Tag (barbershop music)
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In barbershop music, a tag is a dramatic variation put in the last section of the song. It is roughly analogous to a coda in classical music.
Tags are characterized by heightening the dramatic tension of the song, frequently including a hanger or sustained note against which the other singers carry the rhythm.[1] In addition, good tags can be sung as short, stand-alone works. Tags may be soft and tender or characterized by loud, "paint-peeling", ringing chords.
Hanger (barbershop music)
[edit]A hanger, or a post, in barbershop music is a long note, held by one of the voices in the quartet, while the other voices are free to change notes, and even breathe. Hangers usually occur in the tag of a Barbershop song, although they may occur anywhere. The held note is typically the tonic note of the song (e.g. if the song is in G Major, the hanger is usually a G). Any one of the four voices can have the hanger, although the hanger is typically a high note, therefore it is usually assigned to either the Lead or Tenor.
Some Barbershop arrangements have elaborate tags featuring a long hanger, and the hanger is usually sung at a high volume (fortissimo in musical terminology). The best singers in Barbershop quartets at the highest level of competition can sing hangers that can be upward of 20 seconds long. The combination of the one note, held long and loud, and the other three voices singing various creative harmonies around that one note, is one of the most thrilling aspects of Barbershop music.
Singing a hanger is also referred to as posting a note.
References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Garnett, Liz (2017). "Tag-singing: The private face of barbershop". The British Barbershopper: A Study in Socio-Musical Values. Routledge. pp. 155–174. ISBN 9781351545891. – a chapter-length treatment of tags and tag-singing.
- Hopkins, Robert G. (Spring 2020). "From "the Chord Was King" to "a Dynamic Journey": Changes in the Barbershop Quartet Style in Contests Since the 1950s". American Music. 38 (1): 155–174. doi:10.5406/americanmusic.38.1.0078. – the section named "Differences in arrangement styles" section gives an account of the evolution of tags since 1958.
- Wittenberg, Andrew Becker (2024). "Chapter 4: Musical and social harmony in barbershop tags". The Improvisation and Preservation of Barbershop Harmony: Parsimonious Voice Leading and the Harmonic Highway (PhD thesis). University of Cincinnati. pp. 153–221. – an in-depth study of tags.
External links
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