I’ve been singing with the Northern Pines Harmony Brigade since they started in 2013. It’s extreme quartetting barbershop. You get the music for ten songs in, say, December. Then you come to the “Rally” weekend the following May having learned your part well enough to sing any of those ten songs in a randomly drawn quartet with three other lucky folks. It’s a contest with everybody there participating. It’s hard-fought, although we don’t take ourselves all that seriously.

There are sixteen Brigades around the country and Europe. If you’re looking, you can find a Brigade somewhere about once a month. Some welcome women into the group, some are men only.

Before and after the contest we all go around finding three other parts to sing with. I like to try to sing with everyone else there, just for the fun of it. After singing with everyone there in Kansas, I went back around and sang with everyone again.