The Tag along Playbook

Everything we know about running a Tag along, on one page: tags, the program, logistics, outreach, and tips. Copy it, remix it, make it yours. The whole site is CC-BY-4.0. If something’s missing, tell us and we’ll add it.

What you need to know #

A tag is the last section of a barbershop song: the big ending, arranged in four-part close harmony, usually with one gloriously held “money chord.” Tags are short enough to teach by ear in ten to twenty minutes, to people who have never sung barbershop and don’t read music. That makes them the perfect unit of singing for a drop-in event: nobody needs to prepare, nobody falls behind, and every round ends with a payoff.

The one thing you really need is a tag teacher: someone who can sing each voice part in sequence and hold their own part while everyone else learns theirs. If that’s not you yet, that’s fine! Learning tracks and sing-along videos can do the heavy lifting (see how to teach a tag), and your tag teacher skills grow with every event.

Things you don’t need: an existing chorus or organization, funding, a fancy venue, experienced singers, or a minimum crowd. Four people is a quartet. Eight people is two quartets’ worth of discoveries. The four parts are tenor, lead, bari, and bass, and any mix of voices can sing them. Most tags exist in men’s, women’s, and mixed voicings, and people can sing any part in whatever octave works. Say “all voices welcome” in your invitation and mean it.

What you need to prepare #

Your first Tag along takes about two or three hours of preparation:

• Date and venue booked (see venue requirements). A weekday evening works well.
• Two or three tags chosen (see good first tags), with sheet music printed, around ten copies each. You'll teach by ear, but many people feel safer with the paper in hand.
• A way to give pitches: pitch pipe, toy piano, or a pitch pipe app on your phone.
• Invitation sent at least two weeks ahead (steal our sample invitation), with a reminder two days before.
• Name tags and a marker. Cheap, and they transform a room of strangers.
• Roles for the evening: someone teaches, someone greets people at the door. It can be the same heroic person, but it's nicer if it isn't.
• A decision about money: free, donations, or a small cover for the venue (see budget).
• A code of conduct — feel free to adopt ours, link it in the invitation, and name a contact person.

Nice to have: snacks, water, and a phone for group photos (ask before posting them).

So… tags #

Where to find tags #

• barbershoptags.com is the world’s largest tag library: over 7,000 free tags with sheet music, per-part learning tracks (with an on-page mixer), and videos. The reference but not always mobile-friendly.
• The Classic Tags books — 125 essential tags compiled by legendary arranger David Wright and friends, free as PDFs from the Barbershop Harmony Society: men’s/TTBB voicing and women’s/SSAA voicing. The same tags are browsable with learning tracks on barbershoptags.com.
• The BHS free tags page has standard tags in TTBB, SSAA, and SATB voicings — handy for mixed groups — plus beginner-friendly “tags featuring a post.”
• dnstags.com — Darwin Scheel’s catalog of 1,450+ original tags, filterable by difficulty, voicing, and featured voice part.

Tag apps

All free. All of them are front-ends to the barbershoptags.com database. The whole library is in your pocket with a pitch pipe built in:

How to teach a tag #

Our method, refined over many evenings:

1. Perform it first. Sing the tag with a quartet, or play a video or learning track. People learn faster when they know what they’re building.
2. Give everyone every part, one at a time. Teach by call and response, one short phrase at a time, with the whole room singing each part — people discover which part fits them, and later they can help other parts. A common order: bass first (the foundation), then lead (the melody), then tenor, then bari (save the weird one for last, and tell the baris you love them).
3. Stack the parts. Basses and leads together, then add tenors, then baris. If a chord crunches, isolate the two parts that rub and sing them as a duet. This is some of the best ear training ;)
4. Sing it down two or three times, then hold the last chord longer than is reasonable. That ring is what everyone came for.
5. Don’t over-explain. No theory lecture, no vowel clinic on night one. Fix things by singing them again, not by talking about them.

Great resources by people who’ve taught thousands of tags:

• Barbershop Tag Teaching Guidelines (PDF) — Darwin Scheel’s classic step-by-step handout.
• The BHS’s Learn a barbershop tag! video playlist — tags taught part by part; useful as a model and as a stand-in teacher.
• The Barbershop Tag-Along YouTube channel — sing-along tag videos, new ones every week. (No relation — great name, though.)
• Intro to Barbershop: casual harmony — BHS on tag culture and etiquette.

Good first tags #

A good first tag is short (about eight bars), moves mostly stepwise in every part, has few words, and lands on one obvious money chord. Save the key changes and the six-flat David Wright masterpieces for later in the night!

Start the evening with these — all free, with learning tracks:

• The Easy Tags collection on barbershoptags.com — 51 curated beginner tags. Favorites of ours: Smile (easy version), Sunshine, and By and By.
• The “hanger” tags on the BHS free tags page, explicitly labeled “great for beginners”: three parts hold a chord (the “post”) while one part moves. Each voice part gets to be the star once, which is wonderful for first-timers.
• Smile and I Love to Sing 'Em — numbers 1 and 2 in the Classic Tags book for a reason.

Crowd-pleasers once the room is warm — the most-sung tags in the world, per barbershoptags.com’s download counts: Lost, Last Night Was the End of the World, Sleepytime Down South, Lone Prairie, and The Sunshine of Your Smile. Expect someone in the room to already know them — promote that person to tag teacher on the spot.

Good first songs #

Once your regulars can’t get enough of tags, give them whole songs. The Barberpole Cat Program (“polecats”) is the Barbershop Harmony Society’s shared songbook: twelve classic songs that barbershoppers all over the world learn, so that strangers can sing full songs together on first meeting. The Volume 1 songbook is $8 as a download from the BHS shop, and BHS’s Harmonize at Home page streams free part-predominant learning tracks for all twelve songs. When your group has eaten through Volume 1, a Volume 2 with twelve more songs (including “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby” and “Over the Rainbow”) is waiting.

Program #

Sample 2-hour+ program #

Group quartetting #

Group quartetting is a format we developed specifically for Tag along. Our goal was to give newcomers a chance to try out quartet singing — as opposed to chorus singing — with some guidance.

We ask a first group with all four voice parts to stand in box formation. They each identify their voice part (lead, tenor, bari, bass). People who are interested in singing the same voice part line up behind the respective singer. The new quartet then sings the tag that was just taught to them. When the quartet is finished, people can “tag out” the singers in the middle. Not everyone needs to be tagged out every round. You are allowed to switch voice parts.

This accomplishes a few things. People get to sing their voice part alone, as they would in a quartet. The outer circle gets to listen to both their voice part and the entire quartet up close, which is great ear training. This rapid change leads to more discovery, as people get to sing in many different groups. It also doesn’t force anyone to sing if they don’t want to. For newcomers, this format helps them join a tag when they might not know anyone.

Variations #

• Polecat break: swap one tag-teaching slot for a polecat once your regulars know a few. A whole song is a nice change of pace.
• Bring-a-tag night: experienced singers each teach their favorite tag in parallel small groups, then the groups perform for each other.
• Guest teacher: visiting barbershoppers love being handed a room. Ask them a week ahead.
• Themed nights: holiday tags, a single-arranger night, “tags we ruined last time.”

Logistics #

Venue requirements #

Must-have:

• You can be loud without anyone minding — this rules out most cafés and shared offices at 8pm.
• Free or nearly free. A venue bill changes the character of the event.
• Space to stand in a circle and break into boxes of four; roughly 30 m² for 15 people.
• Reachable by public transport (if your city has it), and easy to find on first visit.
• Acoustics that give a little back. A slightly live room flatters chords and beginners; heavy carpet and curtains swallow them. (A church hall is great. A padded rehearsal cell is sad.)

Should-have:

• Chairs to rest between rounds, somewhere for coats and bags, toilets, drinking water.
• A bookable recurring slot — same place, same weekday builds a habit.
• Step-free access. Aim for it; at minimum, state the access situation in your invitation so nobody travels across town to be surprised by a staircase.

Nice-to-have:

• Warm light (fluorescent tubes are the enemy of romance and overtones), a keyboard or piano, a table for sheet music and snacks, and a pub within walking distance for afterwards.

Where to look: community and cultural centers, church halls and parish rooms, university music departments, cooperative meeting rooms, offices after hours, the back room of a friendly pub on its slowest night, and in summer, a park (with a rain plan B).

Budget and fundraising #

A Tag along can genuinely run on zero budget: free venue, donation box, done. Our real costs per event are printing (€5–15) plus one-off purchases (a pitch pipe for €15–30, name tags, markers). If you must pay for a venue:

• Pay-what-you-can with a suggested €3–5 covers most small venue fees. Announce once what the money covers, then stop talking about money. In our experience, a small cover also lowers the no-show rate.
• Ask your national barbershop association (see below) about community or outreach grants; starting new groups is exactly what they want to fund.
• Ask a local chorus to adopt the event. It feeds them curious singers; their rehearsal venue is probably free at some hour.

Invitations #

Give your event a name and a face! You can also take our brand as-is or remix it.

Definitely steal our sample invitation. Whatever you write, include: date, time, exact room, cost, “no experience needed, all voices welcome,” what (not) to bring, the access situation, and a link to your code of conduct. Announce about three weeks out, remind two days before. Keep it drop-in friendly: no RSVP, no commitment, that’s the whole premise. Only ask for sign-ups if your room genuinely limits numbers.

Outreach #

How do you get an event like this started? Find the singers who already exist:

• Raid the choirs (lovingly). Your first attendees are already singing somewhere: pop and jazz choirs, church choirs, university ensembles, a cappella groups. Write to directors, visit rehearsals, bring flyers. “One evening, no commitment” is an easy yes for busy chorus singers.
• Your national barbershop association can announce you to members in your area and knows singers you don’t. In Europe: BinG! (Germany), SWABS (Switzerland), BABS and LABBS (UK), Holland Harmony (Netherlands), IABS (Ireland), SNOBS (Nordics) — and the World Harmony Council directory lists every association worldwide.
• Local event listings. In Berlin we use Gratis in Berlin (free-events portal) and the Chorverband Berlin network; Germany-wide there’s acappella-online.de with an event calendar and singer classifieds. Your city has equivalents: free-event portals, choir association newsletters, “what’s on” sites.
• Physical flyers where singers go: music schools, sheet music shops, rehearsal venues, conservatory notice boards.
• A simple social presence. One Instagram account posting 30-second tag clips travels surprisingly far among singers. Post the ring, not the logistics.
• A mailing list from day one. Collect addresses on paper at every event; send one email per event: photo, thank-you, next date.
• Bring-a-friend is the best channel of all. Say it out loud at the end of every event.

Tips #

Here are some unsolicited bits of advice, in no particular order.

• The people in the room are the right people for your event. Don’t spend time worrying about too few or too many people, don’t agonize over whatever experience or inexperience people bring. Go have a blast with those who show up and make them feel special.
• Your job is permission-giving. As facilitator, you set the temperature: sing out cheerfully, crack the chord yourself once, laugh about it, go again. The moment people see that mistakes are part of the fun, the room relaxes and the sound doubles.
• Things we say when someone sings off key: “Let’s all take that phrase once more.” “Basses, sing that with me.” “Love that you went for it!” Things we don’t say: anyone’s name attached to a wrong note, “someone is flat,” or any theory lecture. Fix by repetition, not diagnosis; if one singer keeps struggling, quietly go stand next to them and sing their part strongly.
• Adopt a code of conduct before you need it. Then actually mention it in your welcome: one sentence, who to talk to, done. It signals whom the event is for, and it makes the hard conversation easier if it ever comes.
• Ask before you post. Group photos: after asking the room. Videos of a specific quartet: ask those four people.
• Book three dates ahead. Momentum dies in scheduling gaps; a standing rhythm (“second and fourth Monday”) survives holidays, illness, and your own busy weeks.
• End on a high. Last tag: something the room already sings well. People remember the ending, so send them into the night still ringing.

Where this can lead #

A Tag along is complete in itself, but it’s also a seed. Quartets form because four people kept ending up in the same box. Regulars learn polecats and suddenly you have shared repertoire. And sometimes it snowballs: in Berlin, Tag along led to Capital Chords, a full mixed barbershop chorus that now hosts the Tag alongs itself. If that happens to you, congratulations — now update this playbook with what you learned, and send the elevator back down.