Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


48166.pdf (9.7 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

The Improvisation and Preservation of Barbershop Harmony: Parsimonious Voice Leading and the Harmonic Highway

Wittenberg, Andrew
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1721145191715429

Abstract Details

2024, PhD, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music: Theory.
This dissertation explores the tension between improvisation and preservation in the development of the barbershop style. Barbershop music is an American genre of a cappella vocal music originating in improvisational singing by African Americans in the late 19th century. Barbershop singing was widespread in the first two decades of the 20th century, but later declined in popularity until a group of Midwesterners founded the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA) in 1938. This Society was built on nostalgia and a desire to preserve “the old songs” and the practice of barbershop quartet singing. Preservation was primarily accomplished through contest rules, which outlined the mandatory elements of the barbershop style. In this dissertation, I emphasize the importance of improvisation in the formation of barbershop music. I explore the role Society preservation efforts played in codifying certain elements of contemporary practice and provide detailed explication and analysis of SPEBSQSA music theoretical sources. I identify weaknesses in existing barbershop theory for explaining certain chromatic progressions that are idiomatic to the style and suggest that these progressions are evidence of the Black improvised origin of the style. By applying modern neo-Riemannian theory methodologies, I demonstrate that parsimonious voice leading is a key organizing principle of barbershop music that can be visualized through graphical representations of seventh chord harmonic spaces. These findings allow me to present a comprehensive theory of barbershop harmonic practice, which I employ in a thorough study of harmony and voice leading in barbershop endings, called tags.
Christopher Segall, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Stephen Meyer, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
David Carson Berry, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
238 p.
Music
Barbershop Harmony; American Music; Music Theory; Neo-Riemannian Theory; Improvisation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wittenberg, A. (2024). The Improvisation and Preservation of Barbershop Harmony: Parsimonious Voice Leading and the Harmonic Highway [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1721145191715429

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wittenberg, Andrew. The Improvisation and Preservation of Barbershop Harmony: Parsimonious Voice Leading and the Harmonic Highway. 2024. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1721145191715429.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wittenberg, Andrew. "The Improvisation and Preservation of Barbershop Harmony: Parsimonious Voice Leading and the Harmonic Highway." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2024. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1721145191715429

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1721145191715429
125
© 2024, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.