Interesting question, Bram.  And I'm old enough that my reply may be different from some others.

 

Glee Clubs were in fact traceable back to the 17th century as drinking clubs not associated with schools, but by the 19th century they were in fact collegiate clubs--social organizations--that included singing among other activities like socializing and drinking large quantities of vintage beers!  They originated in European colleges, which did not have music departments or music degrees in the 19th century.  (Picture "The Student Prince.")  And they were hapily adopted by American colleges as well.  And the repertoire tended to include quite a lot of folk songs, popular songs, and songs written especially to appeal to the glee club tradition itself, and rather little of the stuck-up "classical" repertoire written by name-brand composers for male choruses (which also existed for the post-college years).

 

And since both European and American colleges were all-male well into the 20th century, these were traditionally all-male glee clubs.  (The Whiffenpoofs at Yale, the Glee Clubs at the U.S. military academies, and a little later on the famous Purdue Glee Club and the less famous Ganzaga Glee Club and many others, many of which were organized on quasi-military lines and had extremely dictatorial conductors.  And of course when women's colleges got organized, they started up women's Glee Clubs as well.

 

And at the middle of the 20th century quite a few co-ed colleges had BOTH men's and women's Glee Clubs, often in preference to more fomal mixed choirs which had evolved out of the church tradition rather than as social clubs.  At Indiana, for example, the Singing Hoosiers were the men's Glee Club, while the Belles of Indiana (which I directed for a while in the late 70s) was founded as the parallel women's Glee Club in the 1950s.

 

Now I haven't counted words, so I don't know how far over 50 I've gone, but you wanted to know what we thought the name meant, and that does take some explanation that won't fit into 50 words!  Oh, and I'm a university professor of music who went to undergrad school on a full scholarship as a member of a barbershop quartet, directed my fraternity's men's chorus, continued in show business for close to 20 years, went back to grad school to study classical music and got into early music, and have directed shows for Disney.  You might find it a little difficult to classify me if you assume that everybody does just one thing!

All the best,

John

Thanks, John, for the history.  Glee Club to me immediately conjures up the Occidental College Glee Clubs (men's and women's) where I sang with Howard Swan in the 60's.  The groups rehearsed both separately and together, but performed as the top group at the college.  The 60-member group was definitely social, as well as musical.  In those days, each group would sing one or 2 numbers separately, and the rest of the program together.  Everything from a capella Bach motets to Spiritual arrangements and some more contemporary things.  At Occidental, the tradition of the Glee Clubs as the top performing group has continued to the current groups.

 

I currently teach elemetary school music for the Los Angeles schools and continue to sing in choral groups.

 

Eloise Porter

voice101(a)gmail.com

I hate to say this, because I know there's a rich history, but after the TV show hit the airwaves, now when I hear the phrase, "Glee Club" I think, " FLUFF."

I inherited a high school ensemble named Glee. I have no idea how long it has existed in its current form but it's the all purpose, small portable group. Folk, pop, jazz, madrigals, with dancing. So where I am it apparently means show choir hybrid.

Jane

 

I share Eloise's Southern California Glee Club history, having sung in the Pomona College Men's Glee Club as an undergraduate. We had a Women's Glee Club too, and like the Clubs at Oxy, we sang some pieces separately, but mostly sang together. I think this tradition at some small liberal arts colleges in SoCal came from their founding conductors, some of whom graduated from Harvard and sang in the Harvard Glee Club.

 

Nowadays, the first thing that comes to mind is (usually) a collegiate men's chorus. That's probably because I conduct the Virginia Glee Club at The University of Virginia, and serve as president of Intercollegiate Men's Choruses, Inc. (www.imci.us). Among our members, we have the Glee Clubs from Harvard, Michigan, Rutgers, Ohio State, and many more. All of these groups sing a diverse repertoire that spans hundreds of years, so I wouldn't categorize a typical modern Glee Club as singing only lighter fare. There are also Women's Glee Clubs (we'll be collaborating with the Smith College Glee Club next month), but those are less common, likely owing to the term's origins as the name for 17th-century men's singing (and drinking!) societies and some of the pieces they sang.

 

As has already been pointed out, the TV show Glee has changed the average person's perception of the definition of a Glee Club. But as one of the producers said when the show started, they chose the name because they didn't think "Show Choir" was particularly catchy. :-)

 

Frank