DRAFT SITE FOR Barbershoppers Helping Barbershop
The Chordsmen
Present:
CoachingGig will be a separate site or subdomain of The Chordsmen that will help ensembles and individuals find coaching and help coaches find Gigs. It will provide administration support and learning tools and coaching tools for The Chordsmen Coaches and Prospective Chordsmen Coaches.
Being a Chordsmen Coach is one of the most important roles within The Chordsmen organization. And the depth and commitment of these individuals will determine the survival of the initiative and possibly the survival of the Barbershop Harmony Society. But this pressure is nothing new for our directors, coaches and chapter/district/society leaders.
The only difference with this initiative from what these people have done for 77 years is that it erases borders and physical divides. The Chordsmens Organization just makes it a little easier for our leaders and our most engaged members to help other men and their chapters Worldwide.
The primary function and responsibility of these coaches is to help our singers achieve Goals 1 & 2. Goal 1 - Giving members the Challenge and Opportunity to Perform in a Good (not perfect) ensemble; Goal 2 - Putting Good (not perfect) barbershop Singing in front of a Live non-barbershop (Civilian) audience as often as possible. Their specific goal is coach prospective Chordsmen to become Chordsmen, and ensuring Chordsment provide a Good Performance.
Perfect Singing (aka Musical Excellence) is not the intent of The Chordsmen. In fact, the public perception of Musical Excellence will hamper the ultimate goal of The Chordsmen, which is to increase the number of Singers Worldwide, with the first step being barbershoppers helping barbershop grow membership of every chapter in the BHS.
The BHS needs 'Farm-Teams' to feed and fund the Stanley Cup (World Series, for our Amerrrican supporters) winners and runners-up. Too many civilians already think they can't do what we do, so if their only understanding of barbershop singing is our version of Musical Excellence, they will never accept our "personal invitation to participate" because the vast majority will never envision themselves singing with us. And there is no concern that those few who were born 'musically excellent' will reject us, because every Chordsmen will be able to ring chords, and every Chordsmen will be successful at inviting civilians to ring a chord. And we all know, IT ONLY TAKES ONE. And if that phenom jumps straight to Whales/Pennant Trophy Champs', well that is his loss because the Niagara Icedogs / Scranton RailRiders have way more fun.
Coaching is not only for singing and performance. The Chordsmen Singer/Coach/Speaker members and prospective members will include incredible undeveloped singing talent, but also undiscovered talent for extremely important tasks like prospecting, technology, leadership and coaching. Therefore, to be fully successful The Chordsmen will need to attract Speaking Coaches, Sales and Marketing Coaches, Social Media and Technology Coaches, Leader Coaches and Coaching Coaches.