Four young men inspired by the barbershop quartet in “The Music Man” learned the music and made the transformation into an unlikely, yet successful, group of barbershop songsters.

“Slap Happy,” the island’s own barbershop quartet, is performing a special farewell concert at Whidbey Children’s Theater next weekend before one of their group heads off to college.

The four young men have been performing a cappella together for the majority of their high school career. But Mark Arand, Gabe Harshman, Jared Moore and Matt Bell decided to give the South Whidbey community one last chance to hear them perform before they say goodbye.

Slap Happy has been performing their a cappella harmonies across Whidbey Island and Western Washington.

They’ve performed many times at the Island Coffee House in Langley, Bayview Hall and at the high school.

They also traveled to Anacortes where they won a barbershop music competition.

“Slap Happy” began a few years ago during the Whidbey Children’s Theater production of “The Music Man” when the group of four boys were performers in the musical.

The initial idea to form Slap Happy occurred to them while they waited for the play to begin.

“It was quite spontaneous,” Moore said.

The group said they were goofing around backstage when they noticed a stage outside of the building. They decided that after the show they were going to sing.

“We were inspired by the barbershop quartet in the Music Man,” Arand said.

The quartet was an instant success.

“At first people were all over us,” Harshman said. “It’s started to slow down since then.”

The group has learned and performed more than 20 songs all together, and they are learning new songs to perform for the upcoming concert.

The music must match, though. The group searches for barbershop songs, and when they find a song that they like, they listen to it or read the sheet music and learn the song.

So far, so good. Take for instance the time the group performed before a chapter in of a nationwide barbershop music organization. The organization added in a novice section of the competition for Slap Happy just so the audience of roughly 400 members could hear them sing.

Even though the group felt a little out of place compared to the ages of other barbershop musical performers, they were glad to be part of the competition.

“Most of them were about 50 plus,” Bell said.

“Every once in a while there was a high tenor who was about 12,” Harshman added.

Slap Happy members said when the competition first started, everyone began singing their own rendition of the song “Irish Rose.” But Slap Happy members didn’t know the words.

“It was kind of awkward,” Bell said. “But when we went up and sang everybody liked it.”

“These guys were really into it, and they are professionals,” Moore said. “They had a really deep knowledge about how barbershop works, and the fact that there was a tip of the hat to us was pretty amazing.”

The Slap Happy concert next weekend is the first that group members have helped organize, and the first one where they will get paid.