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Topic: Barbershop Quartet Songs (Read 28041 times) previous topic - next topic

Barbershop Quartet Songs

Does anybody share an interest in Barbershop Quartetting using NWC as a learning tool?

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #1 –
Yes!!!! This is my main use of NWC. I enter all my BBS arrangements into NWC, using 4 staffs. Then I can overlap the staffs to have a pretty normal looking layout, but the main point is that I can control the volume or mute each staff independently. I use that feature to create (for my own use) voice predominant cassette tapes for me to play in the car, so I can rehearse as I drive.

My main hassle is to find the time to key the arrangements in. Do you have any hints to make that go any faster?

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #2 –
You can do virtually everything in NWC using the computer keyboard - you rarely if ever need to touch the mouse if you are a "power user". For example, using the PageUp and PageDown keys to move between staves is a real timesaver.

Copying and pasting similar passages, and then using the arrow/shift/control key combinations to make small changes, is another way to speed up entry.

After some time you can become real speedy at entering fresh scores, if you are a reasonable typist.

- seb

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #3 –
Many of the guys in the group I work with can't read music, and NoteWorthy has been a great tool for learning new music.
For decades, we have used part tapes as the preferred method of learning. This meant that at least four guys had to find the time to get together to learn the song well enough to commit it to tape. Now, with NoteWorthy, I can write an arrangement and e-mail it to everyone. Those who can't read can highlight their parts and still hear the complete arrangement. This makes actual rehearsal time much more productive.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #4 –
I am a new user and Barbershopper. I have keyed in several songs and have found it to be an excellent learning aid.

One thing I can't figure out how to get the labels for tenor, lead, baritone and bass to print out in the layered format. The upper staff shows tenor and the lower Baritone. Any sugestions would be welcome.

Does anyone know if there is a source of Notworhty files for barbershop song?

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #5 –
Press F2 for staff properties, where you will find under the General tab a Name field. This can be printed before the first measure of the score (only measure 1, not first measure of each page.)

I also do quartet arrangements, plus full SATB arrangements for choir. I distribute my songs for members to playback using NoteWorthy Player; however, there are some things that are needed in the Player to make it truly useful as a practice device. See the following message thread for my suggestions, and please second the motion if you agree.

see https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=1664.msg8774#msg8774

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #6 –
Charles, after reading your post more carfully :o I caught the layered part of it. Have you tried using text expressions in each staff, with preserve width selected, and placing the text adjacent to the first note?

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #7 –
HI there!
I have just started barbershop singing this year and am constantly looking for new songs. The Problem is that eg BeachBoys Sheet Music is impossible to get and many other good quartetts are out of print or never existed as sheet music. Is there any way to get your hands on good nwc files for Barbershop? (Preferably including Lyrics. Can anyone give me some good sites / mail me there songs?

ruedigerruwe@gmx.ch

Cheers!!!!

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #8 –
Anyone interested in barbershop quartet might check out the US national barbershop quartet convention in Portland Oregon starting June 30, 2002.  Go here for info:
http://www.spebsqsa.org/

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #10 –
My impression is that it comes from four gentlemen sitting in the row of chairs in the barber's shop singing while they were getting shaved, but this could be totally erroneous.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #11 –
I've always assumed it was four barbers filling in time between customers and revelling in the accoustics of a tiled room.

Stephen

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #12 –
I think it has someting to do with close harmony, and getting a close shave...

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #14 –
One minor quibble with the article cited above.  The traditional instrament in Elizabethan barber shops wasn't a lute, it was a cittern, something between a mandolin and a bouzouki.

Cyril

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #15 –
A minor quibble with the quibble- that's the modern Celtic cittern you're thinking of. Alan Sobell stole the name in the 70's for his instruments ,which are like large, five-course mandolins (or Bouzoukis). The original cittern is much smaller and has a flat back like a guitar. My wife has one, and quotes James Tyler's remark "It's a funny little thing - the Rennaissance ukulele".

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #16 –
Hi I'm new to this web site but I was wondering if anybody knows where to find any sheet music online.  Me and some of my friends from school want to start up a barbershop quartet but the music is hard to find and it doesn't even have to be online but a shop somewhere in the San Diego area.  Me and my friends all have great range and we really just want to have some fun.  If anybody can help me, can you give replies on this site?  Thank you

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #17 –
Check out the American national barbershop quartet association SPEBSQA - their website is noted in reply 13 above.  They'd be able to tell you where to find what you're looking for.

http://www.spebsqsa.org/

Or they have a toll free 800 line, I think.  The number is on its webpage.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #19 –
This is a reply to the question on locating Barbershop arrangements.  Go to www.spebsqsa.org and enter the area entitled Sing and Perform, then to Get Music.  There are free downloadable songs in the subset entitled Free and Easy.  Some of these songs have audio previews.  There is also a catalog of barbershop arrangments which can be viewed on line, and purchased online.

I'm a barbershopper, and enjoy the singing very much.  I have only recently begun using Noteworthy to enter music in TTBB format.  Is there an easy way to record the music onto  "learning CD".  I've been entering via the computer keyboard, and playing back on the computer speakers for my own learning experience.  I would like to generate a CD for others in my chorus, but have been unsuccessful.  I've been told that it can be done in MIDI, using a special sound card.  Can anyone help me to accomplish the transfer of an NWC or MIDI file from the Noteworthy software to a CD for playing on a regular CD player.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #20 –
Hi Rural Earl

If you have a sound card on your computer, you can use its software to record the sound passing through the card to your speakers.  It will be in .wav format, so you just save the file, and then burn it to CD.

Soundblaster Live! uses Creative Wave Studio; it might just be called Wave Studio.  If you have Soundblaster, it should be in a path like this:
C:/Program Files/Creative/SBLive/WaveStudio/CTWave32.exe

You can do the same with the Windows sound recorder, but it only records 30 seconds or a minute, so you have to
tinker to make it record for long enough to capture your entire song.

See also message https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=968 and all those that turn up if you use the search feature at the top of this page, and look for "sound recorder"

Good luck.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #21 –
hi i am from the UK and i am in college
we have a unusual barbershop group, there is 6 of us (yes all gasp)
i was wondering if anyone knew any good learner songs that are a bit daring?

i want  easy to get the hang of but hard to sing if anyone knows what i mean?

also if you know how to get them on sibelius(software to score music)

thankyou!!!!!!! I HOPE I WILL GET HELP.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #22 –
Barbershop in 6 parts? Wow, that *is* unusual. Most of it (if it exists at all - it is not according to any barbershop definition that I know of) will be copyrighted.
But why would you want it in Sibelius, if you can get Noteworthy? You're on the right forum, using the 'wrong' software...

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #23 –
Michael, if you want to learn songs without sheet music, you can order any number of CDs of vocal groups.  Modern groups include The Kings' Singers' albums Good Vibrations and The Beatles Connection would have songs you might enjoy singing  The Nylons also perhaps.

Your richest source of material might be the vocal groups from the 1940s, such as the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots.  Mills Brothers usually sang a capella, but Ink Spots had guitar or piano backup.  The CD compilatons of the music recorded 50 or more years ago are usually quite inexpensive. More information regarding 1940s groups can be found here http://www.pepradiopresents.com/George/02Baltimore.htm.  Vocal group recordings became popular in the 1940s because the recording bans by the American Federation of Musicians kept big bands off the air and off records.  The record companies reacted by using singers instead, effectively killing big bands and ending the [abbr=  Other factors included younger bandsmen wanting to play the new bebop, not swing, and the call up of a huge number of musicians into the military during the Second World War]swing era in the USA[/abbr].

(Since this is the NWC forum, it's only right to plug NWC.  With a good ear, you can transcribe the recordings, and use NWC to write it out.)

Any music store that carries sheet music is likely to have music for small vocal groups, and it's usually only a couple of dollars a chart.

There is also The Society for the Preservation and Encourgement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America, a huge organization, found here http://www.spebsqsa.org/.  From there you can link to http://catalog.barbershop.org/musiccatalog/, a commerical source.

For free barbershop and other choral music, check out the Choral Public Domain Library at http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Secular_music

Hope you find what you're looking for, that your group stays together, and becomes as good as, and as famous as, The Kings' Singers.

Re: Barbershop Quartet Songs

Reply #24 –
Sorry, my second sentence should have read

Modern groups with material you might like to sing include The Kings' Singers' and the Nylons.  The Kings' Singers' albums Good Vibrations and The Beatles Connection are worth getting.