The mustachioed, gray-haired men spring to attention at the bark of a pitch pipe.
It’s a Monday just like any other.
Their plastic chairs slide back in unison as they leap from them—aging knees be damned—to hurry into position in the center of the old church on Erikson Avenue.
It’s time for barbershop.
The fluorescent lights bounce off of their balding heads as they take their first, collective breath.
They sing for two hours on and off—used to be three, when they had more members—and crack jokes about each other and themselves. Their voices, both high and low, spread warmth onto the sterile, white walls of the church’s kitchen.
Each time they lower themselves back into their plastic folding chairs, the 10 men sit in a half-moon around nothing, tapping their feet, waiting in anticipation for their leader, Tom Pearce, to sound the pipe again.
He does. Shoes squeak on the linoleum floors to the tune of the 1956 classic “In the Still of the Night.” This one involves some light choreography.
“Stop moving like that,” one gentleman with a full-head of long hair whispers to the tall fellow next to him.
“Just stay still,” he scolds.
Their moves are subtle and meaningful, and when they sing, their voices sound like a special program on an old recorder, complete with a 1940’s transatlantic accent.
Hearing it is like climbing into a time capsule: their sound blows a dent in the present, suspends it, and then rewinds the listeners, who sit on the edges of their seats. Suddenly, it’s a Sunday, in the backseat of Dad’s car (a convertible without seatbelts, of course) and he’s singing Sinatra on the way to McDonald’s after sitting through the weekly service. It’s undeniably nostalgic, American. And the macho, spry men singing it remember it that way, too.
The two hours pass too quickly for the men, and before they know it they’re shuffling out the door. They don’t stick around and talk for long. It’s late, almost nine o’ clock, and everyone has a bed at home waiting on them.
The Harmonizers meet this way every week to honor an antiquated tradition, one built on male camaraderie, cadence, and culture. Barbershop has been a community for many, a sport for men who are too old for running, too talented for singing alone, or have too much time and no place to spend it.
Now, they spend a lot of it in rehearsals, performances, and competitions. The group is solidly booked from December to February for the holiday season. It takes quite a time commitment to be this successful, but luckily most of the members are retired.
For that majority, the songs come easy. They’ve memorized them, as per barbershop expectations, and the older songs prove forgiving material for finding melody and harmonies.
Their favorite piece, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” from 1910 is a staple for the Harmonizers, and they sing it to embarrassed, but flattered ladies every Valentine’s Day upon husbands’ requests. Can’t find it on the radio? Forget it. It’s older than that. The only thing that sounds even close to it is your great-grandpa’s dusty Victrola in the attic, the one you haven’t quite gotten around to fixing up.
The difference between the album and the performance is that these men breathe. And wear suits. Bring life to forgotten notes.
That is, until now. Twenty years ago, Pearce thought they’d last forever. After 25 years of singing barbershop, the chapter’s leader suspects it’ll all end with him.
He’s not the only one with concerns. The Barbershop Harmony Society, a national program that encompasses local chapters, has been competing against the years, as fewer and fewer new voices join. They’re hoping to shake off the wrinkling face of barbershop by allowing new groups to sing modern numbers at competitions. So far, it’s helped. In the larger chapters, at least.
The Harrisonburg’s Harmonizers are a smaller group, though. There’s 10 of them, with the oldest member at 85. Pearce isn’t far behind. He’s worried about the club’s legacy, the future of barbershop, time.
He watches as his contemporaries pass on, the numbers dwindling down each day. He thinks about his age, on his walks, and the messy order of dying.
“You reach an age, and it’s over,” he says with a sigh, “But then, someone else takes your place.”
He fears that barbershop might be different, that no one’s going to step up to take his place. That generations will dissolve it into nothing. That all the brotherhood, memories, years, joy—that it’ll all fade into a quiet obsolescence.
But the addictive quality of barbershop begs to differ. The youngest member the chapter’s ever had is 26, and though his age had made him an outlier, Josh Tennant became the exception to a not-so-hard, not-so-fast rule.
The music of barbershop has been evolving. So have the faces. The society is not only including younger singers, but women as well, and some of them are leading chapters. The unusual is becoming expected, and songs at competition are getting hipper and hipper every season. The Harrisonburg Harmonizers are trying to keep up as Pearce struggles to find the balance between tradition and opportunity. But finding it won’t make change any easier.
The formula is changing, but Tennant is optimistic that the institution is sticking around, even in Harrisonburg. For him, the art is about the chords— the way they ring when the harmony hits their notes just right. That feeling, that sound, is what makes barbershop timeless. Even though time may be the one thing they’re running from.