The Barbershop Singer

Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2605531
AutoresGage Averill (autor de correspondencia), Robert A Stebbins (0000-0002-6192-355X)
Año2000
Volumen44
Número2
Páginas341
Fecha de publicación2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEthnomusicology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0014-1836 • E-ISSN: 2156-7417
EditorialUniversity of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/852542
OpenAlexW1978107241
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas30

Barbership singing is often dismissed by its critics as merely an enjoyable hobby. Though long popular with both its public and participants, it has been relatively neglected in the field of music studies. Robert A. Stebbins demonstrates that barbershop singing is an elaborate and complicated form of serious leisure that provides its participants with distinctive lifestyles. The Barbershop Singer is a unique case study of this significant musical genre, describing the social world of the barbershop singer and exploring its appeal for both male and female singers. Robert Stebbins traces the history of barbershop singing and compares and contrasts the worlds of jazz, classical music, and barbershop as serious leisure pursuits. Stebbins also reveals its costs and rewards, its complex organizational structures, the social marginality felt by its more dedicated participants, and the main problems facing the art today. Although barbershop singing is clearly a circumscribed social world, understanding how it works expands current knowledge of the variant forms of social participation available to citizens of the modern world. The Barbershop Singer will be of interest to sociologists as well as those involved in the world of barbershop

Acoustics · Aesthetics · Appeal · Art · Classical music · Hobby · Musical · Political science · Singing · Sociology · Visual arts · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts