Shave and a haircut.html



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Sheet music for Shave and a Haircut.

Shave and a Haircut, and the associated response, "two bits", is a simple (7 or 8 note) musical couplet sometimes used at the end of a musical performance (or, much less often, at the beginning). The seven-note variant could be considered the world's shortest complete song, having an introduction (one note), a question (two notes), a response (two more notes), and a conclusion (the final two notes).

History

The first known occurrence of the tune is from an 1899 Charles Hale song, "At a Darktown Cakewalk." Other songs from the same period also used the tune. In 1939, Dan Shapiro, Lestor Lee and Milton Berle released "Shave and a Haircut—Shampoo" which featured the tune in the closing bars, and is thought to be the origin of the lyrics. Over time the phrase has permutated through several variations. (For example, the A-flat is often replaced by an A-natural.)^{citation needed}

Popularity

The popularity of the short tune is extremely widespread, though its title is much less well-known.

The tune has been used innumerable times as a "wrap-up" in musical pieces performed through the years. In a Far Side cartoon, a conductor tells the orchestra: "All right, I don't know who's doing it, but in the concert we will NOT be concluding the symphony with Shave and a Haircut!" (In another Gary Larson cartoon, two fedora-wearing gangsters are being led away by the police. One grumbles, "I knew Shave and a Haircut was a lousy secret knock!")

The tune is strongly associated with the stringed instruments of bluegrass music, particularly the 5-string banjo. Earl Scruggs often ended a song with this phrase or a variation of it. On the television show The Beverly Hillbillies, musical cues signifying the coming of a commercial break (cues which were in bluegrass style) frequently ended with "Shave and a Haircut."

There are either 7 or 8 notes, depending on whether the 3rd note, the F-sharp, is used. When it is used, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes become a triplet, as in the West Side Story example below. Also included are the notes based on the sheet music shown above:

7 6 6 -6B 6 | R -7 567 R

C G G Ab G | R B C R

"Shave and a hair-cut, two bits"

7 6 -5# 6 -6B 6 | R -7 567 R

C G F# G Ab G | R B C R

"Gee, Off-i-cer Krup-ke, Krup you!" (from West Side Story)

An early recording used the 7-note tune at both the beginning and the ending of a humorous 1915 song, by Billy Murray and the American Quartet, called "On the 5:15".

Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance" not only incorporates the phrase into the song's unorthodox 7/8 time signature, but includes a little musical twist by inserting it twice in rapid succession, taking advantage of the fact that it begins and ends on the same note.

A few other notable examples include:

• "Shave and a Haircut" featured in many early cartoons, played on things varying from car horns to window shutters banging in the wind. Decades later, the couplet became a plot device in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the idea being that Toons cannot resist obeying cartoon conventions. Judge Doom uses this to lure Roger Rabbit out of hiding at the Terminal Bar by circling the room and tapping out the five beats on the walls.
• On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson the band would end the nightly playing of the opening theme song (written by Paul Anka) with the "Shave and a Haircut" tune.
• Les Paul and Mary Ford's Capitol recording of "Magic Melody" concluded with the phrase minus the last two notes ("two bits"). Responding to complaints from disc jockeys, Capitol in 1955 released "Magic Melody Part 2"—consisting solely of the missing notes—on a 45, said to be the shortest tune on record.¹
• Former Prisoner of War and U.S. Naval Seaman Doug Hegdahl reports fellow American captives in the Vietnam war would authenticate a new prisoner's American identity by tapping the first 5 notes of "Shave and a Haircut," against a cell wall, waiting for the appropriate response. American POW's were then able to communicate securely with one another via the quadratic alphabet code.²
• In an episode of Muppets Tonight, Sandra Bullock featured in a sketch as a psychiatrist who is haunted by a Muppet who says "Two Bits!" every time she says "A Shave And A Haircut"

References

Media

	Shave and a Haircut An example of the couplet.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

External links

• Description
• Dutch article on Shave and a haircut
• Sheet music for At A Darktown Cakewalk on the website of the Indiana University Sheet Music Collections