We visit a women’s choir, but it’s a women’s choir with a difference.
They’re singing in a style that has traditionally been associated with men.


WOMAN SINGS: It's not the normal housewife scene, is it?

And we get to do a little bit of movement and we can ham it up in front of the audience and stuff like that. It's just good fun. You know, you don't have be a great singer. It's just, we get to dress up like this.

SEVERAL WOMEN: Are we ready? Let's go, on with the show!

JENNI PYEFINCH: Our group, Hobart Harmony, is a group of 30-plus women who sing close 4-part harmony in the barbershop style.

It began in Hobart around eight years ago.

There was a workshop that the Wellingtones put on -- the male barbershop group in town -- and some women attended that and decided that they really wanted to have a go and started a small group, which has grown over the last eight years.

A lot of people think of those four fellows with the stripy blazers and hats under the lamppost and that is a hard thing to fight.

People think it's a funny idea for women to be doing it.

But basically barbershop is a way of describing a style of musical harmony.

It's unaccompanied a cappella singing and it's just the chords that they use.

So when people think of those four guys they really need to see what we do.

It very much lends itself to the music from the beginning of the 20th century.

A lot of the stuff we do is from the '20s '30s, '40s kind of a style.

I think sometimes it's great to listen to choirs, but they're not always great to watch and we really like to bridge that gap between the choir and the musical theatre experience.

ESTHER OTTAWAY: The showmanship element is really crucial to Hobart Harmony so we move, we dance, we wear sparkly costumes.

We're really trying to move away from the traditional choir presentation.

They're also special friendships. A lot of friendships have been formed.

There's a lot of camaraderie between the girls.

Yeah, everybody sort of feels the same, don't they? Everyone's good - and you learn a lot.

It's growing in numbers and age and experience and we just push the boundaries all the time in what we can do.