The bung-bung system has a place in history

Fred Hinesley Those of us who have been in the chapter for a few years remember when the guy directing craft sessions or warm-ups would sometimes say, "Sing that phrase saying 'bung, bung, bung.'" I figured that somebody, somewhere, who taught vocal techniques had recently decided that use of this syllable would expedite musical learning. Personally, I didn't think singing the word "bung" would help me to sing better, or hear the chords better, or do whatever else better that it was supposed to do. While reviewing some material I picked up at Harmony College last summer, however, I ran across the following story from the life of our founding father, O. C. Cash.

Cash, who was born in 1892, was raised in a part of Oklahoma described as a rather wild area. His father was a leading citizen in the community and was president of the school board. One day two hoboes who had been kicked off a train by a railroad detective wandered into the general store and overheard Mr. Cash remark that the community needed a schoolmaster.

One of them, a man named Jim Wiley, said, "I can teach."

Mr. Cash, who was understandably skeptical, asked him if the world was flat or round. The hobo replied, "I can teach it either way."

"You've got a job," said Mr. Cash.

Wiley became the local school master and also organized a night school in which he taught mathematics one evening and music another. Young O.C. Cash attended the music classes and later recalled that Wiley taught his pupils to harmonize by arpeggiating chords of familiar chords on the syllable "bung." Wiley called this the bung-bung system, and it made a permanent impression on Cash.

One day some law enforcement officers appeared at the school and told all of the children to go home. Mr. Wiley, they explained, had to go away for a while. He never returned.

Forty years later, after Cash had become a lawyer, he decided to try to find out what had happened to this man. He discovered the Jim Wiley had died in an Illinois penitentiary, after being convicted of forgery. Cash always believed that he was framed.

Despite my original impression, singing "bung, bung, bung" has a place in barbershop history. I guess that it wasn't as dumb as I thought.

Source: Notes provided by Dr. David Wright to his barbershop harmony history class at Harmony College, August 1998.

-- from Macon, GA Sharptalk, Fred Hinesley, editor

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