Trust your instincts
I had a great day with the fabulous Noteworthy quartet last weekend. They all sing in my chorus so I know them well, and they're currently preparing for their return to LABBS Quartet Prelims in June. Having won Most Improved Quartet not just once but two years on the trot, and qualifying for the semi-finals last year, I'd say Noteworthy are on something of a contest high!
We talked a lot about interpretation during our session. This is a set of challenges that barbershoppers are almost uniquely faced with. Arrangers leave barbershop charts deliberately void of any dynamic markings, and are generally pretty conservative about tempo markings and other detail on expression or performance.
I think this because in barbershop, unlike in classical music, the performer is paramount rather than the composer or arranger. We are getting much better at crediting arrangers in barbershop, but nobody is going to barbershop concerts celebrating the work of Melody Hine, or buying compilation CDs of David Wrights arrangements (although I would almost definitely pay for both of those things). But people do go to concerts specifically for the purpose of hearing Bach or Mozart.
The point is that barbershop arrangers want to leave room for interpretation in their work, so that performers can step in and make their own creative decisions about how to use dynamics, tempo changes, and other expression in their performance.
This sounds great, but it means that performers can often be deeply confused about how they should be performing a song. Landing on a great interpretation is a skill that can really only be gained with experience.
There is also a lot of weird and conflicting advice on interpretation. Phrases like "sing it how you say it" and "forward motion" lead groups to make decisions that actually don't make much musical sense. They sing beautiful ballads way too fast, or gloss over the best chords, because they are focused on the one or two interpretive tools they've been coached on.
I sensed a bit of confusion in Noteworthy this weekend. They had some interesting ideas on individual phrases in their contest ballad, but it didn't make a ton of sense overall. And the decisions they'd made in favour of forward motion or "conversationalness" were sacrificing ebb and flow, and we were leaving a lot of barbershop juice un-squeezed.
To be honest, all I needed to do was to give them permission to trust their instincts. The moment we started picking apart their plan, they started saying things like, "Yeah, I never really liked how we do that but I feel like we have to cos something something forward motion?"
Hopefully we landed on something that puts the music and storytelling first, rather than trying to tick a particular box for the judges. We can often fixate on buzz-phrases like forward motion, but ultimately I've always found that singing in a way that feels right, and honours the music and the song, is the best place to start. And arrangers often leave more clues than we think.