Choir music and the holiday season go together like pine and tinsel, with many classic Christmas carols sounding most idyllic when sung by a four-part choral.
But one local chorus doesn’t sing its Christmas carols in quite the traditional way. The Tri City Sound Chorus is the local chapter of the Sweet Adelines International, a women’s barbershop-style singing organization. The group is currently preparing for its annual concert of sacred and secular holiday music sung in the barbershop style, explained the chorus’s director Barbara Nigh.
“Barbershop harmony is different in that it’s four parts, a cappella, but in a regular choral group it’s soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and in the barbershop harmony the parts are tenor, lead, baritone, and bass,” Nigh said. “The lead is the melody part, the tenor is the harmony above, and the baritone and the bass is the harmony below.”
In a classic choir you would most likely hear the sopranos—that’s the highest voice—singing the lead melody. In barbershop style however, the lead voice isn’t the highest, embedding the melody within the harmony and creating a more distinct harmonic character.
Barbershop style is also well known for a jazzier sound thanks to its use of chords beyond the standard majors and minors, like sevenths, sixths, and diminished chords. If all the singers are on the right notes, something magical can happen.
“The object in all of this is to ‘ring chords,’ we say. And if you do it well you can ring a fifth note in by doing the harmonics correctly,” Nigh said.
But how does the jazzier, lusher harmony of a barbershop group like the Tri City Sound Chorus translate into a classic Christmas carol? Well, Nigh explained, audience members who attend the chorus’s Friends and Family Christmas show on Dec. 15 shouldn’t expect the carols you hear in a hymnal, but instead more contemporary sounding arrangements.
The Tri City Sound Chorus also welcomes local ladies to join the choir, even if only temporarily, for the holiday concert. Weekly rehearsals begin on Oct. 27 and run every Thursday until the concert. All are welcome to join the chorus to be a part of the fun.
A handful of the current members of the chorus joined the Tri City Sound initially to sing for Christmas concerts in the past, Nigh explained.
“A lot of time people maybe come to a point in their lives when they want to sing and they haven’t been able to for a while and this is an outlet that lets them do that,” she said. “It’s not just the singing, it’s the friendship and the fellowship that we have together.”
The chorus welcomes new members at any time year-round, Nigh said, but there’s something about the holiday season that gets people in the spirit to sing. For Nigh, and members of her chorus, the spirit to sing is something they live with every day.
“It’s a very rewarding hobby, and it’s really more than a hobby,” she said. “If it’s something that you love doing, it just becomes part of your whole life.”
Arts Editor Joe Payne is always ready to sing bass on a classic carol. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 20-27, 2016.