January 2002

While we have had a quieter patch over the winter Fourtune have been picking up new songs to look at. Mark's visits to sing with Vocal Academy at Sawtry under Graham Davies have turned up a nice arrangement of Tonight to borrow, while Martyn's consistent lobbying for a Les Misérables song has pointed us in the direction of the moving Bring Him Home. Eddie has also found us Happy Together which was a goer for all four of us from the start, and a version of Night and Day. Nigel has been guiding us towards improved performance by working on emotional plans for songs. We have also practically learnt They Wrote 'Em In The Good Old Days in the past months, so it has all been happening behind the scenes. Also Mark has been doing more arranging, often with Fourtune in mind: Let's Misbehave, Gentle On My Mind, Is It True What They Say About Dixie? and 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do have all sprung from his pen recently.

February

The highlight this month was entering the Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts (for Music, Dance, and Speech & Drama). We hoped to repeat our success of last year, in the Barbershop Quartet category, with a performance of Rock-A-Bye and Tonight. We were up against some very competent competition: two ladies quartets, Elemental and Blue Horizon, who both put on good performances: more than just your average barbershop songs. The adjudicator, Stuart Smith, was impressed by Fourtune's performance, however, saying of our rendition of Tonight that we had a 'lovely blend with the falsetto (tenor!) - perfectly balanced', that our performance grew in strength throughout and was most promising. In the end we were awarded the Harmony Union cup for winning the whole barbershop section (perhaps disappointing our friends in Harmony Union, who thought they had no competition in the Chorus category!) and a certificate to add to our collection!

August

Harmony College 2002 beckoned and off we went with 17 other quartets to get the expert help of some of the best singers and coaches in the country. We had a fabulous time as always and the highpoint for us was singing on the Saturday Evening Show. Our rendidtion of Happy Together, the old Nylons classic went down a storm. The afterglow was memorable, especially as we met some great lads from the hilly country north of the border. We even managed to swop one of our arrangements for a fantastic arrangement of Autumn Leaves. Thanks Eion.

October

We are off to Harrogate!!

At the preliminary rounds for the National Quartet Competition we achieved our best ever score. Thanks to some effective coaching from the Light Industrial Choral Society we achived a 15% improvement over our previous best and finished in 11th place. Qualifying for the National Competition in Harrogate 2003 marks a cornerstone for us, and we are ecstatic that the hard work we have put in has paid off.

 Eddie is the Grandmaster of the barbershoppers amongst us. And I don't mean his age!! His experience in Barbershopping stretches back xx years. He is also the Director of Administration for British Association of Barbershop Singers. A font of knowledge, all round good guy, and great singer.

 Martyn is the best looking of the Quartet, (and the webmaster) Singing Baritone means I get to sing all of the notes nobody else wants. Occasionally I get a great Baritone line, such as Autumn Leaves, but am often left trying to make sense of a haphazard set of notes strung together in no particular order. Especially if it is one of Marks arrangements!!

 Nigel sings the lead or melody line. A great musician, he also plays bass in a Bluegrass band. One of life's gentlemen, Nigel will always sing with emotion, straight for the heart. Unfortunately this sometimes leaves us all in tears!!

 Mark is the youngest of us. He is a prolific arranger and can turn his hand to arranging just about anything. He can explain the difference between a chinese seventh and a chinese sweet and sour!! He really must get out more. Actually he is one of the nicest guys you can meet and an excellent all round musician.