Re: Digest Number 455

>John S:
>>There are some good examples on some of the Society for the Preservation
>and
>>Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America 19** Top Twenty
>>Barbershop Quartets CDs on the Pro-Arte label, although in recent years,
>>it seems that more people are using vibrato (yecch!).
>
>On what are you basing that? Barbershop is explicitly a vibratoless
>style, and always will be. I have the CD you mention. It's quite good.
>You'll
>notice that the champion quartet in 96 was Nitelife, and I recommend
>folks
>skip right to their album, Basin Street Blues. It is, to this day, the
>quintessential Barbershop...
>
>http://www.harmonize.com/Nightlife/
>
>Next, I would recommend the Gas House Gang. All of their albums are
>excellent.
>
>-Carl

Carl- I'm basing it on the progression of SPEBSQSIA compilation albums
from 1990 to the present. The top groups have very little vibrato, if any,
but as you go down the list you will hear more and more creeping in. I
could be wrong, statistically, but that's the impression I get. You will
hear a chord slightly out and then one of the quartet will pop in a little
vibrato, as if to disguise the lack of ring. Some times the pitch then
corrects, sometimes not. I work with a barbershopper, and he has
mentioned the same thing. Listen to the vibrato in this years winners at

http://mac3.a-cappella.com/prodinfo.asp?number=5196C&variation=&aitem=1&mitem=1

John Starrett
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html