NVP Pillars of Culture

Brotherhood

We are a fraternity of young men who sing well.
We portray a youthful sound, image and spirit in our music and other activities.
We strive for excellence, being respectful to all our barbershop brothers.
We do not exude an elitist mentality.
We support each other, building lifelong friendships.
We share common interests and remain connected outside of our musical activities.

Skill

We sing at a high level.
We expect a core skill set from our singers,

• sing on pitch
• can blend with smooth young tone and timbre
• able to self learn music with music or learning tracks
• visually capable
• above all – teachable

Attitude

We love our brothers first, respect follows and long term success is a byproduct.
We respect the learning process; there is a time and place and person to do corrections and teaching.
We are not an elite chorus of good singers; we are a fraternity of good singers .
We recognize that we have been given gifts to share.
We are grateful to have come from a long line of predecessors and owe them our respect.
We are proud to be part of NVP, the Evergreen District and the Barbershop Harmony Society.
We believe in what we do and are confident.

Commitment

We practice at home with the tools given to us, so we are ready to work at each rehearsal.
We expect perfect attendance, understanding that the life happens.
We understand the importance of rehearsals, shows and contests.
We plan ahead in order to dedicate appropriate time to our events.
We share the workload of maintaining and growing our fraternity.

Growth

We treat all guests as special.
We encourage growth long distance through our branches.
We embrace all those who fit within the fraternity.
We talk about and share what we do with our social circles.
We wish to establish a young fan base of our peers.

Performance

We perform for an audience, not to an audience.
We regularly perform to market, build fans, practice and improve.
We provide our audience with a professional, fun and energetic experience both visually and musically.
We focus on building artistry at all times: during rehearsals and performances.

Competition

We wish to compete in all types of singing contests, most notably BHS.
We strive for, and expect excellence in performance, resulting in championship level execution, while discovering great fans and friends during the journey
We qualify our singers for contest to make sure they are at a high competing level.
We believe that competition is a tool for growth and to mark improvement of the chorus, not to a measurement “to be better” than another chorus.
We have a righteous, competitive spirit.
We recognize the accomplishments of others and celebrate their achievements.

Pioneer

We challenge the norm and think outside the box
We don’t do something just because it has always been done that way
We have new ideas and examples how a chapter can be run

• new presentation, new activities, new audition process, doing something that other choruses don’t do.
• new definition of a chorus with branches that are designed to spread barbershop
• Looking at organization with younger eyes – cloud computing, facebook, twitter, web tools, online tools

We surprise people – we are Avant Garde
We pushing the barbershop musical edge

• choose music to fit our image and style, we broaden the acceptable view of barbershop

• building a musical portfolio consisting of 1/2 classic barbershop and 1/2 more contemporary styles of music

We are paving the way by building a model for other young choruses to follow