HT Experiences

[Ed Carwithen]

As a horn player, and a Barbershopper....

In the horn section we tune fifths as pure as we can get them, and the
thirds to sound "rich."  Especially the sequence known as "horn fifths"
which composers enjoy employing, sounds grand when done by a couple of horn
players experienced enough with each other to tune those babies to
impeccable degree.

Barbershoppers work on pure intervals with almost every chord they sing.
The "barbershop" ring has the stacked root, fifth, octave and octave +
third of a chord tuned so that the harmonics sing like a fifth or even at
times a six voice above.  In a hall with any kind of acoustics at all the
overtones sing as loudly as the musicians.  
  Barbershoppers usually avoid learning their music with any keyboard such
as a piano, in order to avoid the ET intervals which would interfere with
the proper tuning of those "barbershop chords."

  And it is a glorious sound.  The most wonderful sound I have ever
experienced was 700 men singing a barbershop arrangement of the Lord's
Prayer in an auditorium that seated about 600 people.  I still get chills
just remembering that overwhelming sound of pure intervals.

Ed Carwithen
John Day