Overdue to unleash the power of ‘The Four’
- col-dave-mast
- March 27, 2025
- 364
I tend to be extremely inactive on social media, a feeling my wife and I earnestly share. We both believe if we want people to know what is going on in our lives, they can pick up the phone and call, or text, or write a letter if they want to go really old school.
We figure our lives are our business and nobody needs to know what we’re eating for dinner, what movie we’re seeing that evening or what our third cousin removed said last night.
Nope, we try to live a fairly private life, which is maybe why we don’t have any friends, but that is beside the point.
Come to think of it, I’ve never had any truly close friends, someone I confide in on a regular basis, share my inner thoughts with. I’ve always gotten along with every single group of people, all through high school and college, through my adulthood.
Yet I can’t say I’ve ever had that certain someone other than my spouse who I pour myself out to.
I keep trying to tell people I’m an introvert, but they won’t believe me.
Anyway, I say all that to tell you this: I am about to reveal a deep secret you may scoff at, but here goes anyway.
I like barbershop quartet music.
There, I said it. It’s out of the bag, and now you can all make fun of me to no unearthly end, but it’s the truth: I like barbershop.
No, I love barbershop.
I love the harmony, I love the humor, and I love the camaraderie and the idea I don’t have to learn how to play a guitar, saxophone, piano, ukulele or any other instrument to make music.
It’s just the beauty of the human voice that pounds out loud and proud in four parts, all meshing together to create this unique sound with chords so tight it almost sounds like it isn’t human.
And when that really special moment comes when it’s so tight that there’s a fifth voice that magically transpires, well, that to me is close to heaven friends.
I bring this up because National Barbershop Quartet Day is coming up April 11.
I’m not even certain when I developed this affinity for four-part, but now far too much of my evenings is spent watching Vocal Spectrum, Lemon Squeezy, After Hours, Ringmasters, Instant Classic, Three and a Half Men, Midtown, Crossroads, and my personal favorite, New Fangled Four, belting out old classics and new tunes I’ve never heard before that they created from notes sent down from above.
I’ve watched NF4 (New Fangled Four — that’s right, I’m so tight with the barbershop community I’m now abbreviating their names with great pride) perfectly produce favorite parodies like “Piano Man” and “Stonehenge” thousands of times, and I’ll tell you right now I’ll never tire of their perfect comedic timing or their golden voices as they mesh as if they’ve grown up in the womb together.
There are crowd-pleasing humorous songs, songs that mesmerize and songs whose idyllic chords can bring you to emotional tears, like Midtown when they produce a note at the 4:25 mark of the song “Still Hurting” that reduces me to tears every single time I listen to it, and I’ve listened to it a lot, and it gives me goosebumps every time.
Isn’t that what music should do in our lives? Shouldn’t it bring out emotions of all kinds, ushering in hope, producing joy and laughter, bringing us to the precipice of awe or making us feel like we’ve spent our last emotional nickel?
That’s what the human voice does for me when four people produce a sound that invites me into a warm, welcoming place where I can live out all these emotions and relish something God has blessed these people with, something I can only dream about possessing.
Yet through their music I can almost picture myself as one of them, giving this incredible gift of music to the world to enjoy.
That is what barbershop has done for me.
I know I’m in a minority, and I know barbershop is a venue many people make fun of, but today’s barbershop isn’t your grandpa’s version.
I dare you to take a listen to Midtown’s “Still Hurting,” take a deep breath, block out all of life’s noise, immerse yourself in it, and let the passion, the emotion and the soul of the song hit you deep in the stomach, heart and mind, and tell me you’re not moved.
It’s a beautiful, elegant way to lose yourself in something special and connect with some forgotten emotion.
That’s why on April 11 I will celebrate National Barbershop Quartet Day, just like I do every single day in my car, or late at night when I can lose myself in the beautiful gift of music the way it is supposed to sound — like a magical ride through the heavens with no other musical instruments impairing the incredible, simple sound of human vocal chords hitting every note to perfection.