Barbershop music
Barbershop vocal harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era, is a style of a cappella close harmony, or unaccompanied vocal music, characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. Each of the four parts has its own role: the lead sings the melody, the tenor harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, the baritone completes the chord below the lead; the melody is not sung by the tenor or baritone, except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward voice leading, in tags or codas, or when some appropriate embellishment can be created. One characteristic feature of barbershop harmony is the use of what is known as "snakes" and "swipes"; this is. Occasional passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts. Barbershop music is performed by either a barbershop quartet, a group of four singers with one on each vocal part, or a barbershop chorus, which resembles a choir with the notable exception of the genre of music.
According to the Barbershop Harmony Society, "Barbershop music features songs with understandable lyrics and singable melodies, whose tones define a tonal center and imply major and minor chords and barbershop seventh chords that resolve around the circle of fifths, while making frequent use of other resolutions." Slower barbershop songs ballads eschew a continuous beat, notes are held ad libitum. Except for the bass, the voice parts in barbershop singing do not correspond to their classical music counterparts. Barbershop singing is performed both by men's and women's groups; the defining characteristic of the barbershop style is the ringing chord, one in which certain overtones of the four voices reinforce each other, sometimes so that the overtone is perceived by the listener as a distinct tone though none of the voices are perceived as singing that tone. This effect occurs when the chord, as voiced, contains intervals which have reinforcing overtones that fall in the audible range. Both of these characteristics are important in many styles of singing, but in Barbershop there is an extreme emphasis on them that tends to override other musical values.
For example, favored chords in the jazz style are characterized by intervals which don't audibly ring, such as diminished or augmented fifths. For another example, Barbershop music is always a cappella, because the presence of fixed-pitch instruments, so prized in other choral styles, makes perfect just tuning of chords impossible; the physics and psychophysics of the effect are well understood. The effect is audible only on certain kinds of chords, only when all voices are rich in harmonics and justly tuned and balanced, it is not heard in chords sounded on modern keyboard instruments, due to the slight tuning imperfection of the equal-tempered scale. Gage Averill writes that "Barbershoppers have become partisans of this acoustic phenomenon" and that "the more experienced singers of the barbershop revival have self-consciously tuned their dominant seventh and tonic chords in just intonation to maximize the overlap of common overtones." However, "In practice, it seems that most leads rely on an approximation of an equal-tempered scale for the melody, to which the other voices adjust vertically in just intonation."What is prized is not so much the "overtone" itself, but a unique sound whose achievement is most recognized by the presence of the "overtone".
The precise synchrony of the waveforms of the four voices creates the perception of a "fifth voice" while at the same time melding the four voices into a unified sound. The ringing chord is qualitatively different in sound from an ordinary musical chord e.g. as sounded on a tempered-scale keyboard instrument. Most elements of the "revivalist" style are related to the desire to produce these ringing chords. Performance is a cappella to prevent the distracting introduction of equal-tempered intonation, because listening to anything but the other three voices interferes with a performer's ability to tune with the precision required. Barbershop arrangements stress chords and chord progressions that favor "ringing", at the expense of suspended and diminished chords and other harmonic vocabulary of the ragtime and jazz forms; the dominant seventh-type chord is so important to barbershop harmony that it is called the "barbershop seventh". BHS arrangers believe that a song should contain dominant seventh chords anywhere from 35 to 60 percent of the time to sound "barbershop".
Barbershoppers may have used the word "minor chord" in a way, confusing to those w
A cappella
A cappella music is group or solo singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It contrasts with cantata, accompanied singing; the term "a cappella" was intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato style. In the 19th century a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were doubled by instrumentalists led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music; the term is used, albeit as a synonym for alla breve. A cappella music was used in religious music church music as well as anasheed and zemirot. Gregorian chant is an example of a cappella singing, as is the majority of secular vocal music from the Renaissance; the madrigal, up until its development in the early Baroque into an instrumentally-accompanied form, is usually in a cappella form. Jewish and Christian music were a cappella, this practice has continued in both of these religions as well as in Islam.
The polyphony of Christian a cappella music began to develop in Europe around the late 15th century AD, with compositions by Josquin des Prez. The early a cappella polyphonies may have had an accompanying instrument, although this instrument would double the singers' parts and was not independent. By the 16th century, a cappella polyphony had further developed, but the cantata began to take the place of a cappella forms. 16th century a cappella polyphony, continued to influence church composers throughout this period and to the present day. Recent evidence has shown that some of the early pieces by Palestrina, such as what was written for the Sistine Chapel was intended to be accompanied by an organ "doubling" some or all of the voices; such is seen in the life of Palestrina becoming a major influence on Bach, most notably in the Mass in B Minor. Other composers that utilized the a cappella style, if only for the occasional piece, were Claudio Monteverdi and his masterpiece, Lagrime d'amante al sepolcro dell'amata, composed in 1610, Andrea Gabrieli when upon his death it was discovered many choral pieces, one of, in the unaccompanied style.
Learning from the preceding two composeres, Heinrich Schütz utilized the a cappella style in numerous pieces, chief among these were the pieces in the oratorio style, which were traditionally performed during the Easter week and dealt with the religious subject matter of that week, such as Christ's suffering and the Passion. Five of Schutz's Historien were Easter pieces, of these the latter three, which dealt with the passion from three different viewpoints, those of Matthew and John, were all done a cappella style; this was a near requirement for this type of piece, the parts of the crowd were sung while the solo parts which were the quoted parts from either Christ or the authors were performed in a plainchant. In the Byzantine Rite of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches, the music performed in the liturgies is sung without instrumental accompaniment. Bishop Kallistos Ware says, "The service is sung though there may be no choir... In the Orthodox Church today, as in the early Church, singing is unaccompanied and instrumental music is not found."
This a cappella behavior arises from strict interpretation of Psalms 150, which states, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. In keeping with this philosophy, early Russian musika which started appearing in the late 17th century, in what was known as khorovïye kontsertï made a cappella adaptations of Venetian-styled pieces, such as the treatise, Grammatika musikiyskaya, by Nikolai Diletsky. Divine Liturgies and Western Rite masses composed by famous composers such as Peter Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alexander Arkhangelsky, Mykola Leontovych are fine examples of this. Present-day Christian religious bodies known for conducting their worship services without musical accompaniment include some Presbyterian churches devoted to the regulative principle of worship, Old Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Plymouth Brethren, Churches of Christ, Church of God, the Old German Baptist Brethren, Doukhobors the Byzantine Rite and the Amish, Old Order Mennonites and Conservative Mennonites.
Certain high church services and other musical events in liturgical churches may be a cappella, a practice remaining from apostolic times. Many Mennonites conduct some or all of their services without instruments. Sacred Harp, a type of folk music, is an a cappella style of religious singing with shape notes sung at singing conventions. Opponents of musical instruments in the Christian worship believe that such opposition is supported by the Christian scriptures and Church history; the scriptures referenced are Matthew 26:30. There is no reference to instrumental music in early church worship in the New Testament, or in the worship of churches for the first six centuries. Several reasons have been posited throughout church history for the absence of instrumental music in church worship. Christians who believe in a cappella music today believe that in the Israelite worship assembly during Temple worship only the Priests of Levi sang and offered animal sacrifices, whereas in the church era, all Christians are commanded to sing praises to God.
They believe that if God
Denver
Denver the City and County of Denver, is the capital and most populous municipality of the U. S. state of Colorado. Denver is located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains; the Denver downtown district is east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River 12 mi east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is named after James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory, it is nicknamed the Mile High City because its official elevation is one mile above sea level; the 105th meridian west of Greenwich, the longitudinal reference for the Mountain Time Zone, passes directly through Denver Union Station. Denver is ranked as a Beta world city by World Cities Research Network. With an estimated population of 704,621 in 2017, Denver is the 19th-most populous U. S. city, with a 17.41% increase since the 2010 United States Census, it has been one of the fastest-growing major cities in the United States.
The 10-county Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2017 population of 2,888,227 and is the 19th most populous U. S. metropolitan statistical area. The 12-city Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2017 population of 3,515,374 and is the 15th most populous U. S. metropolitan area. Denver is the most populous city of the 18-county Front Range Urban Corridor, an oblong urban region stretching across two states with an estimated 2017 population of 4,895,589. Denver is the most populous city within a 500-mile radius and the second-most populous city in the Mountain West after Phoenix, Arizona. In 2016, Denver was named the best place to live in the United States by U. S. News & World Report. In the summer of 1858, during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, a group of gold prospectors from Lawrence, Kansas established Montana City as a mining town on the banks of the South Platte River in what was western Kansas Territory; this was the first historical settlement in what was to become the city of Denver.
The site faded however, by the summer of 1859 it was abandoned in favor of Auraria and St. Charles City. On November 22, 1858, General William Larimer and Captain Jonathan Cox, both land speculators from eastern Kansas Territory, placed cottonwood logs to stake a claim on the bluff overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, across the creek from the existing mining settlement of Auraria, on the site of the existing townsite of St. Charles. Larimer named the townsite Denver City to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. Larimer hoped the town's name would help make it the county seat of Arapaho County but, unbeknownst to him, Governor Denver had resigned from office; the location was accessible to existing trails and was across the South Platte River from the site of seasonal encampments of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The site of these first towns is now the site of Confluence Park near downtown Denver. Larimer, along with associates in the St. Charles City Land Company, sold parcels in the town to merchants and miners, with the intention of creating a major city that would cater to new immigrants.
Denver City was a frontier town, with an economy based on servicing local miners with gambling, saloons and goods trading. In the early years, land parcels were traded for grubstakes or gambled away by miners in Auraria. In May 1859, Denver City residents donated 53 lots to the Leavenworth & Pike's Peak Express in order to secure the region's first overland wagon route. Offering daily service for "passengers, mail and gold", the Express reached Denver on a trail that trimmed westward travel time from twelve days to six. In 1863, Western Union furthered Denver's dominance of the region by choosing the city for its regional terminus; the Colorado Territory was created on February 28, 1861, Arapahoe County was formed on November 1, 1861, Denver City was incorporated on November 7, 1861. Denver City served as the Arapahoe County Seat from 1861 until consolidation in 1902. In 1867, Denver City became the acting territorial capital, in 1881 was chosen as the permanent state capital in a statewide ballot.
With its newfound importance, Denver City shortened its name to Denver. On August 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted to the Union. Although by the close of the 1860s, Denver residents could look with pride at their success establishing a vibrant supply and service center, the decision to route the nation's first transcontinental railroad through Cheyenne, rather than Denver, threatened the prosperity of the young town. A daunting 100 miles away, citizens mobilized to build a railroad to connect Denver to the transcontinental railroad. Spearheaded by visionary leaders including Territorial Governor John Evans, David Moffat, Walter Cheesman, fundraising began. Within three days, $300,000 had been raised, citizens were optimistic. Fundraising stalled before enough was raised, forcing these visionary leaders to take control of the debt-ridden railroad. Despite challenges, on June 24, 1870, citizens cheered as the Denver Pacific completed the link to the transcontinental railroad, ushering in a new age of prosperity for Denver.
Linked to the rest of the nation by rail, Denver prospered as a service and supply center. The young city grew during these years, attracting millionaires with their mansions, as well as the poverty and crime of a growing city. Denver citizens were proud when the rich chose Denver and were thrilled when Horace Tabor, the Leadville mining millionaire, built an impressive business block at 16th and Larimer as well as the el
Barbershop Harmony Society
The Barbershop Harmony Society and named the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. is the first of several organizations to promote and preserve barbershop music as an art form. Founded by Owen C. Cash and Rupert I. Hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1938, the organization grew, promoting barbershop harmony among men of all ages; as of 2014, just under 23,000 men in the United States and Canada were members of this organization whose focus is on a cappella music. The international headquarters was in Kenosha, Wisconsin for fifty years before moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 2007. In June 2018, the society announced. A parallel women's singing organization, Sweet Adelines International was founded in 1945. A second women's barbershop harmony organization, Inc. broke from SAI in 1959 over an issue of racial exclusion, with SAI being white-only at that time. Several international affiliate organizations, in countries around the world, add their own flavor to the signature sound of barbershop harmony.
The original name SPEBSQSA was intended as a lampoon on Roosevelt's New Deal alphabet agencies. Because of the name's length and the difficult-to-pronounce acronym, society staff and members refer to SPEBSQSA as The Society. For decades, SPEBSQSA was the official name, while the Barbershop Harmony Society was an recognized and sanctioned alternate. Members were encouraged to use the alternate name, because it was felt that the official name was an in-joke that did not resonate outside the Society. In mid-2004, faced with declining membership, the Society adopted a marketing plan that called for using "Barbershop Harmony Society" and retaining the old name for certain legal purposes; the old official name spelled "barber shop" as two words, while barbershop is used elsewhere. In reference to the acronym SPEBSQSA, The Society has said "attempts to pronounce the name are discouraged". Unofficially, it is sometimes pronounced as if it were spelled "Spebsqua". In late 2004, the Society established Barbershop Harmony Society as its new "brand name", with a logo and identity program released in 2005.
Although the legal name remained SPEBSQSA, Inc. the decision was controversial, as many members felt that the new name did not reflect a mission of preservation and encouragement of the style. Many members were concerned that the term "quartet" had been dropped, fearing a movement in the direction of choral singing and downplaying quartet singing. A key aspect of the Society's mission is in the preservation of barbershop music. To this end, it maintains the Old Songs Library. Holding over 100,000 titles this is the largest sheet music collection in the world excepting only the Library of Congress; the "Barberpole Cat Program" is a collection of 12 songs that are considered standard repertoire for every barbershopper Every member receives a booklet upon joining the society. The purpose of this collection is so that whenever any barbershoppers meet they will always have something ready to sing; the society has published collections such as Strictly Barbershop. Harmony Foundation International, a 501 not-for-profit organization, was incorporated in 1959 as a charitable subsidiary of the Barbershop Harmony Society.
In 2003, in preparation for a new headquarters location, the Society sold both Harmony Hall, a historic lakefront mansion in Kenosha and its nearby facility located in a strip mall which the Society purchased in 1976 and renovated. HHW had housed merchandising, IT and membership. Operations and staff from both buildings were consolidated into a remodeled HHW. In 2006 the Society announced plans to move its headquarters to Tennessee. In August 2007, the Society completed the relocation in Nashville. In June 2018, the society announced it would allow women to join as full members, with each chapter deciding whether to remain all-male or add a mixed or all-women's chorus. Since 2009, women had been allowed to join as associates. To promote and improve barbershop singing, the society annually runs international and district-level contests for choruses and quartets; when a quartet wins the international gold medal, the foursome are considered champions forever and may not compete again. A chorus that wins the gold, must sit out of competition for only two years and thus may compete for the gold medal again in the third year following their win.
The Vocal Majority, based in Dallas, TX, thirteen-time International Chorus Champions – the chorus with the most international gold medals, ten of which were in succession until 2009. The Ambassadors of Harmony, based in St. Charles, MO, International Chorus Champions in 2004, 2009, 2012 and 2016, their 2009 championship interrupted the Vocal Majority's streak at 10 consecutive championships. The Masters of Harmony, nine-time International Chorus Champions; the Westminster Chorus, a youth barbershop chorus in California started by young members of the Masters of Harmony, International Champion in 2007, 2010, 2015. The Louisville Thoroughbreds Chorus, the society's first 7-time International Champion chorus won the gold medal in 1962, 1966, 1969, 1974, 1978, 1981 and 1984. For purposes of administration of local
The Music Man
The Music Man is a musical with book and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive Midwestern townsfolk, promising to train the members of the new band. Harold is no musician and plans to skip town without giving any music lessons. Prim librarian and piano teacher Marian sees through him, but when Harold helps her younger brother overcome his lisp and social awkwardness, Marian begins to fall in love. Harold risks being caught to win her. In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, running for 1,375 performances; the cast album won the first Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and spent 245 weeks on the Billboard charts. The show's success led to revivals, including a long-running 2000 Broadway revival, a popular 1962 film adaptation and a 2003 television adaptation, it is produced by both professional and amateur theater companies.
Meredith Willson was inspired by his boyhood in Mason City, Iowa, to write and compose his first musical, The Music Man. Willson began developing this theme in his 1948 memoir, he first approached producers Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin for a television special, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Jesse L. Lasky. After these and other unsuccessful attempts, Willson invited Franklin Lacey to help him edit and simplify the libretto. At this time, Willson considered eliminating a long piece of dialogue about the serious trouble facing River City parents. Willson realized it sounded like a lyric, transformed it into the patter song "Ya Got Trouble". Willson wrote about his trials and tribulations in getting the show to Broadway in his book But He Doesn't Know the Territory; the character Marian Paroo was inspired by Marian Seeley of Provo, who met Willson during World War II, when Seeley was a medical records librarian. In the original production, the School Board was played by the 1950 International Quartet Champions of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, the Buffalo Bills.
Robert Preston claimed that he got the role of Harold Hill despite his limited singing range because, when he went to audition, they were having the men sing "Trouble". The producers felt it would be the most difficult song to sing, but with his acting background, it was the easiest for Preston. After years of development, a change of producers forty songs, more than forty drafts, the original Broadway production was produced by Kermit Bloomgarden, directed by Morton DaCosta and choreographed by Onna White, it opened on December 1957 at the Majestic Theatre. It remained at the Majestic for nearly three years before transferring to The Broadway Theatre to complete its 1,375-performance run on April 15, 1961; the original cast included Robert Preston as Harold Hill, Barbara Cook as Marian, Eddie Hodges as Winthrop, Pert Kelton as Mrs. Paroo, Iggie Wolfington as Marcellus Washburn and David Burns as Mayor Shinn. Eddie Albert and Bert Parks each replaced Preston as Hill in the run, Paul Ford was a replacement for Mayor Shinn reprising the role in the film version.
Howard Bay designed the sets. The musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, winning in the same year that West Side Story was nominated for the award. Preston and Burns won. Liza Redfield became the first woman to be the full-time conductor of a Broadway pit orchestra when she assumed the role of music director for the original production's final year of performances beginning in May 1960; the long-running US national tour opened in 1958, starring Forrest Tucker as Hill and Joan Weldon as Marian. The original Australian production ran from March 5, 1960 to July 30, 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney from December 13, 1960 to February 4, 1961; the first UK production opened at Bristol Hippodrome, transferring to London's West End at the Adelphi Theatre on March 16, 1961, starring Van Johnson, Patricia Lambert, C. Denier Warren, Ruth Kettlewell and Dennis Waterman, it ran for 395 performances at the Adelphi. A two-week revival at New York City Center ran in June 1965, directed by Gus Schirmer, Jr. and starring Bert Parks as Harold Hill.
Doro Merande and Sandy Duncan played Eulalie and Zaneeta Shinn. A three-week revival and choreographed by Michael Kidd, ran in June 1980 at the New York City Center; the cast included Dick Van Dyke as Hill, Meg Bussert as Marian, Christian Slater as Winthrop, Carol Arthur as Mrs. Paroo, Iggie Wolfington as Mayor Shinn. In 1987, a Chinese translation of the musical was staged at Beijing's Central Opera Theater. New York City Opera staged a revival from February to April 1988, directed by Arthur Masella and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, starring Bob Gunton as Hill, with Muriel Costa-Greenspon as Eulalie and James Billings as Marcellus. Another Broadway revival and choreographed by Susan Stroman, opened on April 27, 2000 at the Neil Simon Theatre, where it ran for 699 performances and 22 previews; the cast included Craig Bierko as Rebecca Luker as Marian. Robert Sean Leonard and Eric McCormack portrayed Hill in the run. In 2008, there was a revival at the Chichester Festival Theatre, starring Brian Conley as Hill and Scarlett Strallen as Marian.
A Broadway revival is planned to begin previews on September 9, 2020, open on October 22, starring Hugh Jackman as Hill and Sutton Foster as Marian, pro
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Bart and Maggie; the show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society and the human condition. The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name; the shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season. Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 659 episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast, it is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American scripted primetime television series in terms of seasons and number of episodes.
The Simpsons Movie, a feature-length film, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, grossed over $527 million. On October 30, 2007, a video game was released; the Simpsons is on its thirtieth season, which began airing September 30, 2018. The Simpsons was renewed for a thirty-first and thirty-second season on February 6, 2019, in which the latter will contain the 700th episode; the Simpsons received acclaim throughout its first nine or ten seasons, which are considered its "Golden Age". Time named it the 20th century's best television series, Erik Adams of The A. V. Club named it "television's crowning achievement regardless of format". On January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 31 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Annie Awards, a Peabody Award. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many other adult-oriented animated sitcoms.
However, it has been criticized for a perceived decline in quality over the years. The Simpsons is known for its wide ensemble of supporting characters; the main characters are the Simpson family, who live in a fictional "Middle America" town of Springfield. Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality, he is married to a stereotypical American housewife and mother. They have three children: a ten-year-old troublemaker and prankster. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are shown to care about one another. Homer's dad Grampa Simpson lives in the Springfield Retirement Home after Homer forced his dad to sell his house so that his family could buy theirs. Grampa Simpson has had starring roles in several episodes; the family owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, a cat, Snowball V, renamed Snowball II in "I, -Bot". Both pets have had starring roles in several episodes.
The show includes an array of quirky supporting characters, which include Homer's co-workers Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson, the school principal Seymour Skinner and teachers Edna Krabappel and Elizabeth Hoover, neighbor Ned Flanders, friends Barney Gumble, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Moe Szyslak, Milhouse Van Houten, Nelson Muntz, extended relatives Patty and Selma Bouvier, townspeople such as Mayor Quimby, Chief Clancy Wiggum, tycoon Charles Montgomery Burns and his executive assistant Waylon Smithers, local celebrities Krusty the Clown and news reporter Kent Brockman. The creators intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A number of them subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV. Despite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays passing, the characters do not age between episodes, appear just as they did when the series began.
The series uses a floating timeline in which episodes take place in the year the episode is produced though the characters do not age. Flashbacks and flashforwards do depict the characters at other points in their lives, with the timeline of these depictions generally floating relative to the year the episode is produced. For example, in the 1991 episode "I Married Marge", Bart appears to be born in 1980 or 1981, but in the 1995 episode "And Maggie Makes Three", Maggie appears to be born in 1993 or 1994. A canon of the show does exist, although Treehouse of Horror episodes and any fictional story told within the series are non-canon. However, continuity is limited in The Simpsons. For example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but may not be able to read in another. Lessons learned by the family in one episode may be forgotten in the next; some examples of limited continuity include Sideshow Bob's appearances where Bart and Lisa flashback at all the crimes he committed in Springfield or when the characters try to remember things that happened in previous episodes.
The Simpsons takes place in the fictional American town of Springfield in an unknown and impossible-to-determine U. S. state. The show is intentionally e
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress. In her six decades of show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma!, The Music Man. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry, she played the lead role of Shirley Partridge, the widowed mother of five children, in the musical situation-comedy television series The Partridge Family, which co-starred her real-life stepson, David Cassidy, son of Jack Cassidy. Jones was born on March 31, 1934, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Methodist parents Marjorie, a homemaker, Paul Jones, owners of the Jones Brewing Company. Jones' paternal grandfather came from Wales, she was named for child star Shirley Temple. The family moved to the small nearby town of Smithton, Pennsylvania. Jones began singing at the age of six in the Methodist Church choir and took voice lessons from Ralph Lewando. Upon attending South Huntingdon High School in Ruffs Dale, she participated in school plays.
Jones won the Miss Pittsburgh contest in 1952. Her first audition was for an open biweekly casting call held by John Fearnley, casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein and their various musicals. At the time, Jones had never heard of Hammerstein. Fearnley was so impressed, he ran across the street to fetch Richard Rodgers, rehearsing with an orchestra for an upcoming musical. Rodgers called Oscar Hammerstein at home; the two saw great potential in Jones. She became the only singer to be put under personal contract with the songwriters, they first cast her in a minor role in South Pacific. For her second Broadway show, Me and Juliet, she started as a chorus girl, an understudy for the lead role, earning rave reviews in Chicago. Jones impressed Rodgers and Hammerstein with her musically trained voice, she was cast as the female lead in the film adaptation of their hit musical Oklahoma! in 1955. Other film musicals followed, including Carousel, April Love, The Music Man, in which she was typecast as a wholesome, kind character.
However, she won a 1960 Academy Award for her performance in Elmer Gantry portraying a woman corrupted by the title character played by Burt Lancaster. Her character becomes a prostitute who encounters her seducer years and takes her revenge; the director, Richard Brooks, had fought against her being in the movie, but after seeing her first scene, told her she would win an Oscar for her performance. She was reunited with Ron Howard in The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Jones landed the role of a lady. In 1970, after turning down the role of Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, a role that went to her best friend, Florence Henderson, Jones was the producers' first choice to audition for the lead role of Shirley Partridge in The Partridge Family, an ABC musical sitcom based loosely on the real-life musical family The Cowsills; the series focused on a young widowed mother whose five children form a pop rock group after the entire family painted its signature bus to travel. She was convinced that the combination of comedy would be a surefire hit.
Jones realized, that: The problem with Partridge—though it was great for me and gave me an opportunity to stay home and raise my kids—when my agents came to me and presented it to me, they said if you do a series and it becomes a hit show, you will be that character for the rest of your life and your film career will go into the toilet, what happened. But I have no regrets. During its first season, it was screened in over 70 countries. Within months and her co-stars were pop culture television icons, her real-life 20-year-old stepson David Cassidy, an unknown actor at the time, played Shirley Partridge's eldest son Keith and became a teen idol. The show spawned a number of albums and singles by The Partridge Family, performed by David Cassidy and Shirley Jones; that same year, "I Think I Love You" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart, making Jones the second person, after Frank Sinatra, the first woman to win an acting Oscar and have a number-one hit on that chart, an achievement only matched by Cher and Barbra Streisand.
The Partridge Family won a NARM award for the best-selling single of the year in 1970 for their hit "I Think I Love You". In 1971, The Partridge Family was nominated for a Grammy under the Best New Artist category. By 1974, it was one of six series to be canceled that year to make room for new shows. Shirley Jones's friendship with David Cassidy's family began in the mid-to-late 1950s, when David was just six, after he learned about his father's divorce from his mother Evelyn Ward. Upon David's first meeting with Shirley before co-starring with her on The Partridge Family, he said, "The day he tells me that they're divorced, he tells me,'We're remarried, let me introduce you to my new wife.' He was thrilled when her first film, Oklahoma!, had come out. She's a warm, sweet, good human being, she couldn't have thawed it for me—the coldness and the ice—any more than she did." Shirley was shocked to hear her real-lif
Media related to Barbershop quartets at Wikimedia Commons