Barbershop Arranging — Part 7: “Down Our Way” Analysis

Deconstructing a simple polecat from start to finish

This is Part 7 of a 10-part series on barbershop arranging, and the first of three arrangement-analysis posts. The full guide is here.

Foreword

What are we doing in this post?

We can spout about theory all day, but in the end, the most effective way to learn how to arrange for barbershop, is to analyze existing barbershop arrangements. This post will do just that. It assumes a familiarity with music theory and Roman Numeral analysis as discussed in detail throughout the theory segment of this series (see Part 1 here).

What’s the approach?

In each of these “Arranging Analysis” posts, we’ll dissect a well-known barbershop arrangement. We’ll start with a glance at the final product, then dive deep into its structural and artistic makeup before zooming back out to see how it all fits together. We’ll be arranging from scratch with the answer key at our side, focusing as much on the what and how as the where and why. This will hopefully show you, the reader, what makes a barbershop arrangement both stylistically true and artistically compelling.

How can I best follow along?

There will be videos and sound samples along the way for passive viewers. However, if you’d like to pull the trigger yourself, you’re encouraged to download MuseScore, Finale Notepad (Windows only), a full Finale trial, a Dorico trial, or anything else for free—or pay for the real deal once you feel committed. Alternatively, you can use online options like Flat or Noteflight. I personally use Finale, despite its propensity to frustrate. And as always, you can play along in my web-based keyboard keyboard, Keyano.

The song

For this post, we’ll be analyzing the Barbershop Harmony Society’s stock arrangement of Down Our Way, arranged by Floyd Connett in the 1950s. This song is one of twelve in the quirkily titled “Barberpole Cat Program and Song Book,” provided to every new barbershop singer as common repertoire to sing with friends and strangers alike at rehearsals and conventions.

“Down Our Way” (ca. 1950s), performed by Julien Neel.

Down Our Way is a perfect example of “old-fashioned” barbershop. Short and simple, it is as lovingly hokey as barber-arrangements come. However, it is also a wonderful exemplar of barbershop’s most traditional stylistic features. Understanding songs like this is step one toward appreciating—and producing!—modern arrangements.

See above for a demo video of Down Our Way, complete with stereotypical barber garb. And here is the score for the full song, which fits comfortably on a single page:

The printed score of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s arrangement of “Down Our Way” (Copyright 1959).

Arranging from scratch

A prerequisite for any barbershop arranger is to understand the Circle of Fifths. See Part 1 & Part 2 for a thorough explanation of the tool and the science behind it. At this point, the reference graphic below will suffice. We’ll arrange Down Our way in its original key of Bb Major, so we’ll calibrate around the Bb cell in the upper right as our tonic.

1. Coarse chord structure

Down Our Way is an old song composed in the days when the Circle of Fifths was the law of land. It follows the pattern almost to a T. Consider the melody played by itself against the chords:

Omitting any thoughtful handling of suspensions and chromaticisms, the arrangement yields quite the contemporary choral flair! At a high level, we start and end on a Bb tonic chord, consistent with the key of the song. From the Bb chord, harmony can jump anywhere around the circle to initiate a new chord progression. Like a wind-up toy—or more appropriately, a music box—the song pulls the harmony backward away from the tonic (counter-clockwise in the graphic), and then lets the harmony progress like clockwork around the circle until arriving back home in Bb.

Let’s looks at the chord structure of each phrase to see what’s happening:

1. “Down our way, both night and day…”
   Bb (I) → D (III) → G (VI) → C (II)
The harmony jumps from the Bb tonic back four hops to D, then progresses clockwise around the Circle back to C, the II chord in the Bb major scale, two hops removed from the tonic. With two chords remaining between C and the tonic Bb, ending on C implies that there must be more to come.
2. “You know everybody and they all know you…”
   F (V) → C (V of V) → F (V)
The harmony progress from C forward to F, the V (“five”) chord. In measure 10, we tonicize F by going to its own V chord and back, as if we were locally in F Major instead of Bb. This explains the seeming regression back to C before returning to F again.
3. “And even policemen say, ‘How do you do?’”
   Bb (I) → C (II) → F (V)
We finally arrive back home at the start of this phrase, but we don’t stay for long. We immediately wind our music box back two stops to C, from which we then progress to the phrase’s final chord, F. This mini-phrase may even assert to the ear that we never left the F-major area from the previous phrase, since the Bb and C chords are bookended by F chords.
4. “Pals by the score, and gals galore…”
   Bb (I) → D (III) → G (VI) → C (II)
   We move one stop clockwise to land on the tonic at the start of this quaint lyric. The following phrase then mirrors the opening of the song, jumping to D (the III chord) and progressing forward through G (VI) and C (II).
5. “And that old gang of mine…”
   Bb (I) → D (III) → Gm (vi) → F# (#V)
   Suddenly, variation! From the previous C chord, we seemingly skip F and progress directly to Bb. Subversive Dominant 7 resolutions like this are not uncommon (see Part 5), but in this case, the ear has no trouble imagining an implicit F chord as the lead sings a quick C-natural on “that.” Following, the harmonic motion accelerates threefold, with chords now changing every beat instead of every measure (see Part 3). This measure takes us clockwise through D and the G minor triad this time—thanks to the Bb third in the lead line—before surprising us yet again with a non-standard but exciting resolution into F# (a choice owed perhaps to the shared Bb/A# tone in the G minor and F# chords?). The move from a G chord area to an F# chord area is also consistent with the motion of a tritone substitution, an iconically “barbershoppy” gesture (see Part 5).
6. “They sang ‘Sweet Adeline,’ Down our way…”
   Bb (I) → D (III) → G (VI) → C (II) → F (V) → Bb (I)
   We eject out of the F# chord as quickly as we came to it, with another non-standard resolution back to I. From there, we reprise the opening progression of the song once more: jumping to D and then following a canonical Circle of Fifths progression, effectively sandwiching our arrangement’s interesting innards with two prevailing slices of normalcy.
7. “Down our way.”
   C (II) → F (V) → Bb (I)
   To tie a bow on the song’s primary sentiment, we repeat the song’s titular phrase with one last amble through the final two hops on the Circle before settling back into I, all tension resolved. (We’ll replace the penultimate and a few other chords later in the process, but it’s important to understand the harmonic architecture first.)

2. Harmonizing non-chord tones

Although this is an “easy” barbershop song, there is clearly a lot of nuance in its harmonization! The nuance will only intensify as we begin to address the kinks in our chord assignments. We’ll next take aim at the melody pitches that don’t quite fit yet: the non-chord tones of suspensions and chromaticisms.

Here’s a list of all non-chord tones we need to handle:

1. m. 6: “and” on D, does not fit into C chord
2. m. 10: “-y” on F, does not fit into C chord
3. m. 12: “you” on G, does not fit into F chord
4. m. 13: “-ven” on C, does not fit into Bb chord
5. m. 15: “do” and “you” on Bb and B, respectively, do not fit into F chord
6. m. 22: “ga-” on D, does not fit into C chord
7. m. 28: “-line” on A, does not fit into G chord
8. m. 30: “our” on D, does not fit into F chord

Let’s see what the original arrangement does to address these. Also in this step, we’ll append the minor 7th to most of the non-tonic major chords to introduce a stronger sense of tension and release, as well as a stronger sense of sheer Barbershop character:

In measures 6, 12, 22, and 28: The melody is executing the same type of motion in each of these measures, starting on scale degree 2 and resolving to the tonic into a Dominant 7 chord. Provided the harmony parts sing the same pitches in both chords, we’re left with a Half-Diminished 7 on the first chord functioning as a “Dominant 7 with suspended root” (see Part 6). This pattern is extremely common for harmonizing 9→8 motion when we don’t want to change the underlying chord.

Suspending the root in a Dominant 7 chord yields a Half-Diminished 7 chord. It’s extremely common to resolve from this Half-Diminished 7 (left) into the Dominant 7 (right).

In measure 10: We harmonize the F on “-y” (in the word “ev-’ry-bod-y”) by simply returning to our locally tonic F chord, decorated with its same flat-7 from the surrounding measures to maintain the illusion that we’re simply prolonging the F7 chord area. (We did something similar for Mary Had a Little Lamb in Part 3.)

We harmonize the F on “-y” by returning to the locally tonicized F chord. We use F7 since the F chords on either side of this measure are also F7 chords—and because hey, it’s Barbershop.

In measure 13: We harmonize the C on “-ven” (in the word “e-ven”) by tacking it onto the prevailing Bb Major Triad harmonizing the rest of that measure, creating a somewhat choral-sounding Bbadd9 chord (to be discussed in detail in Part 9). If the chord were longer in duration, we might also consider F7, the V7 of Bb, since it includes C-natural. But with the melody already claiming the C, the bass would have to either descend to A and sing an unstable first inversion chord (see Part 1), or jump all the way up or down to F and back up again in a fraction of a second; there simply isn’t time for this given the actual tempo of this phrase. In classic barbershop, the Bbadd9 is generally appropriate when the melody passes quickly through scale degree 2.

We can harmonize scale degree 9 in a Major-Triad chord area by simply appending it to the Major Triad, creating an add9 chord. This is particularly appropriate when the motion is too fast to merit changing the chord.

In measure 15: We harmonize the Bb and B on “do you” using some Dominant 7 sequencing magic: F7 → C7 → E7 → F7. This progression locally tonicizes F again, prolonging the sense that we’re in the F7 chord area. F7 → C7 is simply a I → V progression relative to F. The movement to E7 then abandons the Circle of Fifths, but for good reason: we need some way to harmonize the B-natural, which E7 does, plus E happens to be a leading tone into F, which guides the ear nicely into the F7 chord. We could also have used a Diminished 7 as a passing chord here (see Part 6), but recall that one of the Diminished 7’s functions is as a Dominant 7 with a chromatically suspended root, and here, the Diminished 7 that includes B-natural is simply an E7 chord with the E suspended a half-step (F, G#, B, D). Resolving the F thus leaves us with E7 anyway. Finally, given how long the chord is held and how chipper the mood of this passage is, the E7 is arguably more stable and joyful for singers to sing, so we prefer it here over a Diminished 7.

The E7 functions as a passing chord, sharing three pitches with the Diminished 7 chord we might otherwise use here, while including an E-natural leading tone into F to strengthen the sense of resolution.

In measure 30: For the final non-chord tone of the song, we harmonize the D on “our” using F6. The Circle of Fifths motion is strongly implied in this passage, so we’re all but required to use an F chord of some sort here. D is scale degree 6 relative to F, so in order to keep the “feel” of F intact, our best options are either F6 or D Minor 7 (the seventh chord built on the relative minor of F). F6 has F as its root, so it will more strongly imply the F chord area. The eventual chord voicings and voice leading with a Dm7 chord would also be clumsy, so we prefer F6 here.

We prefer F6 over Dm7 on “our” because having the bass on F will more strongly imply a Circle of Fifths progression from C → F → Bb—and because the chord spellings for a Dm7 would be sub-optimal.

3. Writing each part

Now that all pitches are harmonized with a reasonable chord, the next step is to assign pitches to voice parts. Reviewing our process from Part 3 (reprised in Part 4):

1. Notate the melody in the Lead part.
2. Notate roots and fifths in the Bass part, creating chord stability.
3. Notate the Tenor slightly above the lead on thirds and sevenths.
4. Notate the Baritone in the middle register on the remaining pitches.

This video shows the multiple passes an arranger might make to spell the chords in this song:

This results in a valid arrangement! Our chord progression follows the Circle of Fifths, the melody is in the second-highest voice part, chord spellings are optimized for stability and harmonic amplification, voices are predominantly singing the same words at the same time, and we even make mention of the phrase, “Sweet Adeline.”

4. Polish

That said, this arrangement could use a layer of spit-shine. Here are the five specific spots the original arrangement sought to improve or adjust:

1. The tenor line in the second phrase (“…-body and…”):

Before: The Tenor has to fluctuate awkwardly between E-flats and E-naturals in the F7 and C7 chords. This is both jarring to the listener and difficult to sing well.

After: The Tenor remains on E-flat for the entire phrase, effectively changing the C7s to C Minor 7s. This is much easier on the ears and much easier to sing.

2. The tenor line in “How do you do?”:

Before: Again, the Tenor has a clumsy line due to the E-natural in the C7 chord.

After: The Tenor again remains on the Eb, changing the C7 chord into a Cm7 chord and making the motion less forced and distracting.

3. The enharmonic spelling of the F#7 chord:

Before: The F#7 chord on “mine” is spelled in a vertically sensible way.

After: The chord on “mine” is spelled in a horizontally sensible way, making each voice part’s line easier to sight-read at the cost of making the chord harder to read vertically.

4. The chord choices on “Sweet Adeline”:

Before: The Bass ascends to the high Bb in unison with the Baritone, strictly to be able to descend into a proper D7 chord on Beat 2.

After: The Bass grounds the downbeat by singing a low Bb, then the Bass and Baritone add power and interest by changing “Ad-” to a D major chord with no flat-7. This is a strictly subjective choice, but a fun one.

5. The penultimate chord:

Before: The final three chords progress rather predictably through the Circle of Fifths.

After: Use the tritone substitution of F7—Cb7—as the penultimate chord. This adds variety and allows the Bass and Baritone to perform an exciting parallel-fifths descent into their final pitches.

And here is the result, the final arrangement of Down Our Way that barbershoppers around the world have been singing for decades!

Reflection

Barbershop arranging is just an application of the Circle of Fifths to a melody, but in practice, the process is actually far more difficult and nuanced than it seems. The style has a fairly steep learning curve for those wishing to produce it themselves. Hopefully this post has demystified the process to some extent. And if you haven’t already, you’re welcome to read even more about barbershop theory starting with the Part 1 — The Science of Sound.

Finally, to cement the material from this post, you’re encouraged to print the following lead line and follow the process by yourself!

Next: Part 8: “If You Love Me, Really Love Me” Analysis
Full guide: Barbershop Arranging: A Modern Guide