Sweet Adelines International 75th Jubilee Commemorative Album

KEEPING SCORE: A HISTORY OF THE SWEET ADELINES JUDGING PROGRAM THE BEGINNING SPOTLIGHT: JUDGING PROGRAM

We are not competing against each other, but for a perfect score. — overheard by Vi Smythe, contributing editor ( The Pitch Pipe , Aug. 1959)

We don’t gather each year for the annual Sweet Adelines Reunion and Convention. We convene and compete. In each contest, there is one quartet and one chorus that stand alone. Judges have to be right very, very quickly. Before you’ve taken your second breath onstage, they have pegged your performance level A through C…In eight to ten seconds, they have already started writing something on the scoresheet…you can see this and you’re mildly annoyed. “Hello! I’m singing here!” But somehow they’ve learned this skill. No one springs from the womb with the gift to instantly level barbershop performances. The judging program is of great importance to our organization as the judges can be seen as the guardians of our high musical standards — they are the last word in competition, our most valuable educational tool without which we likely would not exist. Our newborn organization relied on members of the then Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), now called the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS), to judge our contest in five categories — Arrangement; Harmony and Tone Accuracy; Blend, Balance, and Expression; Attacks, Releases, and Diction; and Stage Presence. Our first national quartet contest was held in 1947. The combined regions #5 and #6 followed with a regional chorus contest 1951. There were two judges in each of the five categories plus two timekeepers and a secretary to tally the scores — a total of 13 panel members! By 1952, the very first Special Judging Committee was born with the express purpose of revising the rules and regulations and devising a program through which Sweet Adelines members could become judges through rigorous training and education. Seventy-five applications were received during the first year (1954). There were not only judges in this program, but also auditors and timekeepers. The very next year, the “special“ was dropped from the title of this committee and it became a standing entity that has developed and changed over the years, now known as the Judge Specialists, with support from the Education Direction Committee (EDC). The official rules of judging were rigid — a quartet could lose one point for each improperly enunciated word and up to 50 points for a “careless appearance” or “awkwardness in presentation.” If a competing quartet appeared in the audience during the contest, they were likely to be disqualified! No quartet member could leave a special holding area where all 56 (!) quartets and their coaches stayed together. They were actually locked in a room and guarded, only allowed

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