Woodshedding

In the old days of barbershop singing there was nothing else: just woodshedding. And today? This extempore 4-part singing is practised far too seldom (although there are Woodshedding Clubs within the barbershop organizations, such as the AHSOW, the "Ancient and Harmonious Society of Woodshedders"). Some of us may have never even tried it. This could be explained by the feeling "I´m glad if I can master the difficult 4- part harmony arrangements with the music given to me; without that I´d be helpless!"

In the old days even the best quartets used not to produce such a polished sound as today´s champions. It was not until the notes were written down that a certain musical finesse could be achieved. For decades this was not permitted; anyone who needed music was considered by barbershoppers as being untalented. It was not until a contest in1948 that a champion quartet, "The Pittsburgers" first sang music that had been written out.

Undoubtedly some of our ancestors´ woodshedding skills have been lost through the establishment of written arrangements. They were able to take a melody and to sing it in four parts in quartet. We cannot say exactly how this developed historically in individual cases, though we do know what may have occurred, musically. One thing we can be sure of: these people wanted to sing four-part harmony, really in four parts, meaning as far as possible without any doubling of notes. We have to bear in mind that our traditional 4-part harmony is mostly sung in three parts, because one note occurs twice in the chord - at least in a different octave. Clearly the old barbershoppers wanted to avoid this - but how?

In most cultures, the harmonizing of different notes is based on the succession of overtones. These are not just to be found in books on the theory of acoustics. You can actually hear them, at least the lower ones. They could be taken from life. The first note of this succession (an octave above the root) the second (the fifth) and the fourth (the major third) combine to form the familiar major triad. I produce the first true four-note chord when I include the sixth overtone in the succession, the minor seventh.

This produces the so-called dominant seventh chord (in the key of C, it would be G B D F). So this is the first true four-note chord that nature offers us. That is why it was so beloved by the old barbershoppers, and why it remains so today. Melodies which enabled the inclusion of as many as possible of these chords were particularly desirable. And if these chords appeared in a certain (and thus learnable) order, there was an additional advantage. When improvising in four parts, one could then reliably predict the next chord. And indeed, they found a great many such melodies at that time, to which one could sing a row of dominant seventh chords in a regular succession. This regularity consisted of the root of the following chord being a fifth below the one before.

Let´s take for example the piece "Five Foot Two" in C-major. After the initial chords for the first three words (C-E-G, unfortunately no 4-note chord possible!) come the following dominant seventh chords: E-G#-B-D (for "eyes of blue, but"), A-C#-E-G ("oh, what those five foot can do! Has"), D-F#-A-C ("anybody"), G-B-D-F ("seen my"). After that, on the word "girl", the tonic chord appears again. This example shows how, starting with E, the chords jump downwards in fifths(E-A-D-G-C) And it is because we can continue this harmony game throughout the keys, until we arrive back where we started, that we speak of the "circle of fifths". Melodies whose basic harmonies allow a succession of chords which go round the circle of fifths have always been especially suitable for barbershopping.

Those men from the southern or western States in the 19th century who paved the way for us with their love of singing probably did not know any of that. But they felt it! The word "woodshedding" suggests that they probably were not outstandingly talented and that their strange sounds most likely got on the nerves of everyone within hearing distance. Some quartets will have been recommended to go and practise in the woodshed, please!

Kurt Gerhardt