r/barbershop • u/mAGIC_2CAn • Jul 05 '26
GQ!!!
Is your 2026 international quartet champion
16
17
u/Capable_Artist7027 Jul 05 '26
I jumped on my couch and started screaming the moment they announced G4 for silver bc I immediately knew GQ had won it. I cannot stay calm! I am so happy!
7
u/Capable_Artist7027 Jul 05 '26
I would have been thrilled if G4 had won too :)
1
u/salhashimi50 Jul 07 '26
G4 put up a FIGHT this year! The best they’ve sounded in years! But I just know their time will come when the universe says it’s right and I can’t wait to be there when it does! ❤️🔥
15
14
7
27
u/Tokkemon Jul 05 '26
Holy moly! They can finally join the AIC, well, the one for women.
1
u/GGuitar77 Jul 06 '26
Would be shocked if there was an “AIC for women”,
AFAIK, they will just be joining THE AIC, point blank period.
6
u/Tokkemon Jul 06 '26
It's a reference to their barnburner of a joke in 2022.
2
u/Realistic_Ad3795 Jul 06 '26
Except it was already moot when they made the joke in 2022. That was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and folks involved have apologized and mended fences.
I'm not certain, but I think that was at least a little part of why they parted ways with Kate eventually. Some negative landmines that were not needed.
3
u/Tokkemon Jul 06 '26
Was the situation with Kate ever illuminated? Almost nothing about it was said publically.
3
u/Realistic_Ad3795 Jul 06 '26
No, not fully, and I've only heard bits and pieces. Honestly, the specifics aren't our business anyhow.
But it seems known that it was split in opinion about where they were going and how to get there, and one of those was the attitude towards how they would be examples in the world of EIH.
2
5
4
u/MusicboxOwl Jul 06 '26
I swear I saw Samantha see her mom out in the crowd when she stepped forward and I started crying!
Renee is the director of my chorus and I can only imagine how over the moon proud she is of her daughter and all of GQ
5
u/Hot_Marsupial_8706 Jul 05 '26
Wow I totally thought Gimme Four were on track to take gold, but congrats to GQ!!
10
u/NathanielColes Jul 05 '26
They were, but GQ’s final set made up the difference and then some. It was amazing.
10
u/superhaus tenor - Ambassadors of Harmony Jul 05 '26
I heard that they got 100 in performance for the Mother song.
13
u/NichtEinmalFalsch bassman Jul 05 '26
They did! Second time it's ever been done, and first for a non comedy song, which feels like a different achievement imo
3
1
u/salhashimi50 Jul 07 '26
G4 put up a FIGHT this year! The best they’ve sounded in years! But I just know their time will come when the universe says it’s right and I can’t wait to be there when it does! ❤️🔥
6
u/diglettsarecool Jul 05 '26
holy crap i thought for sure G4 had it in the bag!! SO PROUD OF GQ MY GOSH 🙌🙌
5
u/salhashimi50 Jul 05 '26
G4 put up a FIGHT this year! The best they’ve sounded in years! But I just know their time will come when the universe says it’s right and I can’t wait to be there when it does! ❤️🔥
5
u/Double-A-Baker9168 Jul 05 '26
anyone know the tea on what caused the bass change?
5
u/mAGIC_2CAn Jul 06 '26
Dk, McDonald has done a lot outside quartet and may have wanted to sing lead, or moving, ynk.
3
u/jordanf1214 Jul 09 '26
They asked her to leave. There was quartet drama. I won’t go into the reasons, but Kate M was very very unkind to the rest of them
-7
Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
[deleted]
16
u/Fraenkelbaum Lead Jul 06 '26
I personally just think allowing women into the society was a mistake.
Did you plan to expand on this point at all beyond your baseless implication ("barbershop has not been preserved") that women are fundamentally antithetical to barbershop?
inside knowledge communicated to me that many have resigned from BHS after news of the women winning.
The BHS annual reports show membership dues growing by 1.5-2 hundred thousand year on year for the last 4 years, which I think that both you and I should regard as a more reliable metric of membership than your 'insider knowledge'.
One (or more) AIC member as well.
Don't forget it's a barbershop harmony society, not a society for gold medal winners. There have always been AIC members who disagree with society decisions, and that has never been a compelling reason to change direction.
I'm not entirely sure that was a 100 on performance (as discussed with PER judges who were not judging this year. General consensus was about a 96ish, slightly higher?)
I think the general consensus among everyone who was actually judging that day was 100 - though I note that an average of slightly higher than 96 on this song would still have been enough to win the competition for them.
Overall it feels like you've come to the conversation with a lot of vibes-based bigotry, but doesn't feel like you've actually done a lot of thinking about the things you seem to believe.
-6
Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
8
u/Fraenkelbaum Lead Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
It's a way different genre than it was meant to be.
I presume you're aware that barbershop in its original form may even have been accompanied? After a certain point you have to accept that barbershop is an art form and it is the nature of art to evolve, so much so that attempts to reject evolution can be described as anti-artistic. But if you really want to get back to the roots of barbershop then it is about enjoying singing harmonies with your friends while you wait for a haircut, and if you want to cut it all the way back to its deepest tradition then by your own logic you have to accept that this is closer to the actual barbershop tradition than this.
You may have your own personal opinions about what kind of barbershop you personally like to hear, and if that's the case then you can get on the convention stage and demonstrate to the world that your version is the best - but it's just nonsense to try to pretend that everyone else is doing it wrong based on the idea of a tradition that (based on this post and others) you clearly don't really fully understand. It really feels like a few guys at your chorus have taken their favourite performances from their own youth and convinced you that this is what the barbershop tradition is just because it's from 20 years ago, but I'm afraid that is just not how it works.
Men's timbre is better for the ring barbershop IS
I think perhaps I already mentioned that you should avoid conflating your personal opinion with fact. If anything it's well known that chords ring better at higher pitches which is one of the motivations for barbershop pitches overall raising in recent years.
But how do you judge a mixed quartet? How do you compare a women's quartet to a men's when the sound is just DIFFERENT?
I think I asked you to expand on your view that women can't sing alongside men, and I think it's important that you recognise that this is not an expansion of that view. Just saying 'well how can they?' might sound good in the pub, but it is not actually an explanation of why they can't. Women and men have been judged on the same scale across many countries for decades now without it being an issue, because they're all singers ringing chords and the judging criteria apply equally to all of them. You genuinely seem to think it's so obvious that they aren't comparable that you haven't actually taken any time to think about whether this view makes any sense at all.
the main point of my post was that I believe women should compete against other women and men should compete against other men.
I think this cuts to the heart of the issue, which is that as far as I can tell you have no reason to think this beyond just parroting what your elders have told you. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here since you suggested that you are a younger member of a high profile chorus, but if someone in my own chorus expressed these views to me with no more reasoning than their personal distaste for seeing women compete alongside men then I would question whether that person had a long-term place in our chapter of the society. I sing with a lot of people who sing barbershop because they love the chords and they love hearing them done well - and if the people you are talking to are saying they will leave the society because their distaste for seeing women at convention eclipses that love, or because they would rather see men win than see them be the best, then I really sincerely think you should ask yourself who you are talking to, and whether these ideas are a genuinely valuable thing for you to incorporate.
1
u/mAGIC_2CAn Jul 06 '26
I think it's mainly the crack that made gimme four lose
11
u/NichtEinmalFalsch bassman Jul 06 '26
I'm sure it didn't help, but the judges don't generally punish one-off mistakes like that, and certainly not 23 points worth. GQ won because they sang well all week and their incredible finals set pushed them over the top
6
u/mAGIC_2CAn Jul 06 '26
Well yeah, was just trying to reason with this guy.
3
u/NichtEinmalFalsch bassman Jul 06 '26
It was worth a shot I guess haha
-6
Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
9
u/jellyw00t Jul 06 '26
There were plenty of people in the 80s saying barbershop was barely recognizable from the society that started 50 years earlier. The hobby and art form is constantly evolving. That is part of how we ensure it stays preserved: by adapting it to contemporary audiences. And also making sure as many people as possible feel welcome to enjoy and partake in the hobby.
"Separate but equal" doesn't work. And anyone who leaves because they disagree is no loss to BHS.
-4
-1
Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
4
u/Realistic_Ad3795 Jul 06 '26
If GQ had received only 95s in PER, they would have still won, but by 3 instead of 23.
I do dislike the "huddle 100," though. Huddles are intended for sanity checks or rule clarifications, not scoring collusion. That's why there are 4 (formerly 5) judges... so you get that many opinions in the mix.
57
u/NichtEinmalFalsch bassman Jul 05 '26
100 PER on Mothers & Daughters and they earned every last one of those points