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Reading some three-part a cappella music, I see "TAG for Three-part voices" above the staff. Any idea what that might mean?

scan of sheet music

19 is the measure number. There are 27 measures total in the song, so this is the start of the last 8 measures. There's an alternate ending for two voices that has written above the staff: "TAG for Two-part voices".

UPDATE: Besides the posted answers below, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(barbershop_music).

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    I suppose it is probably not "Tenor/Alto Glockenspiel" which is the only thing I can think to fit, heh. Good question. – user28 Nov 22 '12 at 19:42
  • What about Tenor, Alto, Ground? The barbershop answer (a capella) seems to mismatch the piano combination below. – guidot Nov 23 '12 at 8:25
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    That's not a piano part, it's a piano reduction for use in rehearsal only -- that's why it's in small notes. – NReilingh Nov 24 '12 at 3:21
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Tags are idiomatic to barbershop music (which is typically four a cappella voices), and refer to the ending chords of a song, usually coincident with the last line of lyrics.

Sometimes singers will get together for the sole purpose of singing tags, since they are easier to learn than an entire piece of music and usually consist of harmonic cadences that are very fun to sing.

And you can find a whole bunch of them here, including a public domain book of 125 classic tags.

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    Thanks! I think the thing that threw me off was that TAG was in all caps, so I kept searching for some acronym. – Adam Monsen Nov 24 '12 at 10:51
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"Tag" is a synonym for "Coda", or the final section of a song.

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    in that example? Seems odd to see that at the beginning of the piece. – Kristina Lopez Nov 23 '12 at 20:07
  • Like NReilingh said, this is an arrangement for the ending section of a piece, which means the coda. But for some reason it has been published separately, unless the number 19 in the box is a measure number. – user1044 Nov 23 '12 at 21:04
  • I thought about 19 being the measure but it looks like the beginning of the song and is the opening line of the song so I hazarded a guess . . . – Kristina Lopez Nov 23 '12 at 21:09
  • Sorry for not specifying this earlier: 19 is the measure number. There are 27 measures total in the song, so this is the start of the last 8 measures. There's an alternate ending for two voices that has written above the staff: "TAG for Two-part voices". – Adam Monsen Nov 24 '12 at 4:25

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