Carbershop brings Regina men together for 'harmonic euphoria' through radio dial

A Regina barbershop chorus is tuning their car radios along with their voices to sing safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Living Skies Chorus has been doing drive-in rehearsals in the parking lot of Thom Collegiate.

They sing in their cars through wireless mics that feed into a mixer and are aired through a FM transmitter to their vehicles.

"For the first time in eight months, we're able to sing together," said Al Neufeld, the director of the chorus.

In March the barbershop chorus, an a cappella singing group, went silent when recreational activities were cancelled due to the pandemic.

They tried rehearsing online through Zoom, but it didn't allow them to harmonize.

While the group could have moved back to singing at the Knox-Metropolitan United Church in August, Neufeld said they decided it wasn't worth the risk, given that some member are older than 50.

But the idea of singing over Zoom for a year or more wasn't appealing either.

Carbershop conception

Neufeld came across a group in New Jersey rehearsing in what they dubbed a "carbershop."

"I just I stopped everything and I just asked them the question, 'How badly do you want to sing together?' And most everyone said, 'Yeah, badly.' So I pitched the idea. They liked it and we ran with it," said Neufeld.

After a few test runs, the men of Living Skies Chorus are singing in harmony once again.

Each singer pulls up to the parking lot in their vehicle, turns on their wireless mic, tunes their radios to 106.5 FM, and watches Neufeld from a window of Thom Collegiate, where he directs and adjusts and the levels of the 24 mics.

"It was phenomenal because the sound was immediate. There was no lag time," said Gord Moker, president of the Living Skies Chorus.

"Reminded me the first time that I sang with the chorus back in 2007 and chills went up my back and my neck because the harmonies were just so wonderful. I call it harmonic euphoria. It's like nothing else when you when you sing in a choir or a choral group, when you're singing in harmony and everybody's doing their part and staying on their pitch."

Harmony in more ways than one

In between warmups and songs, the men catch up and joke over the FM station. 

"We're really a brotherhood. We get together once a week and we enjoy each other's company," said Moker.

"This whole carbershop is something that brings us together. We're able to sing together. We were able to do a little bit of fellowship among ourselves while we're in vehicles. We're safe."

The group is still figuring out how it might perform and do community outreach.

In other years, the men would visit long-term care homes in the winter, perform for seniors then stay to visit with them.

"We love to perform. We love to entertain. We love to make sure that we can put smiles on people's faces," said Wayne Hellquist, a member of the chorus.

Neufeld said he would like to be able to make the "carbershop'" portable and find a way for them to pull up to a parking lot and ask the audience to tune their radios to listen.

"The human soul, the human body is built for harmony," he said, "In this world of ours today, with everything going on, we all need a little bit of harmony."

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