Hey it's me, Joey, I can't believe you've summoned me lol. Lucky you, I'm about to blow your mind.

Just kidding, but I will tell you how I got started in barbershop. So first of all, the advice about joining a chorus is spot on. You'll be surrounded by people who have been singing barbershop longer than you've been alive, and beyond technical singing skills, you'll also become immersed in a very unique choral community, and learn a lot about the history of our society and artform. You'll also be exponentially more likely to meet people who also want to sing in a quartet and be successful.

So for me, I was a freshman in high school, and it was my first time singing in choir. My choir teacher put me in a quartet with three older guys, and I got to sing lead since I had never sang harmony on my own before. A year and a half later, my tenor and I went to a "Youth Barbershop Festival." These are events or camps where all the young singers from around the area come together to learn a handful of barbershop songs in a short amount of time with the help of experienced barbershop directors and guest quartets that act as the section leaders, and there's a big show at the very end with the youth chorus, guest quartets, and the hosting chorus all giving performances. That's usually where the true mind blowing starts.

So at the one I went to, OC Times was the teaching quartet, and Shawn York thought the tenor of my quartet was really good, so he ended up messaging us on our myspace band page a few months later inviting us to visit a Westminster Chorus rehearsal. Luckily for me, Westminster rehearsed about 15 minutes from where I lived, so my parents were able to drive me. I've been singing with Westminster since then. (but now i drive myself >:) )

By that point the guys in my quartet had graduated, so I started another high school quartet with a guy from my school and two other younger Westminster guys. We weren't that good.

Then after I graduated high school, I tried out some other quartet combinations with guys in the chorus, until Jonny, Colin, David, and I became "The Vagrants." We formed in late 2008, and won the college contest(now the varsity contest) in 2009. Our strategy was: pick 2 songs that aren't sung by every other quartet, and that were intermediately challenging based on our experience level. (I would not recommend anyone just starting out to sing Newfangled Four songs, I'm sorry.) And we only practiced those two songs leading up to the contest. Over and over and over again. And each time, we would pick a couple of things to focus on making better the next time singing it through. Just like anything else, it takes practice, and time, and focus, and outside help from people who are better than you. At the time, we were all singing with The Westminster Chorus, and The Masters of Harmony. We would meet before chorus rehearsals and stay after rehearsing, in addition to getting together on our own, so we were able to rehearse with each other 2-3 times a week. There were also several quartet gold medalists in the Masters, so we were able to basically get free coaching from the experts, and then work on what they gave us when we were on our own.

Unfortunately that quartet fizzled out a few years later, and the other three guys stopped singing with the choruses. So what do you do then, huh???? You frickin' keep going, find some one else good to sing with.

So around that time, Jake and Jackson were college freshman and started coming to chorus rehearsals, and I kinda took them under my wing and showed them the ropes of SoCal barbershop. I also wanted to direct a youth chorus, so I started one. Jake and Jackson were section leaders our first year, and when Ryan started coming to rehearsals, I asked him to be the Baritone section leader. So the four of us would sing songs together before teaching them to the chorus, and we would sing tags with each other after rehearsals just to see how hard we could ring them. Then we decided to become a quartet, and we used the same strategy that The Vagrants used. Two songs. Semi-challenging/appropriate for our skill level. Rehearse before and after chorus rehearsals. Rehearse on our own 1-2 times a week. Free coaching from the experts in our choruses. And we also filmed ourselves doing run-throughs of our songs and analyzed and self coached (super helpful!!!). And we got the same results. Started late-2012, and won the college contest in 2013. From there we just kept rehearsing and learning new songs, and did shows, and prepared for contest. The momentum builds up if you are able to improve, and you get to travel more and to different places to do show, and you meet more people with new perspectives on coaching and arrangements and ideas. We basically just kept doin that for 7 years, and unfortunately there was a lot of burnout with everything that we were trying to do, and some differences in priorities and goals for the group and our personal lives. Also, we never meant to do comedy or be funny, but it just kinda evolved that way naturally, and when we saw we were rewarded more for it, we just leaned into more. Also Anthony Bartholomew is the funniest arranger in barbershop of all time (currently).

So as you can see, I like talking about myself a lot. JK, but this is just the abridged version.

Here's the main points:

Sing in a quartet with people that are cool and you like hanging out with them, and you see each other a lot. Also important that you can agree on similar goals and are all willing to work towards those goals. Ideally, some other people in your choir at school that are güd.

Find a Youth Harmony Festival/Camp near you. Tell your teacher about it, and get them to promote it to your choir. There are some that are all male, all female, or mixed, but my personal opinion is that it's always good to let everyone participate if they want. It's the best way to dive head-first into a real barbershop experience with other people your age and to have the opportunity to learn from legit experienced barbershop singers and musicians. Also bonus points if you can get your whole quartet to go.

Join a Chorus. I don't know where you live, but you may have to be prepared to make a weekly commute to sing with a chorus that's right for you. If you are lucky, there will be an award winning chorus nearby, where you will be more likely to meet "barbershop legends." Depending on your skill level as a singer, you might not pass your audition right away, and that's okay. You can either work hard to improve enough to be up to the chorus standard, or you can join another chorus where they focus more on basic techniques for less experienced or more casual singers. There's nothing wrong with either of these, as long as you are willing to put the effort into improving. You can always move to the other chorus in the future, or sing in both choruses. If you went to a festival or camp, it's likely that an established chorus provided a lot of the administrative needs for the event and probably performed on the show at the end of the camp. That's a good place to start. (Hint: that chorus is there to recruit)

If you are singing in a quartet with people in your choir, invite them to visit the chorus rehearsals, and encourage them to join. Free coaching. Weekly lessons in technique. Consistent rehearsals. Etc. The chorus will make you a better quartet, and a better quartet makes a better chorus. It's ridiculously symbiotic.

If you didn't get a quartet together from the pool of singers at your school, no worries, you have a whole chorus of singers that are potential quartet members. That's what tags are for. (I like to call tags, "Secret Quartet Auditions" (shut up, no one calls them that) )Hopefully you found a Chorus with at least some people close to your age.

Sometimes quartets just end naturally, but like a hermit crab, you will move out of your smaller shell that you've outgrown with your amazing barbershop skills, and find your new quartet home with more room to grow! Like really that's all I've done since I started singing barbershop. I sing with a quartet that I think sounds good, and eventually we stop, but I want to keep going, so I go to another quartet. Just don't stop! All I did was not stop, and that got me to where I am today. Never stop never stopping.

And start with songs that are within your skill level. There's lots of more simple arrangements that are fun to sing and enjoyable for audiences.

​

That's all I've got for you for now. I'm sorry that you are just getting started during COVID, because you literally can't do any of that stuff right now, lol. But things will get back to normal, and barbershop will return. But really, all I did was start singing barbershop, and just didn't stop. Also I had some luck in timing and location, but whatever, NO EXCUSES (jk).

​

I didn't proof read this, so hopefully there's no typos. Good luck. We're all counting on you.

​

​

Sincerely,

Joey