I’m developing my father’s achievement, and I’ve come up with an idea that might be a crest, might be badge, but I can’t decide what I think of it. Keeping in mind the rendering is far from polished I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.
http://www.dcroe.com/images/heraldry/PapaBadgeA.png
In either the crest or badge (or both) I want to make some allusion to his passion for music (specifically singing). He was in a mildly famous barbershop quartet for years. I played with certain treatments of a barbershop pole (including one with the pole replacing the winged staff in a Jupiter’s thunderbolt style design). In this concept the four trumpets represent four-part harmony. I’m also toying with a crest and/or badge including four songbirds, but so far it’s just too busy.
Dale Challener Roe;58143 wrote:
Your father must play the calliope on a river boat. The reference just seems a bit too obvious to me.
While I did not see the allusion until David pointed it out, I still did not find the crest/badge proposal very attractive.
Dale Challener Roe;58143 wrote:
I’m also toying with a crest and/or badge including four songbirds, but so far it’s just too busy.
If four songbirds are too busy, what about one songbird quarterly Gules and Argent?
Dohrman Byers;58155 wrote:
If four songbirds are too busy, what about one songbird quarterly Gules and Argent?
Ooh, I like this one. It sounds neat and unconventional. And then your songbird is truly made up of four parts!
K=
Dohrman Byers;58155 wrote:
If four songbirds are too busy, what about one songbird quarterly Gules and Argent?
Fr.,
My initial reaction was that a single bird quarterly (on a crest) would look a bit odd…however, taking some of your past ideas into account…
Dohrman Byers wrote:
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/727/limabean03yn7.th.png http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1796/roe04ry9.th.png
...I’m going to accept that you have a better eye for heraldic design than I do, and I’m going to play with the idea.
Jonathan, Fr. and Kyle, thank you for your comments.
Fr.,
http://www.dcroe.com/images/heraldry/PapaBadgeA1.png
Actually I quite like it. I’ll need to work on the body and then see if I can tinker with the image to get the mouth open, but I think it looks very nice. Thanks for the suggestion.
BTW, I went with a Parrot for it’s habit of harmonizing with other birds as well as humans, and of learning the songs of other birds. Not to mention when I was a kid in Miami my Dad loved taking me to Parrot Jungle.
Of course, the idea of a bird as a metaphor for barbershop singing could easily be taken too far…
http://www.dcroe.com/images/heraldry/PapaBadgeA2.png
...or…
As I was getting ready for bed last night, I thought of another badge/crest with musical connotations—the ancient charge called a "clarion", perhaps quarterly Gules and Argent.
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/603/clarionqtrlycy3.th.png
I even cooked up arms for someone passionate about barbershop, or perhaps for a barbershop group or organization:
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8473/clarions4ov8.th.png
Might not even be a bad name for a quartet—"The Clarions." (Too much?)
Fr. Dohrman: Yes - too much. 
But a fantastic idea for badge and arms.
Dale: if you stick with a parrot, you might try it bendy sinister gules and argent, but that’s probably too much, too.
Fr.,
Actually, I could be misremembering, as I haven’t been in the barbershop clique for about 25 years, but I think "The Clarions" actually was a quartet.
No I don’t think the Clarion idea is too much, however I think you’re idea sold me on the bird for the crest. Now…for the badge….hmmmm.
The clarion is excellent.
Why not for a crest a nightingale perched upon a Barbershop pole? The barbershop pole (a column argent three bendlets the central azure between two gules) is a simple heraldic composition.
George Lucki;58185 wrote:
The clarion is excellent.
Why not for a crest a nightingale perched upon a Barbershop pole? The barbershop pole (a column argent three bendlets the central azure between two gules) is a simple heraldic composition.
Well if the pole is there, there’s really no need for the bird. I’m still playing with treatments for the barbershop pole, but on a crest it’s an awkward shape.
Since I had the body parts handy, I tried a parrot crest quarterly Gules and Argent in a more stylized (less realistic) form (with beak and eye ring counterchanged).
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/5505/parrotcrestqlyos7.th.png
Dale Challener Roe;58186 wrote:
Well if the pole is there, there’s really no need for the bird. I’m still playing with treatments for the barbershop pole, but on a crest it’s an awkward shape.
I was thinking the bird conveyed the musical as opposed to the surgical 
George Lucki;58196 wrote:
I was thinking the bird conveyed the musical as opposed to the surgical
George,
You’ve hit the two reasons I’ve basically abandoned the barbershop pole. 1. It has the double connotation of music and surgery…well triple if you count actual haircuts. 2. The shape of the pole is hard to fit in as a crest. It’s fine on the shield, but (and I realize this is largely a matter of taste) the column as a crest unbalances the whole achievement.
Dohrman Byers;58191 wrote:
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/5505/parrotcrestqlyos7.th.png
Love it! I think you really have a winner here!
Kyle=
