Barbershop quartets have been singing their four-part harmonies since the 1880s. The Barbershop Harmony Society, created in 1938, was the formal organization of quartets. Originally it was for men, but today it has over 30,000 members of all identities and backgrounds.

National Barbershop Quartet Day, April 11, is a day to reminisce with the sweet melodies. You can celebrate by watching quartet performances online, or simply look into the history of some of the most popular barbershop music of the past.

The first barbershop quartets were made up of actual barbers covering popular music at the time. Even those were cultivated from the Black community, where quartets would improvise jazz harmonies of gospel music and folk songs.

Unfortunately, for a time, barbershop quartets were appropriated by white performers. They were the only people allotted to record the music. However they changed some of the core elements of that original barbershop music. For a while, the minstrel performances were the only notion of the quartets. You can learn more about the origins of the barbershop quartet here.

It is thanks to organizations like the Society of Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing, though, that got the activity out of its rut, re-popularizing it with festivals for anyone to sing the barbershop tunes (and get their credit).

On April 11, you can honor the origins of the barbershop quartet by scatting along to the oldies!

Sources

• https://www.barbershop.org/about/history-of-barbershop/roots-of-barbershop-harmony
• https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/barbershop-quartet-day/
• https://davesbarber.com/history-of-the-barbershop-quartet/