Music

The Music judge is responsible for adjudicating the musical elements of the performance. He judges the degree to which the musical delivery demonstrates an artistic sensitivity to the song’s ongoing predominant musical element(s) and mood or story, as well as the extent to which the musical performance displays the hallmarks of the barbershop style. One of the primary hallmarks of barbershop music is its consonant harmony. Thus, the quality of performance depends largely on the ensemble presence, accurate execution, and artistic delivery of the consonant harmonies traditionally identified with the barbershop style. Indirectly, the Music judge evaluates the work of the composer and arranger. A basic prerequisite for a successful barbershop performance is that the song be appropriate to the barbershop style.

Performance

One significant goal of any art form is communication. A barbershop performance refers to how the artist communicates his/her message and vision via the transformation of a song into an entertaining experience for an audience. The performance of a song is the artist’s gift to the audience; whose experiences, memories, and imagination transform that gift into an emotional experience. The performers’ goal is to create a high level of entertainment through the performance. The means to that end are as varied as the personality, abilities, and creative skills of the performers.

Singing

Judges in this category evaluate the degree to which the performer achieves artistic singing in the barbershop style: the production of vibrant, rich, resonant, technically accurate, and highly skilled sound, created both by the individual singer’s use of good vocal techniques and by the ensemble processes of tuning, balancing, unity of sound and precision. They listen for a sense of precise intonation, a feeling of fullness or expansion of sound, a perception of a high degree of vocal skill, a high level of unity and consistency throughout the performance, and a freedom from apparent effort that allows the full communication of the lyric and song.