Many people have never heard the close harmony of a barbershop quartet, unless they saw the 1962 movie, “The Music Man” or been to Disneyland lately where the Dapper Dans sing along the streets of the Magic Kingdom.

Everyone will have a chance to hear barbershop quartet music, which is sung a cappella without instruments, Sunday, May 29, at 2 p.m. in the Jewish Community of Sedona and the Verde Valley, 100 Meadowlark Drive. Harmony on the Rocks, the local barbershop quartet chorus, will perform.

Harmony on the Rocks is a group of about 25 men and one woman who love to use their voices as their instrument to sing in the barbershop style. The chorus is a chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, which is the successor of the Society for the Preservation of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

The barbershop quartet has roots to the 1870s. It was a style of African-Americans who brought their close harmony singing to the United States. They began to perform on street corners and, yes, in barbershops. The first written use of the word “barbershop,” when referring to the singing style came in 1910, according to the A Capella Foundation.

Barbershop remained a popular form of entertainment until the dawn of the radio. It did not adapt well to the new medium and fell out of popularity. Then in mid-April of 1938 a couple of Tulsa, Okla., men decided to revive the art form.

The two invited friends to a songfest that same month and 26 showed up. By the third meeting, 150 men were singing in harmony on the rooftop of a local social club. Word spread and groups formed across the country. The barbershop revival began and has not stopped. Nationally, the society has more than 25,000 members to date.

“Among our members we have two official quartets, which means four men, or voices: a lead, a tenor, a baritone and a bass. The most common male voice is baritone, about 70 percent,” Harmony on the Rocks Director John McDougald said. “The group formed in 2001. Don Tautkus was primarily responsible. He, Bill Sabina and Charlie Lyman were founding members.”

Membership is open to anyone who wants to sing with a group. The ability to read music is not required, but a person must be able to carry a tune. The chorus meets every Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Church of the Red Rocks, 54 Bowstring Drive. Guests are welcome.

“Barbershop is different. From my perspective, it’s a much more demanding discipline. One is that it’s totally a capella, so you depend on each other hitting the right notes,” McDougald said.

He said the group tunes in the cracks of the piano keys to get the right notes, rather than just the notes the piano keys play.

“When you hear barbershop, it sounds like more than just the four voices. The human voice, when it’s singing a note, is actually singing a series of notes at the same time,” McDougald said. “What we try to do is all sing exactly the right notes and exactly the right vowels at exactly the same second. When that happens, it rings the chord.”

A defining characteristic of barbershop is the ringing chord. It happens when everything is exact among the four voices — almost as if there is a fifth note.

Among the more well-known songs of barbershop quartets are “Sweet Adeline,” “My Wild Irish Rose,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” and “Lida Rose.” McDougald has been a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society for nearly 50 years. When he decided to move to Sedona there was not a chorus here, but by the time the actual move took place in 2002, Harmony on the Rocks was up and singing. He joined.

“I wandered in one day and they asked if I knew anything about barbershop. I said, ‘a little,’ and it went from there,” McDougald said and grinned. He has the capability to sing in all four voices.

Lee Shoptaugh has sung bass with the chorus since 2005. It’s his first entrance into barbershop.

“I grew up in the church choir with my parents. When I went into the service I didn’t sing but always wanted to sing with a chorus. A friend who belonged to this group brought me up from Cottonwood as a guest and now there are four of us who carpool over for rehearsals,” Shoptaugh said. He also sings with the Verde Valley Voices.

Michael Steele joined the chorus in 2009 and is another bass. After seeing the film “American Harmony” at the 2008 Sedona International Film Festival, Steele was inspired. After the film Fred Chapman, a member of the chorus, asked Steele to join.

“I went to the 2008 fall performance at the Church of the Red Rocks and thoroughly enjoyed it,” Steele said.

Steele sang in his elementary school’s chorus, but fell away from singing during high school. As an adult, he renewed his desire and joined the Verde Valley Voices. Now he’s added Harmony on the Rocks to his singing repertoire.

“We’re all amateurs. We do it just for fun,” McDougald said.

Another of the fun activities the men do is singing valentines each Feb. 14. They take orders from all over Sedona and the Verde Valley. They’ve performed this service for the past five years. One year, Shoptaugh said, the group sang 32 valentines.

“We put together several quartets and sing three or four songs, plus we give them a rose and a card,” he said.

One time McDougald and his three partners pulled into a person’s driveway around 9:30 p.m. The man came out and said he had a request. He had ordered the singing valentine for his wife and daughter.

“He said they were both deaf and asked if he could stand in the middle of us and sign the songs as we sang. We said, ‘OK,’” McDougald said. “It was probably the worst performance we ever gave but the most memorable. We cried through our songs, we were so touched.”

Shoptaugh said most people are touched when the quartet shows up to sing them a valentine.

“We see a lot of tears, happy tears,” he said.

In the Sedona and Verde Valley area, McDougald said barbershop seems a logical form of entertainment, given the high number of retirees here.

“In our age group, they’re familiar with barbershop. Some of the younger people may not be,” he said. “Our focus is our love to sing in this style and to share it — with ourselves and our audience. It’s kind of a low-pressure, fun hobby.”

Speaking of the younger generation, particularly the baby boomers, Steele said the chorus is working up some “doo-wop” songs, popular in the 1960s.

“Our material is varied, so it’s old-time barbershop and some contemporary pieces,” he said.

For more information, call 634-7985 or 284-3628.