their resident quartet, The Dapper Dans, that may be why. But nowadays, that sort of image isn’t representative of barbershop, and it’s events like Fuse, which took place last weekend in Sheffield, which aim to bring in a new generation of barbershop singers.

The aim of the event was to give young people a chance to sing barbershop in a fun environment, whether they’d been singing for years or just wanted to give it a go. These are similar principles to the now defunct National Barbershop Youth Chorus (NBYC), which last year ceased its operations due to the fact that the model of asking members to travel to several different rehearsal venues across the country every year was not conducive to regular high attendances.

However, Zac Booles, a former NBYC member and member of the 2008 all-NBYC British Quartet Champions Monkey Magic (now known as The Great British Barbershop Boys), knew that British barbershop still needed an event for young singers, albeit in a different format.

Explaining the new approach, Zac said “Fuse is NBYC rising from the ashes, but with a few changes. Instead of having several rehearsals a year, we’re just going to have one full day a year and try and get as many people who have no, a little, or a lot of barbershop experience to come along and just have a good time”.

The main focus of the day, for which there were almost 30 young singers in attendance, was learning an Aaron Dale arrangement of the 1946 Mills Brothers song, Don’t Be a Baby, Baby. Under the direction of two-time British Quartet Champion Duncan Whinyates, progress was quickly made through the day to turn the song into a performable number. The day was divided up into section rehearsals, to sort out notes, and full chorus sessions, to create ensemble musicality and choreography, and there was plenty of time for a few fun and games as well.

One of these is tag singing. For those of you who don’t know much barbershop jargon, the tag is the bit after the end of the main song which brings the whole song to a close, similar to a coda in classical music. Traditionally, barbershoppers would only sing tags of well-known songs, but nowadays many tags are written completely independently of arranged songs, and tag teaching is a good, quick way for four singers who don’t know each other to sing something together. Among the tags that were taught and sung on the day were “Never Knew You”, whose melody comes from a song from Pocahontas, and “Help Me Say Goodbye”, which was written by Zac, who is well known in the barbershop community for his tags and arrangements.

By the end of the day, Don’t Be a Baby was at a fine performance standard, and Joe White, bass of last year’s quartet silver medallists Mach 4, said “I’ve never seen a piece of music come together so fast in my life”.

Plans are already in motion for next year. Bristol has been announced as the next venue, to take advantage of the already active youth barbershop scene at the University of Bristol. If you want to find out more about barbershop, or join the university’s chorus (there are separate choruses for both men and women), then go to the Manchester University Barbershop Chorus page for more information.