Useful free Android apps for the barbershopper

Hi,

I thought I would share some applications that I have found useful as barbershopper over the last few years

Tag Master - a great resource of barbershop tags, links to the http://www.barbershoptags.com/ website, shows musical scores and teach tracks for all parts/mixed tracks with the ability to move the part from left to right. Also links to youtube videos if anyone has recorded a multi track for that tag, hundred's maybe thousands tags available. A Must have for all Android Barbershoppers. Tag Master


Perfect Ear - I am always amazed at peoples ability to hear/ read and produce the correct note with ever having listened to a teach track or the tune before, I'm certainly not there yet, but a have a vague idea I'm getting a little better when I run through the exercises in this app. Perfect Ear

Musical lite - want a pitch pipe, there are loads on the market, this one is free, comes with various other instruments, piano, keyboard, drums and Metronome. Musical Lite

Rehearsal assistant - good for self recording, marks with time and date and allows you to edit the track name. Rehearsal assistant

Amazon mp3 - buy music direct from amazon, comes down direct to your phone. Very wide catalogue of music, I recently downloaded some very old albums from Vocal Majority. Amazon MP3

Tap tap revenge 4 - Great Game to play and test your timing in a musical settings. Lots of music available, you can avoid paying for tracks. Tap tap revenge 4

G Tuner - Guitar Tuner, could you possibly be singing the correct note? probably best to try alone in a quiet place. G String Tuner

Classic Simple Simon - good as a simple memory game and to help with concentration. Classic Simple Simon

The Kentones | Shop | Latest CD 2010 - From The Edge

The Kentones | Shop | Latest CD 2010 - From The Edge

Barbershop Porn?

Almost a quartet - but not yet, singouts, and chorus rehearsals

After a successful quartet session in a chorus practice just over a month ago, I agreed to meet up for a separate bi-monthly session to sing in quartet with a few guys from the chorus, I was excited we agreed dates when we could meet up, between agreeing dates and the first session kicking off - the summer holidays happened a number of the guys weren't available for a month or so due to holidays etc. also the children enjoyed time away from school. So my children's daily activities changed around significantly.

I missed the first session due to babysitter arrangements not coming together by the second week I had realised that the situation wasn't going to get any better - gutted!

I did manage to attend 2 successive sing outs which was a great experience, I now have 3 sing outs under my belt - each a completely different venue, audience and experience. A large beautifully sounding church, an outside singing event and singing in a shopping centre, the first as the crescendo of a concert evening, the second as a nice background noise for some people that were dinning in the open air and the last a capturing of shoppers walking by. Also when at the shopping centre, because we were there for some time we got to sing the same songs more than once which was great - by the last time I think I was singing it much better than the first.

Great to be able to sing a number of songs all the way through without stopping for perfectly hit parts or more commonly issue areas of songs in one particular voice part. 

I am always amazed at people's ear to be able to pick out a slightly flat or sharp note in one person in one voice part when standing in front of close to 50 people. The sing outs made me realise on the fact that I know the songs in the repertoire we sing, but not perfectly enough, a number of songs I tripped over the words in one or two places, maybe still not bad for 6 months of learning but I must spend more time on each song on my own - words, breath, tuning and pacing can only get really embedded which lots of repetition.

We have a number of further sing outs to prepare for as the year continues, I am only going to be able to make a few of them unfortunately, a young family, busy work life and a love of singing don't go great together last night we had a good session learning a new, to us, song - "Happy Together" and tried to get "Who will buy" together a little better, we have been given the opportunity to sing in a professional recording studio and cut a CD, which should be a great experience, but the songs still aren't chosen yet so we have been tasked with learning our new song to perfection within 5-6 weeks, much like the voice course learning "Mary Lou" - should be fun, need to get the teach tapes as soon as possible and listen to it to death! the lead part, which I sing, doesn't have the tune for the majority of the song also, so it's a real challenge I think to all the leads especially those that don't read music... 

Wish us luck!

Welcome to aKentone Blog!

Hi,

Here is the journal of a new kentone - a member of the bromley barbershop harmony club - the kentones!

Here are some examples of videos of the kentones from youtube - Enjoy!