Why it is so difficult to learn to sightsing…….. Or is it?The secret of Sightsinging, and to most people is is a secret, is that if you understand how the scale we sing is built, you are a good 80% to 90% of the way there. You don’t have to be a musician, but you…
It is important that you fully understand what has gone before because this next bit is where it starts to get a little more complicated. But is still easy if you have grasped what has gone on before. If we continue with our example scale of C, we know that the second interval note will…
Guys,One of the elements of our singing that most upsets Rod, is the almost constant reminder he has to give NOT TO SCOOP. If you Google the subject, you will find lots of plaudits being handed out to singers who do scoop, but you will find that they are all solo singers and not harmony…
So, think of the scale as a sort of template or a pattern of tone intervals and semitone intervals. Whatever key you are in, the pattern will remain the same I.e. TTSTTTS. Now let’s consider the intervals in the scale. You will be familiar with Rod talking about thirds and sevenths and fifths, all of…
We have all heard of the barbershop ‘truth’ that the time we spend singing doesn’t count against the rest of our life haven’t we. Well, whilst we have probably all said we agree with that with our tongues firmly in our cheeks, there has never been any scientific evidence that there was a grain of…
RHYTHMSThe other day I was asked a question regarding triplets. The question was “how can you sing a triplet when it only has two notes in it”? Whilst the answer was not difficult to explain, it got me thinking a little more deeply on the subject of ‘rhythms’ in general of which triplets and all…
I was once told that the most important two things in life (once you get over the fact that love, belongingness, and having a roof over your families head have been satisfied) are words and music.So, if words are so important, why should that be? Well, words are words aren’t they? We are all familiar…
There has been some intense debate recently about where we, as a chorus, should be heading. Views held by some individuals feel we should be looking to the future and altering our artform to take account of the perceived preferences of younger audiences. Well, before we explore the pros and cons of that thought, we…
By the way before I start, can I tell you that John Grant once pointed out to me that the word lyric, is both singular and plural. So, one should never ever need to use the word ‘lyrics’ when speaking of a particular song. Anyway. what I really wanted to talk about was the message…
The older one gets, the more one realises that time doing what you like doing is quite precious because statistically it takes up a greater and greater time one has left to do it. This coming Sunday will be the start of my 80th year, so my thought today is why not use our time…
What makes for good music can obviously be quite subjective, but I think most of us know when we hear something that is really very good, even if we don’t always know why. But how do we achieve musical excellence.? What do we have to do that is so different from simply singing the right…
One of the requirements of good ensemble singing, whether it be a capella or accompanied, is that no individual voice should be heard sticking out. That is not to say that sections should not ‘stick out’ from time to time, clearly we always need to hear what the leads are singing and also the various…
Whilst putting and arrangement into my music programme there were several places where notes with double dots were required. Consequently I thought a blog on dotting may be of interest to some. If you take any note say, a minim, (the one that looks like a zero with a stick attached), it’s normal time value…
In the next song we will be learning, you will see a few places on the score where spelling the chords correctly has created instances where adjacent notes look different but are actually the same note on a keyboard. In consequence some of you may wish to know why that should be so. Well, in…
This series of blogs needs to be credited to a number of people because obviously not every word written was my own. I should like to thank Henry for his patience, proof reading and general support, along with the educators from Harmony College over the past 20 years or so, Also the various coaches we…
