Warblers Reveal Wordsmiths' Soft Sides

The first rule for members of the Barbershop Harmony Society is a simple one: Never impose your music on anyone who doesn't want it. It's sort of the barbershop quartet equivalent of a physician's "first do no harm."

Still, I wondered what the reaction would be as I squired a barbershop quartet through The Washington Post newsroom's cluttered cubiclescape yesterday. We are serious journalists running a serious operation. The members of my barbershop quartet, dressed as they were in tuxedos, red bow ties and red cummerbunds, looked a tad conspicuous, possibly disruptive.

"Nobody's ever thrown us out," lead vocalist Fred Peters assured me.

Because, really, who doesn't love a barbershop quartet?

Tuesday and Wednesday next week, about eight quartets assembled from the 50-member Singing Capital Chorus will hit the streets of Washington and its suburbs, delivering singing Valentines and roses at 50 bucks a pop. (Call 301-986-1550 to book one for your sweetheart.)

I had a quartet at my beck and call yesterday afternoon. Its members followed me around The Post like four tuxedoed puppies.

There was Peters, 89, from Silver Spring; Fred Coffey Jr., 76, a bass out of McLean; Christopher May, 77, a baritone from Deale; and tenor Frank Kirschner from Alexandria.

Frank is 59.

"We call him 'the Kid,' " said Peters.

They sang for my assistant, Julie, and gave her a rose. They sang for Sue and Vanena, who used to have offices near mine, and for Josephine, who didn't. They gave them all roses. They sang for my editor's wife, Amy, a reporter in the Business section, and gave her a rose. They'd run out of roses by the time they got on the elevator, sang, got off, went into the cafeteria and sang again.

These guys love to sing.

Barbershop singing, a quintessentially American form of close harmony, is like aural honey. Take a standard such as "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and split it into four parts: