Jonno Goldstone, centre

Who are Fitz Barbershop and what do you do?

We are a group of singers, all male, who dress up in silly costumes: clashing waistcoats, bow-ties, and boaters. We sing at various events, like May Balls, wedding anniversaries, and we went to the Edinburgh Fringe last year. It’s knowingly ridiculous: I don’t think we could ever be accused of taking ourselves too seriously. 

What kind of form do the performances take?

At Edinburgh we did it jointly with the Fitz Sirens, the female equivalent. We split the show into four quarters, alternating. It was a collection of songs that intersect, rather than a through-narrative. We did see some shows which tried to push a plot-line through it, some more successfully than others, so I’m glad we didn’t try and do that.

In layman’s terms, what makes barbershop barbershop?

The simplest thing which defines it is that the tune is not the top part. In most music, the melody will be the highest voice: in a choir it’ll be the soprano. With barbershop, it’s the second voice down. There’s an extra voice on top of that which is kind of decorative. There’s some extra music theory stuff going on which makes it barbershop as opposed to just a cappella.

Does all barbershop tend to be humorous?

It tends to be either humorous or ballad-y. There’s a kind of mix of songs which you do because everyone knows them, songs which you do because they’re musically really interesting, and songs which you do for sheer comic effect. We have some which have the combination of the three: we do a version of Bohemian Rhapsody, which obviously everyone knows, and there’s some really cool musical bits, and there’s also a bit where one of the tenors goes ridiculously high, and everyone laughs. It’s the perfect song!

What’s the attraction?

From my perspective, I’ve always liked singing, and I’m fortunate because the part that I sing is the tune: it’s kind of a little bit of an ego trip. Almost every piece is a solo piece! For the audience, at least in this country, it’s not something they often come across: there’s a novelty aspect to it. Both visually, and when we start singing, it’s not what you’re used to.

Do you think barbershop has a certain reputation? Is it not taken seriously, and do you even want it to be? 

I think in the layman’s sense it’s not taken seriously, and that’s fine. It’s kind of a niche interest. Given that most of our performances are not given to certified barbershop fans, we end up playing up to that. There is however a small culture of people who take it very very seriously. It’s much bigger in the US and Canada, but there’s also small pockets of it in Sweden and New Zealand.

Do you think things like Pitch Perfect and Glee are helpful for you, or do they give a skewed image of that barbershop actually is?

They’re not really barbershop at all. They’re a cappella. And a cappella has become its own thing; barbershop in the strictest sense is still a cappella music, it’s still unaccompanied, but they’ve gone on very different paths now. My problem with Pitch Perfect and Glee is that I can hear the autotune; you could almost see the binary going across the screen! I kind of wanted to hear what these people actually sounded like.