Singing Tips: 6

Interpretation

• A song for the solo voice or choir is the blending of a lyric setting, melody and harmony to communicate something to the listener on multiple levels
• Good songs use some kind of common musical vocabulary tosupport and expand the meaning of the lyric and good singers use nuances in the music and the lyric to tune their performance to interpret the song for the listener
• First, learn the notes and lyrics well enough to be comfortable singing the song without having to look at each word and note
• Then learn the dynamic and tempo markings while singing to add another dimension to the lyric and melody
• Once you are comfortable with the lyric, notes, dynamic and tempo, start thinking about how to charge the meaning in the words using short pauses, tone coloring or other kinds of vocal emphasis
• Record yourself and ensure that the effect you want to achieve is not overshadowed or distracted by meaningless ornamentation

Singing together:

• Singing together requires confidence in your own part, awareness of your own voice and a careful ear for the pitch, tone, dynamics and diction of the other singers
• Most importantly, singing together requires matching pitches for unison or harmony parts since even a quietly dissonant note is noticeable in an otherwise perfect chord
• Matching vocal tone will ensure that the sound of group blends together pleasantly
• The dynamics must match so no single voices stand out
• Good diction matching generally takes the most practice to achieve since most people tend not to sing vowels consistently and everyone must know their music well enough to look up and follow the director so they can start and end together
• It is best to avoid any superfluous ornamentation when singing in a group because it makes it more difficult to create a good blend