Barbershopping!

On Valentine's Day, the Babe had one of her staff serenaded at the office by a barbershop quartet. The Babe thought that this was something I might like to do--after all, I've been playing the banjo for 35 years now and banjo and barbershop just seem to go together. The Babe got a card and some info from the guys. It turned out to be a quartet from the Cascade Chorus, a chapter of SPEBSQSA, the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

Tuesday, I went to the Cascade Chorus rehearsal. It was wonderful! The chorus is a friendly group of guys who're always glad to see a new singer. As a newcomer, they lent me a book of the music that they keep for guests. We did some warm-up exercises and few songs to get into the flow, then spent a few hours working on singing and choreography for the two pieces the group's doing for the upcoming barbershop competition in Tualatin, OR. I was quite pleased with how fast I was able to pick this up, but I figured it was all the banjo music. I had a grand time and I'm looking forward to next Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Babe is looking into the Sweet Adelines. My youngest sister has been a Sweet Adeline in the past and enjoyed it.

My one sorrow about this is that the Babe and I can't do this together: ne'er the twain shall harmonize, it seems. However, the Babe observed "You can't have too much music in your life," and down the road we might do something like this together with a couple other people to do mixed-voice barbershop.

Barbershopping!