This article was in the Harmonizer by Jim Henry. His main points were that Barbershop uses harmonies not found in any of the traditional European a cappella and Just Intonation traditions, most notably our signature "Barbershop Seventh" interval (7/4) and chord (4:5:6:7). Gregorian Chants didn't use Thirds or Sevenths at all, and Madrigals and other traditions would prefer Pythagorean Major Thirds (81/64 instead of 5/4) and Pythagorean Minor Sevenths (16/9 instead of 7/4).

Pythagorean intervals are based on the Circle of Fifths, and so must be combinations of Perfect Fifths or Fourths. The Pythagorean Major Third, for instance, is simply four Perfect Fifths, with octave shifting to bring it down to the same octave. So, from C, you would go up to G (3/2), then up to D (3/2 * 3/2 = 9/4), then down an octave to the D just above the C (9/8, which is the proper value for a Major Wholetone), then up to A (9/8 * 3/2 = 27/16), then up to E (27/16 * 3/2 = 81/32), then down an octave to bring the E back into the same octave with the starting C gives you 81/64. Likewise, the Pythagorean Minor Third is simply a Perfect Fourth plus a Perfect Fourth: 4/3 * 4/3 = 16/9. From the C to the F, and from there to the Bb that's the Perfect Fourth of the F, just as the F is the Perfect Fourth of the C.

European music styles and tunings used ONLY the Pythagorean intervals, or temperings of them. I think some may have eventually experimented with the true Harmonic Major Third (our beloved 5/4 Major Third), but NEVER the 7/4 Harmonic "Minor" Seventh (aka Dominant Seventh, aka our very beloved Barbershop Seventh).

So, how did we get them, if not from Europe? It turns out that some AFRICAN TRIBES use them in their tribal chants! I heard such a chant myself on a documentary about such a tribe that aired on either the Discovery or Travel Channel about a year ago (forget which channel or even which documentary just off-hand), and was stunned to hear ringing Barbershop Seventh chords coming out of these tribesmen chanting in a language totally unfamiliar to me!

Now, who would bring African harmonies to America, and apply them to Western Civilization music? Afrioan Ameicans, obviously! It should be noted that the only other musical styles to use such intervals in Western Civilization music even today are other styles that we know that African Americans had a major hand in, if not created outright: Blues and Jazz, for instance.

But, there's more. We have eyewitness accounts of very early Barbershop being performed by Black Quartets (decades before O.C. Cash). You can hear this for yourself by going to http://www.npr.org (National Public Radio) and listening to an archive of one of their Morning Edition's "Present at the Creation" installments. The full URL to that particular episode is http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1140109%22 You can listen to the whole show there for free.

Also consider the implication of the insulting, degrading, racist practice of the Vaudevillian Barbershop quartets that performed in blackface. Yes, that was a bad thing to do, but consider: WHY would they dress up as Black people singing Barbershop, unless it really WAS Black people singing Barbershop in those days and before? Blackface wasn't just to make fun of Black people (it was that, too, of course), but worse, to deny them employment. White people wanted to hear good Barbershop, and Blacks were the ones mainly doing it, but they didn't want to pay any Black singers to do it, so they'd get White singers to wear blackface and pretend to be Black singers.

Thus, Vaudville began the stealing of Barbershop from the people who invented it, and our own Society perpetuated this in the 40s until the Civil Rights era, as many chapters outright forbade Blacks. The Sweet Adelines also did, and in fact this is the reason for the split that resulted in Harmony, Inc. Of course, SAI later saw the error of their ways, and opened their membership to all women regardless of ethnicity, but by then the two organizations had become too different in structure, contest rules, etc. to be reconciled.

To this day, all too many Black people consider Barbershop to be just about "the whitest of the white man's music," when the opposite is actually the case: Barbershop was invented by Blacks, using harmonies from tribal Africa!