My situation

I am a teacher in a Catholic Upper School (13-18 yrs) with fingers in many pies, including performing with and co-ordinating students who want to participate in performing various music pieces in Mass, assemblies, talent(!) shows and musical theatre. I had agreed to attend Harmony College with the dual purposes of learning how to be a better quartet singer, and producing a handsome report on the whole proceedings.

I attended my first Harmony College ever with some trepidation - after all, almost everybody else would have been there before, and would know everything there is to know about barbershop singing. Probably. Well, possibly. And we had decided to go as a quartet with only one practice as a foursome, and a few months in a chorus.

Overall impression

At every moment over the weekend, I felt a sense of encouragement about what our quartet was trying to do. This started with our arrival and key collection, and extended into the late nights as we attempted to keep up with the more experienced singers. Without exception, every tutor, organiser, and co-singer gave us encouragement, and we came away much more confident of what we could do as a quartet. What I can do as a single teacher to encourage my students is less well defined.

The Teacher's bit

Rick Spencer's account of how Barbershop is getting into schools in the US was enthralling, absorbing and tremendous, but probably not easily transferable to the UK. That is not to say it is not possible, only that we need to think of some ways to overcome what seem like enormous obstacles.

It seems to me that there are several major problems in getting Barbershop into UK schools, and I have already had several conversations with people about the following aspects. Also, I realise that many people have attempted to address these issues, and have made great efforts to bring the best of Barbershop "to the people"; here are my observations, possibly slightly skewed, but from the heart and with the best intentions:

1. Barbershop currently has a less than serious image as a singing form in society generally, which translates into a view by most people, even singers, that Barbershop singing is trivial. Some questions: Do the costumes trivialise the desired effect? Do we see Barbershop on, for example, the TV or in adverts?

2. Music teachers are probably on a par with art teachers, who all seem to think that each other's work is not really art but (to put it nicely) rubbish. Now, while this (rubbish idea) is not really true by any means, either for the actual music or the art, it does make it difficult to bring a new (art) form into serious consideration by music teacher.

3. Every teacher still has a considerable workload (despite the still current view to the contrary), and has to deal with difficult people and situations for nearly 7 contiguous hours (look it up!), often with hardly a break. Lunch times and after-school activities often mean longer hours of the same thing. Any way of releasing a teacher from time with students will always be appreciated, but viewed with suspicion since there is likely to be paperwork, telephone calls and other organisation time involved - in other words, yet another job to do.

I was very glad to hear of the efforts currently being made by BABS specialists who are able to work with music teachers in schools, although it seemed to me that much of the effort and materials are directed towards higher age Primary and Middle Schools (8-12 yrs), and less to Upper/High Schools. It also seems unlikely that BABS/we could field a really young chorus or quartet that would be more acceptable to 14-18 year olds, since much of BABS membership is, by its own admission, well, quite old really. Young people respond much better to someone near their own age. A copy of Rick's tape would be really useful to me on that point, really, really useful!! Please?

Specific points about College

Good and not so good, all mixed up:

1. The length of the sessions was about right - just over an hour is enough time to make progress in a couple of songs, any longer and the brain cells begin to get overloaded.

2. The food quality was very good, although the length of time in the queues was sometimes irritating.

3. It was really useful to be able to arrive on the Thursday evening; the tea/coffee in the kitchen of the halls was a nice touch, although it did not arrive until late on Friday?

4. The registration procedure was excellent and efficient; could we have named photos next time?

5. Very useful map of the grounds, but toilets not shown.

6. We had trouble finding the Codex on the first morning, probably because of the late room changes.

7. There was no music for "The old songs", so new people could not join in; our chorus has not yet learned that song, so we felt rather left out at that point.

8. The hall was so full of people that it was difficult to hear what was happening when standing at the back. Later use of a microphone improved matters, but every announcer/leader needed to use it without exception, or the words just got lost; a radio microphone needed?

9. What can you do with an attendee who just will not turn off his mobile phone? The person next to me had to take two calls within 2 minutes when his phone went off!

10. We could not see much of the visual instruction that was happening at the front; a raised platform would be good.

11. The coaching was always relevant and direct, and to the point. It correctly identified the current state of our quartet and gave explicit instructions on which bit to improve, without going overboard.

12. Good projector use in the Top Ten session.

13. There was often a useful round-up/summary for each part, and some direction of what to do in the next coaching session.

14. It was useful to have a 2nd observer/trainee coach in the coaching sessions, as they offer useful (and always encouraging) extra comments and observations.

15. The show was organised smoothly, considering the difficult site, but the earlier quartets would have benefited from some amplification. As a performer, the distance from staging to audience was extremely off-putting, and it was difficult to get any feeling of connecting with the listeners.

My needs

1. Quartet/small chorus available to perform to school students during the school day.

2. Copy of Rick's tape showing his students doing amazing things with Barbershop singing.

3. Time to work on the Head of Music at my school, and opportunities to feed into the musical education of students.

4. Simple, perhaps well-known songs and tags that students could attempt by sight-reading at first; most students interested in Barbershop will already be able to sight-read to some extent.

5. Easy contact with appropriate BABS link person, and then perhaps with local BABS (and LABS?) choruses. Performing with my own chorus (Suffolk Harmony) sounds easy, but may not be the best way of exposing students in my own school to Barbershop singing.

Contact me, Andy Flack