I don't think they called it barbershop quartet singing until much later, but this kind of four-part harmony was big for many years. The soloist was more prominent at this point, while a full blend became the standard later. I have a dimly remembered fact I will confirm before going forward...
Yes, the barbershop sound was all-male at first. But women sing as well as men if not better and there was resentment that they could not join, so they formed their own groups, called the Sweet Adelines. Great name, BTW. They tended to be more choral than quartet. Eventually there was enough pressure that the SPEBSQSA (checks notes, yes, that's it) admit women that they did so, but an all-male movement started up almost immediately after. The claim was that the all-male sound was distinctive and worth preserving.
They were right. It's not the same. For choirs, Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass or Soprano-Alto-Baritone is standard, and it is just different from all-male or all-female. It is not accidental that the most precise arrangers mixed both sexes for voices voices. There is something more universal about that. But for homier, more intimate harmonies in performance, those community groups tend to be all-female or all-male. Three or four sisters dressed alike, four neighborhood guys on the corner trying to make it big, all the Oak Ridge/Byrds/Temptations with qualitatively different sounds than the Supremes or Vandellas. When the voices were mixed, it was a female lead with Pips behind her, or a famous male with interchangeable female backups. Call it whatever you like and complain about it if you have nothing better to do, but the sound is different. I like them all, but don't consider them interchangeable.
I had a friend who went to Mount Holyoke who claimed that there was nothing more breathtaking than spending all week hearing nothing but female voices and then having a male chorus come in to perform on the weekend. Similarly, USO performances always brought in females.
And there are boys' choirs and sometimes mixed children's choirs, but girls' choirs are pretty rare, I think. Each has its own vocal quality. A boys' choir, I find, is so near to a pure sine wave that I can seldom understand the words. (But this is a common problem for me with choral singing.) The girls are actually easier to understand, less pure-tone, but very sweet, and maybe people get tired of that quickly.
ReplyDeleteHere's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6t8AyRQZE&list=RD3h6t8AyRQZE&start_radio=1
Not quite the same, but...
ReplyDeleteI have gone to several district conventions of our church body. There is always an opening service, and since the delegates are almost totally male, the hymns are sung almost entirely by men. To my surprise, I have found it very beautiful and enormously moving. No matter how good a mixed congregation is, the sound is not the same. 'Course, the men are long-time churchgoers who really know the hymns, but still...