General Notes:

• ALWAYS exhale and take breath with open relaxed ‘O’ in back of throat

• ALWAYS put AIR BEFORE YOUR SOUND

• the relaxed jaw and tongue generally dictates what we sing (ie. the vowel)

• vowels are not shapes – they come from the consistency in the space within.

• it’s finding the common singing space, the agreement of it and making it a habit

• remember the cycle of the air (exhale with an ‘o’ in the back for the throat), fill both abdomen and diaphragm chambers.

• Leads are setting the space with the sound intending to sing with (ie. ‘O’ in the back of throat as you exhale)…. set the sound with a B+ chorus and people will follow that sound

• make sure there is always a part of the teeth showing when you’re creating sound… why? because bone vibrates, that goes straight to the eardrum… not only does it sound good, it resonates the sound.  If you cover your teeth (with your lips), it will dampen the sound (ie. take the ring out)

• always ensure your air is always in motion… don’t hold it.. .use it to push your sound straight out (don’t drop it at your feet and don’t send it to the ceiling)…. practice the “dog pant” breathing exercise   the doggy pant is a great warm-up, ‘hissing’, as well as the straw sucking..(very physical)

• we can say, ‘yes I know how to do proper breathing’, but if you don’t as a singer begin to require yourself to be more physical about the breath energy under your sound… notes and words are meaningless….. all you’ll have is, is a careful chorus that hangs out singing technically proficient; so when they say ‘give it!… throw it out there!’ you can’t do it from your throat (which is the defence mechanism, which will mess around with the sound!)… use the abdomen and expansion of ribs…air is in both chambers… you want to first expel the air in the abdomen, then use the reserve tank of the expanded ribs….(always exhale with the ‘o’ in the back of your throat). if you don’t use the maximum amount of air you - it’s like Diane leaving Kitchener with an 1/8^th tank of gas and expecting to get back to Buffalo….it’s not a good choice.  You fill up then you have to use it freely.

• as with any exercise you’ll feel it at first (in the small of your back), you need to train the muscles – do a little at a time, and keep forcing yourself to do it… it will get better!

• for those that teach the voice stuff (director, section leaders, assistants, etc.) you need to understand clearly that any time you do ANYTHING in this chorus ANYTIME, it begins with an EXHALE, it doesn’t begin with the first note of a phrase… always an exhale… you have to properly get rid of the air

• think of your air chamber (just under your ribs) as a beach ball, yes there’s firmness, but it’s also pliable…. years ago, people would hold this part rigid, and that creates tension…. so when your ‘tank’ is filled with air, you should still be able to poke your fingers in the firmness, but enough pliability that it would affect your sound.  your goal is not to hold anything stagnant at all…. your middle has to be a moving breathing thing and should have some pliability.  Anything you’d like to get better with, do it as homework and by all means incorporate it in the vocal production at chorus….. make a habit

• you want to maximize the flow of the air and you want the same relaxation that we have when we talk, but with a bigger space.

• don’t wait until you’re running out of air to take a breath…. take a breath before you need it…. we want constant quality with your voice/sound… not decayed at the end of a line….smart singing!  as you run out of air, the sound starts getting smaller and you go back to your old space (not open and resonant)… you breathe when you don’t need it, take your breath and get right back into that open sound and maintain the same openness.

• B- score says there are some things happening that shouldn’t be…..the control of the breathing mechanism is a big part of everything we do.

• Most of us are good at intake breathing (getting air in)… it’s how do we expel it?  you need to bubble!  when you do serious bubbling, and words come spewing out of that, that’s vocal freedom!

• don’t hold yourself rigidly upright….. stay relaxed and confident! the whole idea is that air is on the move constantly, which means your body is never standing still, you’re constantly moving and the air is constantly moving.

• PROMISE…..”My air and my sound must ALWAYS be in motion”… if that motion stops at any time, the motion will end the phrase.. keep the sound going past the end of the phrase (don’t drop the ends)…keep everything in motion

• for example…. people in golf are willing to do 10 times what some of us tend do for chorus … they’ll go on the golf course and practice 5 times a week for one tournament day….but they’ll say this singing thing takes so much time and money…..Singing should be no different than your favourite sport…. we buy costumes and makeup, come to chorus reh’l and coachings to practice the techniques and work hard until we get better, because we want our ‘hobby’ to be more fun, this is no different except that its healthy for you and you’re trying to be more proficient at it so that it’s more enjoyable for you… and that is what fun is – singing well.

• good vocal production fits into all categories.. and trying to move from B- and start doing the high B stuff… the more you individually maximize the air flow to your instrument, the bigger the sound and the better you sing.

• pertinent for leads…. you have to be in your speaking voice for lows ie. “If the sun…” (don’t push it!, just speak it on the pitches (same with basses…… ‘nee, nee, nee’ scale exercise)

• basses – don’t use back sound (bunch tongue back in throat); keep it to the front and relaxed, tenors – hook up to the overtone (the less weight in the sound, the easier the overtone)

• basses set up the finishing product…. any one of us has the chance of making the tenors stick out or sound late… (sing with a lift and the sound on top of the tongue all the time)

• Leads.....must be the role player for the resonant sound we want produced from the chorus…. (NO HOUSECLEANING SOUND!)  we cannot come to chorus each week and only sing notes and words.  We can be a solid B+ chorus within the next year to year and a half as long as we’re singing our sound on air and keeping the sound open to the ‘O’.

• director should not direct the uptune… the more she has to work at it, the less the chorus will sing a rhythmic pulse… the chorus MUST feel it…. all the same!  Permutations (push-beats) will fall into place at the same time.

• we are ready to try…. singable consonants (ie. the “L” in heels), the tongue only is going to make that L (if you close your mouth on it, it won’t vibrate as much)…. try working on that

• too many barbershop groups go for volume – and it’s not volume, it’s the power of the overtone.

Goody Goody

• intro is harmony theme, body is rhythm, tag (after the ab-lib section, ) is harmony.

• stomp part…. sample scenario could be that she’s in the macy’s window and he’s not homeless and she’s thinking ‘you really screwed up… ha!)…. the stomp is just rhythmic interest… the whole song goes back and forth between him and her, and finally she wins, he loses.

• leads/basses – use speaking voice on low notes (ie. leads singing “night”)

• baris – need more than whiff and poof to it (too vanilla) – needs more facial presence, more forward sound to it (sing ‘ning’ and point forward)

• sing through the “ras” of rascal…. don’t snap it through….sing through the ‘l’ of ‘rascal’ (tongue on top of mouth, don’t move jaw… just say it like you’re talking to someone).

• beat is 2-4 (J-snap/backbeat)…..there is no uptune that can be completed successfully unless everyone is in agreement of the type of rhythm we’re using.

• go through music and find the ‘de-stressed’ words ie. you, ‘cause, etc.

• use an ‘H’ on the pitch

• line 1 - Leads – send the sound of “rah” of “hooray” out front, not straight up!

• ALL…. Hooray should be thought of as Hoored (practice the RED, as the ray is too wide) all of the hooray’s should be sung with an “EH” sound.

• line 1/2 stretch the ‘ya’ of halleluia (intro) “I’ll shout hooray and halleluia…..”…. most of the halleluia’s need to stretch the ‘ia’ make the sound finish “through ya” stretch the sound, don’t let it stop at the end of phrases….. (Diane’s fishing/casting story)

• the chord on “halleluia” is huge!  It says “pay attention to our skill level”

• line 1 - don’t sing “’cause now” on even beats…. “cause” is a de-stressed word, sync it.

• line 2 - make a very definite pause between “through ya” and “I hope you’re satisfied” (keep the breath energy through the pause… don’t let the sound end!)… visual has to keep this moving here.

• line 2 -  “see right through ya”  leads add in extra note step on “ya”… milk that “ya” until the cow’s dry! (then delay breath)

• basses – ‘through ya’ – tend to hang on the bottom side of that note and need to give “no weight” (front speaking voice), almost a sense of new key…..

• line 2 - don’t shorten the word “hope”  (ie. sing hoe  pure) stretch through it.

• there is a rhythmic space at end of line 3.. .make sure it’s sung with one.

• Line 3 needs duetting at reh’l is essential through here! (spots especially with accidentals and sharps) – those notes need to be sung with a whole lot of lift and height in sound…. need to let them float (they’re higher in barbershop singing than on paper) ie: line 3 “rascal” (need a lot of tenor there)

• line 4 - “you – you little rascal you”  sing it with character and flavour……not heavy on “ras”cal… don’t type the words (de-stress them!).. don’t shout the after-thought (more conversational)… harmony parts are singing most of the echos with too much weight!

• line 4 – ride the wave through ‘you’ and ‘so you met’…

• line 5 -  “back on your heels” – ensure “your” is sung “YURE” every time!

• line 11 -  “….so you broke it in little pieces”…. “pieces” is a permutation.

• line 11/12 - “and now” breath “How do you do”…. put a giant “H” in front of “How”

• line 14 – basses/baris pulse “night” (ie nah-yite) while leads/tenors move.

• line 14 – take out the ‘so’ chord (incidental word)… hold “goody” across and then pick up “you think” (if you keep it there, it has to be in the meter… it’s stumbling right now).

• line 15/16 - “dynamite”…. harmony parts pulse…sing “mahyee – yahyee-yahite” (use tongue only!  don’t move jaw!!!)  Leads ‘pulse’ on ‘mayee’– keep the note moving (spin it!) walk the sound of it around the room (so you can see the note walking around the room). (no one hears the yah-yah-yite, and it puts a lot of energy into the sound and reinstates the pitch)…..anytime there is a held note and there is movement by others, you can do this type of thing – kicks the integrity of the sound up!

• line 18/19 - “goody goody for you” (leads - more sync on “for you”)… leads sing “yoo- oo -oo” (pulse) on the you and sing “me, yee, yee” at “goody goody for me”

• line 20 – Leads – take out the word “and” just sing “I hope” (hold out the ‘me’ to cover the beat)

• line 21 - echo of “you little rascal you” should be sung like a secret – not so heavy… you’re emphatic about it in an echo way…. otherwise the heavier it is, it gets you off the meter.

• line 22 - key change – “FLIP” to new key (you want to reposition your whole singing instrument/space (otherwise you’re trying to move the new vocal line into the old space.

• Leads (hanger on ‘you’; line 22)…take out ‘hold you’ and everyone come in to sing ‘you lie awake….” (all take a quick breath before the “you”)

• as a lead section you have to energize the “you” at the key change….(as the hanger of sound)…. echo parts put some flavour (secret) in the echo of “you little rascal you”

• line 22…Baris….new key – the notes seem to look to be the same (D-flat), it’s the same notation on the paper, but in barbershop it’s that you are ever so many cycles higher (think of it as a C-sharp!)

• line 22 - ….. harmony repeat “rascal you”, everyone take breath, and pick up ‘you lie awake’ (‘you’ is a pick up, de-stressed word)… if you try and sing it squarely, you’ll fall behind.

• line 23 – there is no melody here (don’t sing it like it was a mistake), (sing-in-the-blues all night)….use a one-stretch (pulse on sing, blue and night)… WAIL it bluesy.

• line 24 – take out “and” chord – make sure you sing “AISLE” for “I’ll be glad….”

• line 25/26 - stomp…. till you get the rhythm, put the beat in your voice…. ie. sah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ite, all rah-ah-ahite: take out the tied notes (tenor/bass) and go to the next chord sooner (lead/bari put the pulse in “rah-ah-yahite”…. bass and tenor don’t sing with carpet over the stairs (sing rah-ah-yahite – let the tongue do it) (first move ‘ra-ah’ for bass/tenor put a hiccup in it!)

• line 30 – Leads – take out the word “and” just sing “I hope”

• line 32 – sing “never should ‘ve lied (not have)…. vibrate the ‘v’ – put air through it (it’s the uh sound … say “look” take the L off, take the K off… the oo that’s left is the sound you want to sing)… it’s more artistic!

• line 33 - baritone echo of “run and hide” – you need to make it stick it out like a needle in making a quilt (step out of the sound)

• line 34/35 - basses – when singing the last note “bah” (hanger note)…. unhinge the jaw, relaxed lips, show a bit of front teeth (be really relaxed!)

• line 34/35 basses last note (G)… that is the harmony structure that everyone else has to sing into…. you have to fit into the basses sound…. whatever overtones basses decide to send us, that’s what we have to work with (if they sing from the back, we have to sing from the back)….. so basses make it with vocal freedom and a lot of breath energy!

• don’t let the meter dictate the cut-off of the song!  throw a bit more harmony at them beyond the tag (continue the sound)…. take it past the meter (overtone chills!) – as long as it’s singing well.

• end – don’t sing loud, sing to the overtone!

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