riks@tekecs.UUCP (Rik Smoody) (07/28/83)
You have struck upon the essence of barbershop singing- You just cannot make chords "ring" unless you sing by ear. Most fair to good quartets do not even use a piano for learning a new song: there is too much of a danger of getting into the habit of singing the piano note instead of tweaking it to sound good. One of the exciting results is that a key change is a dynamic change: there is a real change of mood. And it is not easy to do them well. I have a question: has the patent ever been challenged? I would think that it would be like trying to defend a patent on an ill-tempered clavier: it's just not novel. (But that's a discussion for net.politics or net.law?) Rik Smoody Tektronix