Tag along and sing barbershop music with your local community

Hello fellow barbershop-obsessed organizer!

Tag along is an event concept that you can copy and remix for your own community. On this site, you’ll find almost everything you need to kickstart a lightweight event bringing people together who like to explore, practice, or master barbershop singing.

Our Playbook covers most topics related to organizing a local Tag along: from teaching your first tag to finding a venue and getting the word out. If you’d rather see one in action first, come tag along with us.

Why are Tag alongs so great? #

• Tag singing is a great way to train your ears for barbershop singing. Short, harmonically complex, and very repeatable tags mean that people get the chance to learn the ins and outs of our style.
• For people wanting to try out quartet singing, tags offer a first taste of quartetting for chorus singers. Since you can sing with many people in a short time, this is also one way to start quartets.
• It brings people together to see who is interested in singing together without asking for too much commitment up front. This is a great first step in starting your local barbershop chapter.
• Just have fun singing barbershop! No pressure to compete, learn music, or get dressed up. No pressure to come to every event, either — it’s there whenever you’re free and feel like singing!

What’s the Tag along story? #

Berlin, back in 2019. A big and creative city with plenty of talented singers, many of them curious about barbershop — but hardly anyone able to commit to a weekly rehearsal in a chorus or quartet. The first Tag along was an answer to that: a drop-in evening where you learn a tag, sing it with whoever shows up, and come back whenever you’re free. No auditions to pass, no repertoire to catch up on, no commitment to show up every week.

It worked. The format found its regulars, and the Berlin Tag along eventually grew into Capital Chords, a mixed barbershop chorus that now hosts the sessions every other week. This site exists so the same thing can happen in your city.

Copy this whole thing #

We mean it: the entire site — texts, playbook, invitation, even the design — is licensed CC-BY-4.0. The site itself lives in a public GitHub repository: fork it if you need it. The Playbook tells you the rest.