ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how barbershop characteristic performance style can be seen as one of several barriers separating the genre from mainstream musics and argues that it arises from a complex of different processes operating at both musical and discursive levels. Barbershop's distinctive approaches to pacing can be considered at two levels, that of form, and that of delivery. First, 'interpretation' is conceived in terms of an outline plan of the delivery of the different sections of the song. The other level of performance choices, that of delivery, pertains to a style known variously as ad lib, free-form, conversational, or 'balladizing'. Barbershoppers' criticisms of choirs from other choral traditions may also frame their complaints about the use of sheet music, lack of movement from singers and conducting styles in terms of restraint or inhibition. The chapter concludes that the discursive meanings attached to the performance style can actively impede the musical development of its participants.
