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Show Quartet Singers Sought by Army Too Many Tenors Found, Not Enough Baritones FORT DIX, N. J. The trouble with the army is it has too many tenors. And not enough baritones or basses. This disparity, at first glance, seems hardly worth noticing. However, How-ever, it is a source of grave concern to a number of high ranking officers for this reason: It may upset the army's current plan, as outlined in a defense department de-partment pamphlet, of organizing "at least one barbershop quartet in every service club and tactical unit in the country." The snafu came to light when the army's office of special services started a 60 day course here in the techniques of soldier show entertainment. enter-tainment. The idea is to teach a small group of soldiers about 50 in this case to teach other soldiers to entertain themselves. That's where the tenor heavy army ran into trouble. With the heart of the music phase listed as barbershop quartet singing, sing-ing, the army neglected to stockpile ' enough baritones and basses. A bar-berhop bar-berhop quartet's table of organization organiza-tion as the army puts it calls for one tenor, one lead (usually a tenor), one baritone and one bass. "We just don't seem to have enough baritones or basses," complained com-plained Capt. H. H. Copeland, chief of the special service music section. "We have plenty of tenors, though," he added. Copeland attributed the overabundance overabun-dance of high voiced soldiers to the youthfulness of today's army. "The average age of our soldiers is less than 19." he said. He explained that most young men have tenor voices, acquiring a deeper deep-er pitch as they grow older. Unfortunately, Un-fortunately, he pointed out, many young soldiers also acquire army discharges as they grow older. Despite the drawbacks, however, Copeland said this type of singing was best for the army's purposes. |
