Congratulations to John Kirby, Chuck Alexander, Jamie Marr, and others I am sure. These men have been working quietly developing a relationship with the OMEA so that our beloved music style, barbershop, can appear on the radar of Ontario schools.

Every year the OMEA holds a conference which features professional updating. Teachers, from all over the province gather for three days of discussions, performances and educational sessions. They call it a conference, but we would call it Music Teacher School, a sort of MT-HCN.

John and his team managed to get two slots in the program for barbershop music. Dr Gage Averill, Dean of Music, University of Toronto —  and author of “Four Parts No Waiting,” highly recommended for reading abut the origins of our music — and TNL were the featured presenters.

The first presentation was a short performance for all 600 delegates at the Saturday morning General Session. TNL guys got up before the birds and made their way to London to change into their uniforms and warm up.  No small achievement when you recall that Dawg House Nite was the night before. Your obedient servant rested his liver for a change and made the trip — I wanted to see what the experience was like from the back row of the performers.

Like most conferences, the time lines got messed up so when we finally got onto the risers it was neat to energize the audience. Our first song, “Tonight, Tonight” from West Side Story established the level of competence and interest. However, the great fun was seeing and hearing the audience reaction when we got to the final song of this set. “Yes Sir That’s My Baby” is fast, complex musically and has lots of clever movement. The teachers lit right up, giggled, smiled and finally went nuts when we finished .

The comments afterward were fascinating. Most people had never heard barbershop before though they were aware of the style. Many commented on the quality of the singing and tuning (beware of sending a weak group to a school as a model). Many teachers were thrilled to see this example of adult males singing, performing and having a lot of fun with the music. They said they need this kind of role model in their schools.

Others were delighted with the performance because they are starting to get more guys coming out to their choirs. Barbershopping can be a special treat for these guys. There was no question that barbershop made a lot of new friends!

Following the General Session, the group broke into a number of smaller, focused sessions — just like at Harmony University or Harmony College North. The Barbershop Technical Session was scheduled to be about 1.5 hours long. Dr. Gage Averill started with a masterful history.

Jazz and barbershop are the only new music forms to be invented in North America.  His research has traced our roots back to the early 1800s. Then, from about 1890 to 1915, the barbershop style was the predominant form of pop music. Gage had photos and early recordings to really give everyone a chance to experience the early days. Read the book and listen to the CD. It is a neat story.

Next our TNL guru leader, Steve Armstrong, stepped into the spotlight. He spoke to the music educators about the technicalities of the style.

Using TNL to illustrate his points, he spoke of the tuning, the songs, the chords and the fun. Steve even gave the teachers many tools to help them be successful in teaching their students how to perform our style.

However, when he got into stuff  like harmonic progressions, chord structures, and things like besotted ninths, subdominant diminished fifths built on scale degrees and so on, he kind of lost the guys. We let him know it. I have to admit that it was fun to be able to watch the teachers. They were really engaged with the material and took copious notes.  Despite the joking around that we all did,  Steve did a masterful job of teaching the approximately 50 teachers who attended.

After the class we chatted with teachers and made contacts for future outreach. John Kirby had provided handout material and TNL also had a flyer for the teachers. The Barbershoppers certainly destroyed the old myth of barbershop singing is just four pickled guys crooning “Sweet Adeline” under a lamp post. We have so much to give.

Lunch provided the spontaneous chance to show off more of the fun to be had with our music. The food area was a buzz of people coming and going. Being good Barbershoppers and seeing an opportunity, TNL chose to abuse the rule of “don’t sing to an unappreciative audience.”

That was just about the most fun of the whole day.  People gathered close and personal, grinning from ear to ear with the joy of the music. They wanted more and more. Surely this is one of the huge gifts of barbershop a capella music. You can take it anywhere.

Reflections on the experience.

• 1. Music educators need to hear more about our music because they need it in their schools.
• 2. There is a lot of interest in choirs and attracting the guys to the choirs.
• 3. I was impressed  with the level of the technical detail that the teachers seemed to need. This says to me, do not try to talk music detail with the teachers unless you too have a music degree.
• 4. Barbershop music can provide a lot of great learning opportunities for students — from theory, through vocal technique, to ensemble performing.
• 5. For the first impression, especially at the High School level, send only our best performers.
• 6. Music educators need male role models to show their male students the fun of singing.

Thanks to John Kirby, Chuck Alexander et. al. for laying the groundwork for this fabulous event.

Thanks to Dr. Gage Averill for helping to promote our style of folk music.

Thanks to Steve Armstrong for his leadership and teaching gifts.

Thanks to the Ontario District for supporting years of initiatives by our Youth In Harmony men.

Thanks to all the guys in TNL for giving of their Saturday.    k

Photo — Waldo Redekop The Toronto Northern Lights giving a keynote performance for the OMEA conference delegates in London. k	Photo — Waldo Redekop The Toronto Northern Lights giving a keynote performance for the OMEA conference delegates in London. k
Photo —Waldo Redekop Dr. Gage Averill giving keynote address with the Toronto Northern Lights Chorus. k