I wasn’t planning on writing one of these for Year Three, either. But a lot happened. And some of it matters enough to put down.
Year One had a clean arc: new guy discovers thing. Year Two had momentum — ‘firsts’ stacking up, songs stacking up, a near-miss lesson about knowing your limits that I clearly didn’t fully absorb (you’ll see). Year Three is harder to frame, not because nothing happened, but because somewhere in the middle of it the framing quietly changed. I stopped being someone who was getting into barbershop and became, at least in part, someone responsible for it.
That’s a strange thing to type. But here we are.
Contents
Events & Firsts
June 22, 2025: Liam’s QaP
This is the one I’ll remember.
At Quartet-a-Palooza in June, Liam sang with me for the first time in public. The tag was “Cornbread” — Liam on lead, me on baritone, Will Rogers on bass, and Steve Harmon on tenor. It lasted maybe twenty seconds.
Some of my earliest memories of singing are of sitting next to Pop in the pews at church on Sunday. I noticed that he was singing different notes than everyone else, and eventually figured out what he was doing, and joining him. The singing was good, but the time with Pop probably mattered more than the singing.
I’m not drawing a straight line from a church pew in the early nineties to a tag at a barbershop event in North Providence. But I’m not not drawing it either.
The rest of QaP was also good, for the record. It was the first time I’d learned and performed songs in non-baritone parts for a single event — Lead on ‘Hardware Store,’ Bass on ‘The Glory of Love,’ Tenor on ‘Sweet and Lovely.’ And my quartets swept. For the second year running, I got Best Quartet from the judges, Audience Favorite Quartet, and Audience Favorite Baritone.
All of that was great. But Liam sang a tag.
July 25-27, 2025: Block Island with Street Corner Four
In July, Mike asked if I’d sub in as baritone for Street Corner Four at a gig on Block Island. I said yes, learned four songs, took the ferry, and spent an afternoon singing with a quartet that wasn’t mine — on their repertoire, in their style, in their sound.
I had a grand time. I stayed in a cozy old house with beautiful landscaping and a lovely view. I chatted for hours with the guys from Trade Secret and from Street Corner Four and with Gail. I got to sleep outside in on the porch in the lovely summer weather. And I got to continue a decades-long tradition that means a lot to Mike.
This was also the first of two subbing opportunities in Year Three — a fact with significant consequences for my end-of-year song count. More on that in a minute.
September, 2025: VP of Music & Performance
I was asked to be VP of Music & Performance in the fall.
Bob retired in December 2025. Will Rogers was hired as his replacement in February 2026. Which means I started the VP role knowing that, within a few months, I’d be building music team infrastructure alongside a brand-new director who was simultaneously learning the chapter, the repertoire, the personalities, and the job. The VP of Music is supposed to be the administrative infrastructure so the director can direct. In a transition year, that role gets heavier.
A big difference between being asked to be VP of Music for 2026 and being asked to be VP of Marketing for 2025 was that I actually give a shit about my new role. I was just a warm body for the Marketing role (which is totally fine). I started to hit my stride there around the middle of summer, so I think I contributed a good 6 months of value to the Chapter there. But my interest was never really there. The VP Music role, though? I’ve spent over two years at afterglows mulling over ways to make an impact with the Chorus, many of those ways falling under my new domain.
October 24-26, 2025: BAMM TACK!: District Novice Quartet Champions
BAMM TACK! — Mike Maino, Andrew Butler, Timothy Campbell, and me — had a complicated year. Scheduling four people who are all doing a lot of things is, it turns out, hard. We managed a handful of rehearsals across the spring and summer, then mostly went quiet. By the time we looked up, we had about five months on the clock before District and very little to show for it.
We recommitted in the weeks before the contest and got in roughly four sessions. I told Timothy a month or so before we left for Portland that I didn’t expect the quartet to survive after District. I wasn’t trying to be bleak about it, but to prevent anyone from being blindsided. We’d had a strong Division showing in the spring. But we hadn’t done the work since then and I wasn’t sure we could replicate it.
Mike had been pulled into the live-stream broadcast booth before the awards and asked me to join him. So the two of us watched the ceremony from there, headsets on, as the MC worked through the categories. When he announced “District Novice Quartet Champion: BAMM TACK!” we looked at each other. Then we jogged down the aisles. We made it to the stage, collected four plaques and a trophy, took the photo, and texted it to Andrew and Timothy.
I have been a member of NBC for three years. I don’t fully know what to do with the fact that one of the highlights of that time is a win I watched from a broadcast booth.
December 18, 2025: Barbershopper of the Year
Three years in. The chapter gives this award to someone for outstanding service. Getting it this early felt simultaneously premature and (if I’m being honest) not entirely surprising, which made the whole thing feel slightly absurd. Knowing something is coming doesn’t make it feel less strange when it arrives.
What I actually want is to build a chorus and a culture where this award is genuinely hard to give every year. Where the problem is an embarrassment of riches, not an obvious answer. We’re not there yet. That’s part of the job.
March 14, 2026: Bob’s Farewell Party
Bob O’Connell served as NBC’s director for fifteen years. He retired in December 2025. The chapter was not going to let that pass without a proper send-off.
Mike’s plan was elegant in its deception. He told Bob they’d throw him a real party after the holidays, “maybe April or May.” Then he reached out to a contact at the Elks Club that Trade Secret performs at once a year, set up a fake gig, and began exchanging elaborate planning emails with Bob cc’d on every thread. During our quartet rehearsals over the preceding weeks, we prepared a set list. The chorus wasn’t told it was a surprise party until about two weeks before, purely to minimize the chance of a leak.
It worked. Everyone arrived an hour early. Tables, a sound system, a projector. Jerry drove in with Bob and texted us when they were five minutes out. Bob walked in and was floored.
He sat at a head table with Bill Moore, Bill Nussbaum, Mike on his left, and me on his right, Gail, and Stuart. I’d put together a slideshow of photos from his fifteen years — Bob with the chorus, Bob with his quartets — and Mike narrated it. We’d gotten video messages from Robb Barnard and Sean Mulford, who couldn’t be there in person, and from Kevin Keller (BHS President) and Tom Gentry (BHS Tagmaster). After a buffet dinner, everyone at the head table gave a short speech.
My speech made both Bob and me cry. Immediately after, Trade Secret had to perform — since we’d prepared a set list anyway, we weren’t going to waste it. Singing through that particular emotional state is its own kind of challenge. We managed.
Bill Moore presented NBC’s gift: Vegas tickets, a hotel, and $500 to gamble with. The chapter spent over $3,000 on the evening — roughly 10% of the annual budget — and members donated generously enough that we broke even. Then the chorus sang a couple of songs Bob had arranged for us over the years, and he got to direct us one last time in front of an audience.
It was the first surprise party I’ve ever been part of pulling off. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to top it.
March 20–22, 2026 — MHBNE
My first mixed harmony brigade — and, as it turned out, the best brigade experience I’ve had so far.
The format is the same as NEHB but with women in the mix, singing TTBB arrangements. The blend is different. The energy is different. I learned all 13 songs, which felt genuinely manageable — largely because I got the learning tracks in September, giving me six months of runway. Six months is luxurious. It’s what learning without pressure feels like, and after last year’s brigade burnout I recognized it immediately for what it was.
I plan to go back in 2027.
April 10-12, 2026 — The Big Leap
Less than a week before my three-year anniversary, BHS held a strategic planning retreat: two days with five outside facilitators, working through the District’s identity, mission, and direction for the next several years.
I’m not going to try to summarize two days of work in a paragraph. What I’ll say is that it arrived at exactly the right moment. A new director, a new administrative structure, a chapter at an inflection point — the Big Leap was the moment all of those threads got pulled into the same room and examined together. A lot of what came out of it will fall to other people to implement. A non-trivial portion of it will fall to me.
Songs Learned
Well… I learned 48 songs again.
To be fair, the circumstances were meaningfully different this year. I hadn’t planned on being asked to sub in as baritone for two quartets. Street Corner Four brought me in for the Block Island gig — 4 songs. Then Trade Secret asked me to cover baritone for a pair of shows — 11 songs. That’s 15 songs I didn’t see coming. If those hadn’t happened, I’d have landed around 33, which would have been entirely reasonable and represented genuine growth in self-regulation after last year. Instead I said “yes” twice and ended up back at 48.
I regret nothing. I’d have said yes again.
| Song | Month | Part | Impetus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darkness on the Delta | Apr ’25 | Bari | Personal |
| That Old Black Magic | Apr ’25 | Bari | Chorus |
| The Muppet Show | May ’25 | Bari | Quartet |
| Hardware Store | May ’25 | Lead | QaP |
| Block Island Ferry Jingle | Jun ’25 | Bari | Chorus |
| The Glory of Love | Jun ’25 | Bass | QaP |
| Sweet and Lovely | Jun ’25 | Tenor | QaP |
| The Greatest Show | Jul ’25 | Bari | Chorus |
| The Java Jive | Jul ’25 | Bari | Quartet (SC4) |
| Frim Fram Sauce | Jul ’25 | Bari | Quartet (SC4) |
| Sentimental Journey | Jul ’25 | Bari | Quartet (SC4) |
| Write Myself a Letter | Jul ’25 | Bari | Quartet (SC4) |
| Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat | Jul ’25 | Bari | Chorus |
| More I Cannot Wish You | Aug ’25 | Bari | Chorus |
| When There’s Love at Home | Aug ’25 | Bari | Quartet |
| Smile the While | Aug ’25 | Bari | Quartet |
| Irish Blessing | Aug ’25 | Bari | Quartet |
| It Is Well | Sep ’25 | Bari | Quartet |
| Lida Rose | Sep ’25 | Bari | Personal |
| Seven Bridges Road | Sep ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| Everybody Loves Somebody | Sep ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| Almost Like Being in Love | Oct ’25 | Lead | Quartet (TSX) |
| Blew Bayou | Oct ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| On My Way to Heaven | Oct ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Amazing Grace | Oct ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Blue Christmas | Oct ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Almost There | Oct ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| If I Only Had a Brain | Nov ’25 | Bari | Quartet (WFEE) |
| Why Try to Change Me Now | Nov ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| Jennifer’s Rabbit | Nov ’25 | Lead | Quartet (TSX) |
| Let’s Be Bad | Nov ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| A Sentimental Place | Nov ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Stompin’ at the Savoy (4-part) | Nov ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Lydia the Tattooed Lady | Dec ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Chanson D’Amour | Dec ’25 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Song for Emily | Dec ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| Till There Was You | Dec ’25 | Bari | Brigade |
| Crying My Heart Out For You | Jan ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| Minnie the Moocher | Feb ’26 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| King of the Road | Feb ’26 | Bari | Quartet (TSX) |
| Tell All the World About You | Feb ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| Moon River | Feb ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| You Make Me Feel So Young | Feb ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| Let’s Burn Up the Town | Mar ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| Devil May Care | Mar ’26 | Bari | Brigade |
| Goodbye My Coney Island Baby | Apr ’26 | Bari | Personal |
| From the First Hello | Apr ’26 | Bari | Personal |
| I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad | Apr ’26 | Bari | Personal |
The QaP songs were a deliberate choice to stretch into other parts. The MHBNE prep was well-paced (a credit to the six-month window they gave us this year). The honest answer is that I still haven’t found my ceiling. I’ve just gotten better at knowing which songs are mine and which are borrowed.
Year Three Reflection
The Identity Shift
There’s a threshold somewhere between “member who really got into it” and “person who is partly responsible for the organization’s direction.” I crossed it this year without a clear moment I could point to. first VP of Marketing, then VP of Music & Performance, then a member of the Springfield Mafia (the 7 delegates who attended Big Leap). The combination of all of it, in a transition year, with a new director finding his footing: something shifted.
I definitely didn’t seek it out (as Sarah reminds me regularly). I just have this gravitational well that attracts responsibility, and I don’t have the fortitude to say “no” to things.
What BAMM TACK! Actually Was
My first serious quartet worked better than it should have, peaked exactly right, and taught me what I actually want from a quartet going forward. We accomplished what we set out to do. That’s a complete story — not a failure, not an unfinished one. It was good. It’s done. The plaque is on my shelf.
What I learned: I want a quartet that’s serious about doing our best. That’s maybe a counterintuitive lesson from winning a trophy, I suppose. But there it is.
The Building Year
When I took on the VP role in October, “building year” had a fairly concrete meaning: get ahead of scheduling, run tighter music team meetings, plan coaching 18 months out, fix the repertoire selection process. All four of those were in real disarray — not through anyone’s fault, just through years of one person doing everything by instinct. By the end of March I’d made meaningful progress on all of them. I’m calling that a win.
We also launched the Readiness Recording program — asking members to submit recordings at set intervals to demonstrate they know the music before they get on the risers. The program itself isn’t complicated. The culture change required to make it stick absolutely is. That’s a slow build. I knew that going in.
Then came Big Leap, and the scope expanded considerably. Things that are now also on the list: AI and technology integration, grant infrastructure, helping the board make and keep strategic commitments. None of those are exclusively the VP of Music’s job. A disproportionate amount of the follow-through is going to land on me anyway. That’s fine. That’s usually how it works.
Sarah has opinions about how much time I’ve been spending on barbershop over the past couple of months. She’s not wrong.
What I’m Watching in Year Four
A real quartet. BAMM TACK! clarified what I’m looking for: people who will actually show up to rehearsal, have genuine artistic ambition, and can commit to a multi-year arc. I want to have something serious in place by the summer — ideally something that can take Division by storm next April. This is probably the thing I’m most actively thinking about.
Brigade rhythm. NEHB 2026 is almost certainly out — it conflicts with Beth’s wedding. MHBNE 2027 next March is in. I’m still figuring out what the right annual cadence looks like. One brigade a year feels right. Two might be too many. We’ll see.
The VP of Music role. Year one will have been building infrastructure. Year two will be maintaining it, which is a different skill set, along with absorbing whatever comes out of the Big Leap. I expect it to be harder in some ways and easier in others. I’ll report back.
Liam. He sang a tag at QaP in June. Almost certainly a one-off — he’s thirteen, he has his own things going on, and I’m not the kind of parent who projects futures onto his kid’s errant interests. But it’s a quietly special thing. Pop sat next to me in the pews. I learned to sing harmony by watching him and copying. For one twenty-second tag in Cranston, that chain now has one more link in it.
That’s enough.
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