What O.C. Cash forgot to tell us

1. There is no such thing as being a little flat.
2. The worst (insert your choice: tenor lead, bari or bass) always sings the loudest.
3. 90 % of the members of any given barbershop chorus will consider themselves to be in the top 50 % of that chorus talent pool.
4. The older you get, the better your voice used to be.
5. There is to much apathy in most chapters ... but who cares.
6. Chorus favorite; a bass, bari or tenor who would say, just once, that he wasn't brought down by the lead section.
7. Chorus sadist; the guy who feels obligated to blow the pitchpipe at the end of the song.
8. Stages in the life of a lucky barbershopper:
   • Who's Joe Schner?
   • Let's get Joe Schner in our quartet.
   • Let's get a Joe Schner type in our quartet.
   • Let's get a young Joe Schner in our quartet.
   • Who's Joe Schner
9. God has given man the seemingly infinite capacity to remember countless tags plus one of the chapter chorus contest songs.
10. The three other guys in your quartet will always have the uncanny ability, without any apparent signals between them, to simultaneously go sharp.
11. The guy who says that Stage Presence is an easy, risk-free way to get added contest points should be shot. Twice!
12. There is nothing wrong with being seen by the Chorus Director while looking at your watch...try to avoid his seeing you shaking it.
13. All choruses have chaos...the successful ones are those who hide this fact from the judges, at least most of the time.
14. Leads; the longer a song is, the higher the probability that the tag will be in your comfort zone.
15. Wear white pants to all chorus rehearsals. No one will ever ask you to help with the risers.
16. A correctly delivered relative third never needs to be sharpened, brightened or sung on the high side.
17. Volunteer to be the chorus pitchpipe person. You'll never again have to sing a song outside of your range.
18. I'd like to live long enough to see; a quartet who could sing the phrase "gonna build a little home for two, or three, or four or more" without using their fingers as counters.
19. I'd like to live long enough to see; a chorus who could sing the phrase "strolling/walking down the lane" without sweeping their many right arms from stage left to stage right.
20. Your favorite song, on your favorite barbershop tape, will always come out of your car speaker when you reach your destination.
21. Advice to newly formed quartets; don't ask for requests. You'll never know it.
22. Advice to newly formed quartets; never challenge a heckler to come up and sing it better. He or she will.
23. Advice to newly formed quartets; a pitchpipe makes an excellent medium-range weapon.
24. Chorus progress is made on alternate meeting nights.
25. The bass section: never needlessly disturb a thing at rest.
26. The easiest way to find your misplaced pitchpipe is to buy a new one.
27. No matter how many rooms in the headquarters hotel, the guy who starts up his car at 5 am is always parked under your window.
28. Sound-judges will believe anything if you whisper it.
29. Choruses who don't work at what they've learned from post-contest A & R sessions will repeat those mistakes. Those who do work at it will find other ways to err.
30. Singing lead is as much attitude as it is technique.
31. The best two places to hide in a chapter are, in order, the nominating committee and the bass section.
32. There never has, nor will there ever be, a contested election for Treasurer.
33. The selection of a Chorus Director is obviously a personality contest. Were it otherwise, wouldn't you be the Director?
34. The only advantage to being a Chorus Director is that you get someone else to carry your pitchpipe.
35. It is morally wrong to allow baritones to keep all of the tidilies.
36. It's always darkest before the curtain opens.
37. Barbershoppers will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them that last year's championship quartet/chorus did it that way.
38. When your friend becomes a section leader, you just lost a friend.
39. Be careful when asked to sing the same note throughout an entire tag-it's probably the most difficult part to do well.
40. The most powerful hex-phrase in all of barbershopping: "I really have this down-listen to this."
41. Always try to look your best on stage. It's easier to fool their eyes than their ears
42. No matter what happens at contest time, there is always at least one member of the chorus who knew it would.
43. Although you can't beat the acoustics, think twice before practicing your part to the tag "love me darling and the world is mine" in the men's room.
44. No man who eats spaghetti is truly alone (no, it has nothing to do with barbershopping). Too, none of my research supports that Mr. Cash ever said it. But, I like to believe that a guy who would give us a twelve-word name would have found this to be funny).
45. There are too few really good leads around any more. If you had one in your quartet you'd be competing at International new July. You know it. I know it.
46. If you think you're good enough to sing in a quartet, or if you think you're not good enough to sing in a quartet, you're right.
47. Show me a baritone who doesn't like over-tidileed arrangements and I'll show you a man with violent opinions. All of them wrong.
48. Contests: If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
49. Contests: You have six minutes to make history or be history.
50. Never be awed by what you may believe to better quartets in your upcoming contest. The odds are always 50/50. Either you'll win or you won't.
51. Quartets: They're a heck of a lot easier to get into then they are to get out of.
52. You'll find the best advice for going into a contest on the label of a mayo jar; keep cool, but don't freeze.
53. Judge score sheets: There's no column titled "remarks."
54. Accept the truth. None of the truly great accomplishments of your chorus happened before you joined them.
55. Risers are a big waste of money. Why not buy a single tower for the director. You'd all see him better and, an added advantage, it would keep him from trying to become part of the first row of the chorus.
56. Their logic escapes me. They tell me to take "big steps" going up the scale and "small steps" coming down the scale. I tried it in the key of C. I ended up in the key of G.
57. Yes, we have our contests. But, the true soul of barbershopping does not rest in how well you sing it, rather, in how great it makes you feel while you're singing it.
58. Have reservations about joining a quartet in which the lead follows the other parts.
59. The shortest measurement of elapsed time is the time it takes a good woodshedding bari to; Hear the other three notes, identify the intended chord and deliver the missing correct note.
60. Why is it that 95% of all barroom tags you'll ever hear will be done at one-half the speed of the original quartet.
61. Beware the 'gambler' barbershopper who believes he'll get even on the next song, two at the most.
62. A good tag will never beat a good song.
63. A guaranteed way to increased chorus membership, go out and buy new risers that meet your current needs.
64. Want more money for your chapter treasury? Maybe this idea will start your brain juices flowing. Do a double printing of all tickets to your annual show. True, at curtain time you may have a little chaos in the aisles. So what. You tell them it was the printer's fault, followed by your loudest song. And, besides, it's only a rented hall.
65. Fifty percent of all chapter presidents believe that, when the nominating committee was asking for volunteers for that job, the rest of the chapter collectively, took one step backward. As relates to any other elected job, this figure raises to 90%.
66. The statistical probability of your chorus/quartet winning at the international level is about equal to any two guys in your chapter mounting a heated campaign to obtain your vote in the joint pursuit for the job of treasurer.
67. Annual chapter elections are about as exciting as vocal warm up exercises. Here's a way to really spice them up. Make the post of past president an elected office. You'll be swamped by contenders. Why not? All you gotta learn is how to say "we never did it that way."
68. Tired of giving your annual show audience the same old uniform look? Consider this. Get your local church choir to trade their robes for your uniforms for one weekend. It will give you a brand new look for your Saturday night show and sure as hell increase the attendance at the following morning's services.
69. Without fail I attend every chorus rehearsal. No misses. No exceptions. No excuses. I feel that it's the least I can do for my chapter because, come contest time, I prefer sitting up in the balcony keeping score on the back of my program. (an aside. I polled my chorus on this. They didn't seem to mind. A really nice bunch of guys.)
70. When you can no longer duck from taking a job in your chapter, become the chapter's bulletin editor. To begin with, it doesn't take much talent and you can do the job entirely in the comfort of your own home. In many ways it's much like singing lead; it requires a heavy dose of attitude adjustment. If you can restructure your thinking to truly believe that you are only responsible to some level of barbershopping higher than your chapter, your district, or Kenosha, you'll have a lock on it.
71. Singing barbershop is the illusion of perfection. I delude myself regularly.
72. Ninety-five percent of all leads are singing out of their range.
73. In defense of his suggestion for new chorus uniforms, my friend claimed the "the better you're dressed, the better you sing." I gave it a try. I wore a brand new, top of the line, 3-piece suit to the next chorus rehearsal. I still flatted.
74. If you're having trouble finding the fourth guy for your quartet, consider this: stop looking. Instead, call your three-man group a "mini chorus." It's all a matter of semantics. A mini chorus will fly. A three-man quartet is a dumb idea.
75. Show Chairman: No one ever left the theater of an Annual Show saying, "it was a lousy show, but it did come in under budget."
76. Every chorus requires a contest to sustain it's own sense of worth.
77. The less you know about singing lead, the more attractive it is.
78. Contests: The judge's jokes are always funny.
79. Chorus Directors: If you let the chorus discover your standards, they'll use them against you.
80. Headquarters Hotel: Never try to adjust your clothing in a crowded elevator.
81. Go figure: If the quartet is stubborn and wins, it has guts. If it is stubborn and loses, it's dumb.
82. The three other parts can reform, but a bass is forever.
83. There is a pessimist in your chapter who thinks the old days were better. You know who I mean. You also know the optimist who believes that things are getting better. Trust me on this one, they're both wrong.
84. No member of the chorus is completely useless - he can always be used as a horrible example.
85. The amount of food prepared for an Afterglow, as a percentage of the guest's requirements, is either 84 percent or 192 percent.
86. When a barbershopper tells you, "I'm as good a singer as you are", it means that he thinks he is better.
87. We spend our lives buying new-stuff and throwing away old-stuff. Exception: we never throw away an old pitchpipe. Interesting.
88. The talent of a tenor is inversely proportionate to the weight of his music bag.
89. No quartet or chorus will ever do "Down Our Way" well. A classic case of "no respect for the too familiar."
90. Give pause to joining a chapter that has the local nursing homes singing for them.
91. The only reason our pitchpipes have 13 notes is some wiseguy (usually a bari) can "prove" that we dropped a half note.
92. A million of our standards glorify the ole south, Mammy and paddlewheelers. Another half-million of them give veneration to the mid-Atlantic states, all the way north to Coney Island (Baby). Given this strongly biased geographical heritage, whose idea was it to build our temple to barbershopping in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Contests: You gotta believe in luck. How else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
93. I prefer poor voices to poor ears because sometimes they take a rest.
94. Judges who think they know everything about barbershopping are very irritating to those of us who do.
95. Stage Presence: If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
96. Our chapter named my last quartet "Sans Talent." We liked the name: it had a certain continental flavor to it.
97. My friends suggested I find four other guys and form a quartet.
98. The Devil: "Here's the deal. In exchange for the souls of all your children, and your children's children for the next five generations, I'll put you into an International Champion Quartet." Joe Barbershopper: "So what's the catch."
99. At our last (not Previous) shot at quartet competition, one of the judges came up on stage and drew a white chalk outline around where we had stood.
100. Hell is a half-filled auditorium.
101. The problem for people who don't understand barbershopping is that after they've heard the show's opening quartet, that's as good as they're gonna feel all night.
102. I sang lead in my last quartet. The tenor was a squeaker and the bari always sang the octave to the tenor. The bass, a boomer, was an ex-military sergeant who reveled in bellowing "incoming artillery." We never entered any contests because we believed that it would be a sell-out to the structured-singing crowd.
103. The many hours of televised criminal trials has even invaded our hobby. The Music VP issued a gag order on our quartet.
104. If there is a nit to be picked, bet on the baritone to do it.
105. Pollster: "How do you compare Bob Dole and Bill Clinton?" Dedicated Barbershopper: "I don't know. Who do they sing with?"
106. Want Ad: Baritone for a top-20 quartet. Must have International experience and a relatively new large van. Send photo of van.
107. I've read that 'the fewer the number of intellectuals, the more popular is the hobby.' If true, I've sung with a few of the most popular quartets our Society has ever had.
108. You all sing with deep emotion about Mandy Lee, Evaline, aura Lee, Daisy, Yona and Lulu. Plus, the queen of them all, Adeline. Get real. In your entire life you've never known any woman with any of these names.
109. Refuse to sing anywhere that has hot air hand-dryers in the mens room.
110. I always believed that if I could find three similarly talented guys we would be a shoo-in at International-until I noticed and eighteen inch hair growing out of my left ear. Check your shaving mirror.
111. Why is it that too many quartets, having earned their medals, stop singing the songs and arrangements that got them there?
112. One week after joining my first chapter I walked up to the three best singers in the chorus and asked if they would form a quartet with me. They said "yes" provided they could all wear ski masks.
113. Much has been written about our "meeting night", i. e., did you leave home to go to a chorus rehearsal or a chapter meeting. Whatever rings your chord. Just don't kid yourself into believing that you can do/be both.
114. Contests are not a matter of life or death, they're more important than that.
115. Our Society consists of two groups: the 80 guys in the top twenty quartets and the 29,920 other guys that critique them.
116. If you are going on stage following a Sweet Adeline quartet, you better be ready with your best stuff.
117. Contest Tip: Make sure that your two songs were originally arranged on parchment.
118. A "totally fair" contest is a winners' definition.
119. Ninety percent of all barbershopping is half mental.
120. Barbershop contests are the nation's leading cause of statistics.
121. My quartet does a very animated version of "Mr. Touchdown." I use a stunt-double.
122. Refuse to go on stage when the audience consists of a group of villagers holding torches and pitchforks.
123. At the last COTS school for lyricists I submitted a portfolio of limericks from my Nantucket series. They were rejected, but never returned.
124. Have you ever tried to teach a lead three measures of music in which he is asked to give up the melody line.
125. I sang lead in a high school quartet. After our first public performance my mother suggested that I find three other kids who didn't sharp so often. Mothers are wonderful.
126. I make a point of taking a tape recorder to every chorus rehearsal. My section leader thumps my back and the chorus director beams his approval.. The batteries died three months ago.
127. Accept that every lead has his own "comfort zone." You've got two choices: (a) pitch the song within his zone or (b) be prepared for a downhill sleigh ride while he steers you home.
128. A judge who sings bass is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
129. Bring me a guy with absolute pitch and I'll cure him for you.
130. COTS schools make quiet simple people feel they're complex.
131. A T-shirt seen at a recent convention:
     • Front: "Just say no to singing flat."
     • Back: "Will harmonize 4 food."
132. The chorus carries the director on its back, not the reverse.
133. Have you ever seen an organization chart for your chapter? It will show the chorus director reporting to the Music VP. Get real. That's like a .433 batter reporting to a manager with a one- year contract.
134. I used to be in a chorus in which the director made us learn all the moves and gestures before he handed out the music. That's class.
135. We've all heard a less-than-super chorus led by a super director. Yet, you've never heard a super chorus that didn't have an equally super director. Is that like "you can lead a horse to water but ... ?"
136. Advice to any director: Anticipation is 90% of command.
137. A wise man once told me that to grow, I should "meet regularly with those who hold vastly different views than I did." Could that be your director's motivation.
138. Over the years I've heard hundreds of maybe-true excuses why someone's voice and/or ear was "not just working right tonight." Have you ever heard an acceptable excuse for having missed an attack or a release?
139. On the risers: When you feel terrific, tell your face.
140. A guy in a bar once told me that he had earned a black belt at his martial arts club. Not to be outdone, I responded that I had earned red suspenders at my chapter. He stuck four straightened fingers into my stomach.
141. Ask any barbershopper how many times he flats and how many of the chorus repertoire songs does he know cold-turkey. To arrive at the truth, multiply the former by two and divide the latter by three.
142. I recall telling an audience how much our quartet really loved singing barbershop. They shouted "You Always Hurt The One You Love." I'm glad they requested that tune; we too thought it was one of our better ones.
143. On a recent trip I found myself needing a "fix." I picked up a phone and listened to the dial tone, a perfect F#. I added a third ... then a fifth ... and ended up on a sustained sixth. You take your harmony wherever you can find it.
144. Accept a breath mint if either your spouse or a barbershopper offers you one.
145. Try to get a position on the risers that is on the break-line between another singing part. Reason: two-part harmony is better than no quartet at all.
146. I once sang in a quartet with a lead whose mantra was "Ready ... Fire ... Aim." The District made us disband.
147. Get in the habit of putting you name-tag on and off within your car. Why have your neighbors think your going senile?
148. You think you've been in barbershopping a long time? The first time I cranked out "You're The Flower Of My Heart," a girl in the front row wrote "Adeline Cash" in the margin of her spelling primer.
149. I asked an ex-district champion if he'd like to sing in our quartet. He said "yes" if, afterward, I could get Kenosha to put him and his family into its witness protection program.
150. A basic truth: either the lead or baritone picks 80% of all the songs your quartet will sing.
151. Strive to sing, privately, one flat note everyday ... just so your ear doesn't lose its ability to detect it.
152. Quiz: If one were to stand up in the Saturday-night audience of the next International Contest and shout "you're flat," would he be:
     • (a) subject to protection under the first amendment (free speech).
     • (b) subject to prosecution under the fifth amendment (conspiring to riot).
     • (c) appointed as Chairman of Judges at the next International Contest.
153. I asked our director if I could sing a solo while the chorus hummed in the background. He asked what my other two wishes were.
154. What's so difficult about forecasting the next International Quartet Champion? Over the past five years I've picked fourteen of them.
155. Our last convention hotel had many amenities; bowling alleys, tennis courts, comfortable beds and other athletic facilities.
156. In every barbershop chapter, there will always be one person who knows what is going on. Get rid of him.
157. The difference between Rush Limbaugh and a bass is one of them is loud, offensive, abrasive and loved by a few mis-guided wieirdos. The other's a TV commentator.
158. If you took all the tenors in the world and laid them end to end ... it would be a good idea.
159. Why are Barbershop show intermissions limited to twenty minutes? So they don't have to retrain the bass section.
160. The following comment was heard at a lengthy board meeting. "Is this a talking society or a singing society?"

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