Don,

Putting together your first quartet is usually hard. Expect to spend a
while at it. Once you get one guy to join you then both of you work on
bringing in the next one. I was lucky, I put the word out and after a
while a quartet came to me. They had just lost their bass who dropped
out of the chorus.

o - I always start with my chorus director. He knows all voices in the
chorus and can often suggest people at the same level. He is pretty
knowledgeable and has even found me singers from other choruses.
Before asking for help putting together a quartet first ask him his
evaluation of your current skill level. Get that out of the way up
front so you have the same expectations. Don't force him to bring up
the subject.

o - After trying the director I visit area choruses and join them for
tags and polecats after. Don't skip the weak choruses. Often even weak
choruses have one or two strong quartet level singers sticking around
for the fun of singing with their friends, especially if the chapter
used to be stronger.

o - Find your district or division email lists and post there.

o - Find the division manager or president or whatever they call it in
your district. He probably visits most of the local choruses and may
hear things.

Our division has a couple of people who do quartet nights to let
people come and sing in pickup quartets. They have a dual purpose,
simple quartet fun and matching singers to quartets.

Being handicapped shouldn't be a problem for most people as long as
you sing well enough. We are all differently abled. I'm ADD and have a
horrible memory. That adds its own kind of stress to a quartet. The
only question that will probably come up is whether you can drive or
otherwise get yourself to practice. Years ago I sang with a guy who
walked (limped) with a cane and couldn't drive. We mostly practiced at
his house. No problem. He had perfect pitch and did me a real favor
singing with me. He taught me a lot.

Another trick is to go to new members as they come in and work on
polecats with them. Even if they are not ready now you make friends,
help people into the style and develop potential quartet buddies for
down the road. Sing polecats and tags with everyone that will stand
still. If your chapter doesn't do pickup quartets after rehearsal
start the practice. Some new members are ready for quarteting and some
are not. They are often eager to try quarteting if only for one song
and often things develop after that. Be the guy that always sings
polecats and reaches out to everyone. The will remember you later.
Reach out to them now and they'll reach out to you later.

Pay no attention to Jon Wagner who has obviously prejudged you and
decided the reason you can't find people to sing with is that you
can't sing. He has obviously been burned so many times by bad singers
that he assumes the worst. He is also a director and coach and
probably such a hot shot quartet singer that none of us is qualified
to sing at his level. People probably beg to sing with him so he
doesn't understand the issues. That's OK. Find people at your level
and grow along with them. That's part of what makes it fun.

One final suggestion. If it is not your part (otherwise why are you on
this list?) consider learning to sing tenor. That's obviously the
rarest part. They are in demand. Most guys (70%) can sing tenor but it
takes work to get the head voice under control and then smooth out the
break. It is counter intuitive but lots of bases make excellent
tenors. It can be a worthwhile investment of your time. If you decide
to try you should have a good coach or voice instructor to teach you
the tricks of the trade. The number of quartets out there is the
number of tenors that want to sing. Actually there are more quartets
than that since many tenors sing in multiple quartets, the luck
stiffs.

Good luck and be patient

BarbershopSteve

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:25 PM, Don Marcum<donconnects@...> wrote:
>
> I need to find three guys to form a quartet with me. I have asked aroun in
> my own chorus, but no luck as of yet. Any suggestions?
>
> Harmonically yours,
> Don Marcum
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>