Barbershop Quartet email attachment kicks off our Monday with today, April 11, being National Barbershop Quartet Day.
It was great fun discovering that it was a photo of his barbershop quartet that Nathaniel Borenstein included along with a short audio of them singing about MIME to his colleagues in the world’s first email attachment in 1992.
Also included is a trailer for the 2009 Documentary Film “American Harmony”, the 2015 International Barbershop Convention Quartet Finals Recap, and the Sweet Adelines International’s 2014 International Quartet Champion, Love Notes, with their beautiful rendition Phantom of the Opera.
Barbershop Quartet email attachment
There is a March 2014 article on Quartz showcasing an interview with Nathaniel Borenstein who “along with another researcher named Ned Freed, wrote MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) because one day he hoped to get pictures of his grandchildren over email.”
In the article it links to MIME & ME (nsb) and you can hear the audio and it includes a photo of his Barbershop Quartet, “The Telephone Chords”. I’ve included the 2012 YouTube (that was recorded two years before that interview) on the occasion of celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Internet Email Attachments. You can hear them recalling being rounded up to be recorded so he could send with his email.
(To the tune of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”)
“Let me send you email if you have the time
Let me sing you email now that we have MIME
You have lots of bandwidth, I have lots of bits
Let’s use MIME for email, plain text is the pits!”
Barbershop Quartet Day
Barbershop Quartets – Norman Rockwell captured them in his 1936 cover for The Saturday Evening Post; both the 1962 film and the 2003 television movie version of “The Music Man” had them, the 1999 movie “Runaway Bride” features one, and there is even a a penguin based one in the 2015 stage musical “Love Birds” in the song “Mary Poppins”.
The SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America) was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 11, 1938. In addition to the Barbershop Harmony Society, other groups include the impressive women’s singing organization, Sweet Adelines International.
Trailer to American Harmony A Documentary Film About Barbershop Singing
2015 International Barbershop Convention Quartet Finals RECAP
Love Notes – Phantom of the Opera
Thank you for joining me today with Barbershop Quartet email attachment. Here’s to hoping you are starting the week off with music in the air and perhaps the next time you click the attach icon on your email(s) you will think Barbershop Quartets!
Anchors Aweigh,
Attribution & Thank you to the following who are referenced today —
Meet the man who gave the world email attachments March 12, 2014 by Nick Stockton
Excerpt of lyrics from MIME & ME (nsb)
YouTube Mimecast Marks the 20th Anniversary of Internet Email Attachments posted by Mimecast published on March 7, 2012 @Mimecast
YouTube American Harmony A Documentary Film About Barbershop Singing posted by Matt Ordaz Uploaded on Feb 18, 2009
YouTube 2015 International Barbershop Convention Quartet Finals RECAP posted by Barbershop Harmony Society
YouTube Love Notes Phantom of the Opera posted by CypressairesChorus’s channel Published on November 29, 2012. LoveNotes official site.
