Information and Documents
Whether you aim for the gold, or want an objective benchmark of your abilities from year to year, the Contest and Judging system helps everyone get more from the hobby.
Note: All competitors must be current, registered members of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Please visit our Join page to register a new quartet, or click here to renew your existing quartet.
Entering Contests
- Review the BHS Contest Judging Assignments
- Learn how to Get the contest eval that's best for you
- Learn more about What It Takes To Be A Judge
The Four Judging Categories
All chorus and quartet competitors are scored in three categories: Musicality, Performance, and Singing. The Administrative Category coordinates the contest experience for performers and judges. A brief description of each category follows. Expanded information can be found in the Contest & Judging (C&J) Handbook.
Category definitions
Musicality Category
The Musicality category assesses the ensemble's skill in accurately and artistically delivering music in the barbershop style, bringing the song and arrangement to life. A strong performance demonstrates sensitivity to the material provided by the lyricist, composer, and arranger, informed by the ensemble's choices, to skillfully execute, develop, and embellish their musical ideas.
Musicality judges adjudicate how well the performance provides a satisfying and rewarding musical journey, grounded in the core elements and hallmarks that define the barbershop style. Judges assess the marriage of technical elements, such as accurate and precise execution of harmony and rhythm, with artistic elements, such as shape, inflection, tone color and texture, use of musical embellishments, destination within a phrase, and development of the music.
See a brief description on Musicality and Performance Elements
Read the full Musicality Category Description
Watch a presentation from Harmony University 2017 on the Musicality Category
Performance Category
The Performance judge evaluates the degree to which a performance creates an entertaining experience or effect on the audience.
Performers of any contemporary musical form, including barbershop, strive to create an entertaining experience. That experience is what keeps the audience engaged and connected to the performer by invoking emotions, altering their sense of time, and creating moments that are remembered or talked about after the performance has concluded. The performer should be encouraged to explore various methods of communication and expression to deliver the most impactful performance.
See a brief description of the Performance Category
Read the full Performance Category Description
Watch a presentation from Harmony University 2016 on the Performance Category
Singing Category
In the Singing category, we judge artistic singing in the barbershop style – listening holistically for ringing, in-tune voices that use a free, beautiful, and rich vocal quality, which is wonderfully unified and vocally expressive.
Judges in this category evaluate the degree to which the performer achieves artistic singing in the barbershop style: the production of vibrant, rich, resonant, technically accurate, and highly skilled sound, created both by the individual singer’s use of good vocal techniques, and by the ensemble processes of tuning, balancing, unity of sound and precision. They listen for a sense of precise intonation, a feeling of fullness or expansion of sound, a perception of a high degree of vocal skill, a high level of unity and consistency throughout the performance, and a freedom from apparent effort that allows the full communication of the lyric and song.
See a brief description of the Singing Category
Read the full Singing Category Description
Watch a presentation from Harmony University 2018 on the Singing Category
Administrative Category
The Administrative judges provide the necessary coordination and structure to ensure the contest experience for performers, the audience, and judges is enjoyable and rewarding. They ensure the best possible environment for contestants to perform, for judges to adjudicate, and for audiences to enjoy the performances.
The duties of the Administrative judge go far beyond tabulating scores and running feedback sessions, which are the most visible aspects of their responsibilities. Every well-run event requires a “go-to” person whom people rely on to help with planning and coordination, provide answers for all aspects of the event, and handle the unexpected things that will inevitably occur. That role falls on the Administrative judge. Comparing the four judging categories to a quartet, the Administrative judges are the baritones, picking up all the necessary “notes” required to glue the performance together.
See a brief description of the Administrative Category
Read the full Administrative Category Description
Definition of the Barbershop Style
Barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a primarily homorhythmic (the same word sounds at the same time) texture. The melody is consistently sung by the lead (second tenor), with the tenor (first tenor) harmonizing above the melody, the bass singing the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone completing the chord. Occasional brief passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.
Barbershop music features songs with understandable lyrics and easily singable melodies, whose tones clearly define a tonal center and imply major and minor chords and barbershop (dominant and secondary dominant) seventh chords that often resolve around the circle of fifths, while also making use of other resolutions. Barbershop music also features a balanced and symmetrical form, and a standard meter. The basic song and its harmonization are embellished by the arranger to provide appropriate support of the song’s theme and to close the song effectively.
Barbershop singers adjust pitches to achieve perfectly tuned chords (instead of tempered tuning like the piano) in just intonation while remaining true to the established tonal center. Artistic singing in the barbershop style exhibits a fullness or expansion of sound, precise intonation, a high degree of vocal skill, and a high level of unity and consistency within the ensemble. Ideally, these elements are natural, not manufactured, and free from apparent effort.
The performance of barbershop music uses appropriate musical and visual methods to convey the theme of the song and provide the audience with an emotionally satisfying and entertaining experience. Barbershop singers traditionally do not hold sheet music. The musical and visual delivery is from the heart, believable, and sensitive to the song and its arrangement throughout. The most stylistic performance artistically melds together the musical and visual aspects to create and sustain the illusions suggested by the music.
Barbershop can be performed in quartets as well as choirs, and can be found all over the world in male, female, and mixed ensembles.