Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America

# Sharp Notes #

Publication of the Regina Golden Harvest Chorus

Golden Harvest Chorus meets most Monday Evenings, 7:30-10:00 at

Knox Metropolitan United Church, corner of Victoria and Lorne, Regina, Saskatchewan
Guests always welcome!

June 1999

Taping Session

Just a final reminder that we're doing another chorus taping session on Monday June 28^th. Meet at 7:00pm at New Music Productions, 603B Park Street. We're planning on warming up there for the first half-hour and then taping for the next hour.

Goodbye Stewart

As you are probably aware by now, Stewart Wilkinson is retiring from teaching here in Regina and has accepted a teaching position in Austin, Texas.

Stewart has been an active promoter of music and barbershop within the schools and within the local and wider community. The Queen City Slickers have been faithful and entertaining participants in our chapter shows as well as representing Regina and Saskatchewan barbershoppers for close to two decades.

We'll miss you here in Regina, Stew, but wish you all the best.

And I guess you'll be spending your Thursday nights with the Austin
Chord Rangers? (hint hint – they meet Thursdays (512-477-7664) at 7:00 at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, 8134 Mesa at Steck, Austin, TX USA).

Keep in touch and have fun!

Thanks Darrell

Special thanks to Darrell Herauf and his family for hosting our chapter picnic (today – June 27^th) and welcoming us to their home and farm – as well as providing a taste of the best roast beef we're ever likely to find. So, if you're at the picnic, make sure you extend a personal thank-you to Darrell, Shirley, Damien and Micheline. If you missed the picnic, well, you missed out on a great event.

Summer Break

This winds up our regular chorus meetings until September. There are no meetings scheduled for July or August. Our first meeting back will be following the Labour Day weekend – Monday September 13^th. Have a safe, happy and restful summer.

Buffalo Days Parade

Once again, we are entering a float in the Buffalo Days / Founders Day parade. The parade will be on Saturday July 31^st. We need people to help get the float ready and we need people who are available on the Saturday to ride on the float. If you can help out either way, please let Gord Gardiner know.

Queen City Slicker CD's

The Queen City Slickers have been an institution in the wonderful world of barbershop singing for nearly twenty years. First formed in 1981, the original group was comprised of Doug Richards (tenor), Stewart Wilkinson (lead), Ken Holzer (baritone), and Lorn Hamilton (bass). Following their first of many Division Championships, The Queen City Slickers competed in the International Prelims in Saskatoon, earning the opportunity to compete at the 1982 Internationals in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they were quarter-finalists.

In 1984 Lorn Hamilton moved to Thunder Bay. His position in the quartet was taken by Ted Sayer (who, ironically, had moved to Regina from Thunder Bay). The tradition of excellence continued with The Slickers placing in the top ten in District competition every time they competed. In 1990 Ted retired from the group and was replaced by Vic Goertzen. (Are The Queen City Slickers hard on basses, or what?)

Over the years The QCS have sung at countless shows for local service clubs and seniors homes; local, national, and international conferences; and for Buffalo Days offgrounds entertainment. The quartet has sung the American and Canadian national anthems for NHL pre-season games at the Agridome, and has entertained for various sporting events including "Ladies Night" for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and in the "Heart-Break Lounge" for the Scott Tournament of Hearts in 1998. The Queen City Slickers have headlined many barbershop shows throughout Western Canada and the northern United States. They have shared the stage with such championship quartets as The Boston Common, Happiness Emporium, The Side Street Ramblers, The Most Happy Fellas, The OK Four, The Rapscallions, The Roadrunners, The Interstate Rivals, The Chiefs of Staff, and our own District Champions, Harmony Works.

The Queen City Slickers are known for excellence of Sound and a "leave them entertained" philosophy. The selections on the CD represent a cross-section of the group’s repertoire. The recording was done on a Sony DAT recorder during regular rehearsals at Trinity Lutheran Church throughout 1998 and 1999. Editing was done by Warren St. Onge in May, 1999. "Sit back, relax and enjoy the barbershop sounds of The Queen City Slickers.

DOUG RICHARDS (tenor) is a 25-year member of the SPEBSQSA and is a sales representative for Crawford Homes.

STEWART WILKINSON (lead) is a 19-year member of the SPEBSOSA and is/was Fine Arts Department Head at Campbell Collegiate where he teaches/taught music.

KEN HOLZER (baritone) is a 31-year member of the SPEBSQSA, has directed the Regina Chapter of Sweet Adelines for 32 years, directs the Golden Harvest Chorus, and works for Sask Power.

VIC GOERTZEN is a 10-year member of the SPEBSQSA and is a retired underwriter for London Life, as well as a gentleman farmer and avid curler.

CD's are $15.00 – available now.

Join the Music Time Club

Do you enjoy music and computers? Here is your opportunity to combine two of your favorite pastimes. Some friends of mine and I share and practice songs using a computer program called Music Time Deluxe. You too can join the (informal) club.

The advantages are:

1. You can watch the music as the computer plays and scrolls it on the screen.

2. You can see the words on the page.

3. Your part is printed on a separate staff from the other parts.

4. You can adjust the parts so that your part is predominant, in balance or missing.

5. You can sing along with your part.

6. You can stop it at any time and repeat a bar you want to drill.

7. You can share music files with other barbershoppers.

8. You can put a piece of music on the program yourself.

9. You can even write your own music!

10. You can print out a hard copy of the music.

11. There may be some I haven’t thought of yet.

All you need is a copy of Music Time Deluxe which sell for about $100 at Long and MacQuade, Dewdney and McIntyre St. Your computer system requirements are an IBM PC (or compatible) running Windows 3.1, or Windows 95 or 98. Sound card (Windows-compatible) for music playback. Printer (Windows-compatible, graphics capable) for printing scores. The recommended system/options are an 80486 or greater with at least 8 megabytes of system RAM and SVGA video. Optional MIDI keyboard and PC MIDI interface. If you get the CD ROM version, the disks are available at no cost.

If you’re on the internet, Music Time files can be sent directly to you. Or just give me a disk and I can copy the music files on your disk.

I am in the process of putting many of the chorus songs on Music Time Deluxe so that our repertoire can be available to everyone through this easy to practice method.

Join the club. Just let me know when you have your copy of Music Time Deluxe and I’ll get the music files to you.

Ron Evans

Here's another fun one for anyone who uses an electric shaver and has an extra minute or two in the morning. Get up close to the mirror, put the razor near your lips and slowly open your mouth until you hear the first overtone kick in. Open more until the next one locks. Your mouth can play your razor like a harmonica.

Canada Day 1999

Members of the Ottawa, Ontario Chapter Capital City Chorus will appear on CBC national television during Canada Day observances from Parliament Hall, July 1.

ACOUSTIX will be performing the "Star Spangled Banner" for the Anaheim Angels home game against the Texas Rangers at 7:30 PM (Pacific Daylight Time?) on the evening of June 30th the week of the International SPEBSQSA Convention. The game will be at Edison International Field.

A Mountie always stopped his horse to rest in the same place every day. One fella got in the habit of having a donut for the horse when he stopped. One day he offered the horse a donut, and the horse bit him. "Hey!" yelled the guy. "He never did that before!" "Oh, sorry," said the mountie. "I forgot to tell you that this is not my regular horse, and this one only likes poppy-seed bagels. You see, this is a horse of a different cruller."

Chapter Election Results

Our new slate of officers for the upcoming year is as follows:

• President: Bruce Fish
• Immediate Past President: Dave Pearce
• Music & Performance VP: Ron Evans
• Chapter Development: Bill Coulthard
• Chapter Promotion & Public Relations: Gord Gardiner
• Program: Peter Vanderstelt
• Secretary: Wayne Keys
• Treasurer: Rod Schlosser

The following committee appointees have agreed to serve for the upcoming year:

• Service & Charities: Jack Boan
• Chorus Manager: Stuart Reiley
• Uniform: Bill Quick
• Music Librarian: Wayne Keys
• Bulletin Editor: Bruce Fish

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the executive for their diligence, patience and hard work over the past year, as well as the chapter membership at large for their continued support. It's been a fun and productive year, and I'm planning on this being another year of fun and harmony as we look forward to ringing in the new millenium. Unless we get impeached between now and then, we'll be the last executive of this millenium as well as the first executive of the next. Wow!! Makes you want to jump up and volunteer for something doesn't it.

A farmer was milking his cow. He was just starting to get a good rhythm going when a bug flew into the barn and started circling his head. Suddenly, the bug flew into the cow's ear. The farmer didn't think much about it, until the bug squirted out into his bucket. Yup, it went in one ear and out the udder.

Farmer Jones had heard that the best milk comes from contented cows. Therefore, he'd visit them every morning and tell them jokes. The cows laughed and laughed, and they gave excellent milk. However, the news got around and no one else was much amused. Thus, his cows became the laughing stock of the community.

Clear Lake Mini-HEP

A dozen or so members, 1 mixed quartet and including several Sweet Adelines attended the 1999 Mini-HEP school at Sportsman's Park in Clear Lake, Manitoba. This was a wonderful musical weekend experience for all of us as well as a great opportunity to meet and renew fellowships with our fellow barbershoppers.

Plans for next year's school are already under way. The date will be June 2-4, 2000 and we could have the International quartet champions so mark this date on your calendar.

Oh Shine On Me

(verses you probably never new existed)

My ship is sailing o'er the sea, the rolling restless sea,

O Captain will the lighthouse shine its golden beams on me?

Through storm and gale I cannot see, the billows 'round me roll.

Dear Captain, ride along with me, I yield to thy control.

Oh sailor drifting with the tide and tossed by wind and wave,

Just look to Jesus Christ for light and he'll completely save.

Dick Van Dyke named Honourary Life Member

On Saturday July 3^rd, at the 61^st annual convention in Anaheim, SPEBSQSA honours legendary entertainer Dick Van Dyke, an award-winning performer whose career spans fifty years and includes Broadway hits, classic movies and timeless television performances.

Dick’s also just a regular guy who likes to sing in a barbershop quartet with friends, and in that regard, is a great example of the pleasures of recreational singing as part of our culture in North America.

His recent association with barbershop quartet singing came in February 1999, when California quartet Mutual Fun sang with Dick in his role as crime-solving doctor Mark Sloan on CBS Television’s Diagnosis Murder.

"[Mutual Fun baritone] Les Weiser was over at my house discussing stocks, and he mentioned he sang in a quartet. I told him I’d love to try it sometime, and we got together soon thereafter. That led to the bit on the show."

Dick Van Dyke grew up in Danville, Illinois, a town that pretty well defines middle America. Music was a part of his family life: "My father played sax and clarinet in a jazz band, and my mother played piano, but I was about the only one who wanted to sing. I was already a bass by sixth grade, so I got to sing with the eighth grade choir. I was also a church singer and sang in an a cappella choir in high school.

"I was very active in stage musicals and operettas in high school. The kids today get to do a lot of the hot new material, popular stuff, which we weren’t doing in those days. I didn’t care, really: I just wanted to sing. There were only two of us basses in an a cappella choir, too, so we got plenty of chances.

"I had a quartet in high school, too. We never had any sheet music or anything, we just woodshedded and had a lot of fun."

Dick took the customary 15 years to become an overnight sensation, working in radio, nightclubs, and local television before landing a spot on The CBS Morning Show as co-anchor with Walter Cronkite, and soon appearances on all the major television variety shows. Broadway followed, and in 1960, Dick won the lead role in Bye, Bye Birdie, for which he garnered a Tony Award.

Sheldon Leonard and Carl Reiner spotted Dick in Birdie, and signed him to star in the series that became The Dick Van Dyke Show, which debuted on CBS in 1961. Dick won five Emmy Awards for the show. "You know, there was a lot of singing and dancing on that show—something like 30 song or dance numbers!" says Dick. "Mary [Tyler Moore] and I used to have so much fun with those—she’s such a great talent."

Perhaps his most widely recognized musical performances were in the films Mary Poppins (1964) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). The lyrical witticisms and cheekiness of the Sherman Brothers’ songs perfectly matched Dick’s physical style and well-loved comic persona. In the seventies, these characteristics would bring him another Emmy for the critically acclaimed (but short-lived) Van Dyke & Company musical variety show.

In 1979, Dick returned to the theater in a hit revival of The Music Man. "I’ll never get tired of The Music Man. I did nearly a year of it, eight performances a week. Every night, when the quartet sang ‘Lida Rose,’ I’d be standing in the wings, singing along with the bass. ‘Couldn’t you get sick just one night?’ I asked him, but it never worked out, even though I knew all the lines."

Dick Van Dyke’s career in recent years has been mostly dramatic roles, including the past six seasons of Diagnosis Murder, but music is still a big part of his life. "I’m a shower singer, and I drive around listening to my barbershop learning tapes. People see me in the car and look at me like I’m nuts."

"I like to sing at home, too. I have one of those fancy karaoke machines, with just about every pop standard you can think of. I like to have people over, and stick a microphone in their hand and ask them to sing. ‘Oh no, I can’t sing,’ they say, but I just tell them, ‘You know the song, just do it.’ Suddenly it’s two o’clock in the morning and I can’t get them out of there!

"Anybody who doesn’t sing is missing a lot of the best part of life. I feel the same way about dancing. Tuning and movement are what life is all about. It’s just good for your soul."

Articles in this bulletin do not necessarily reflect the views of the chapter. Unless carrying a byline, they are those of the editor. Items received may be referred to the executive before publication. All chapter officers and members are encouraged to submit articles to the Sharp Notes. Submissions will be credited to the author. Please address any comments, suggestions or submissions to the editor – Bruce Fish, 761-2503 / bfish@cableregina.com. Current and back issues of the Sharp Notes can be found on our chapter website at www.gpfn.sk.ca/culture/arts/gharvest.

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