Second Group Rehearsal

We all came into today's rehearsal thinking the same thing, we wanted to do a different song. We spent some time researching songs but we had hit a brick wall. After consulting with Hayley she advised us to watch The Sons of Pitches cover of MMMBop in 10 Genres. 

The Sons of Pitches 'MMMBop in 10 genres' - The Naked Choir: Episode 5 - BBC Two (BBC, 2015) 

Two things became clear to us at this point, this cover worked very well because a) the 10 different genres were clearly communicated and b) the song that they chose is very well known, repetitive and a typical "guilty pleasure" song. Not long after watching the video and discussing it Louise suggested that we could perhaps do a cover of "Doo Wah Diddy" By Manfred Mann. We agreed as a group that this was the exact kind of song we were looking for and began rehearsing. 

The first thing we did was listen to classic ballads and listed what we thought were the main elements, the original list is shown below:

WHAT DEFINES A BALLAD?

-Slow 

-Soft verse, powerful chorus

-Power

-Meaning

-Emotion

-Light

-Sounds pretty

-Starts low (chest voice)

-Delayed drums

-Vibrato

-Memorable riff

-Block chords

-Build ups

-Harmonies

-Ad lib

-Identical chorus until the last two

If we are fully able to understand what makes a ballad we should be able to successfully turn a pop song into one. We began arranging the song. To start with, we selected who would sing which part to make sure that everyone was given an opportunity to showcase their voice. We then figured out where the harmonies would best fit and what these harmonies would be. When a soloist is singing we decided to have the other voices accompanying them with a variety of "oos" and "aahs", this would give the song more texture and depth and help create a richer and stronger sound. At first we were finding it difficult to create harmonies but we found that because there are only two main chords to this song (C and G) that most of the harmonies could be repeated, we would just change the dynamic and/or vowel sound in order to make it sound different. 

Toward the end of the rehearsal we took 5 minutes to begin discussing what we were wanting to do for our second song. We all agreed that we still want to change the genre of the song because we believe that this can be very effective if its done correctly. Eventually we decided to do the opposite of what we had just done, we're going to take a ballad and turn it into a pop song. We believe that this will present us more challenges than the other song but now that we are feeling more confident as a group we should make progress quicker. 

First Group rehearsal

Today we attempted to begin rehearsing for our ensemble performance. We went into the rehearsal knowing that we were wanting to do a vocal arrangement, probably acapella. In the previous lesson we had a discussion as a group and thought something that would be effective would be to take a song and to arrange it in a totally different genre. At first we thought that we would take a pop song and convert it into a 1920's sounding song but after trying a few different songs we decided that this would probably be too difficult with the time that we had. However, we didn't want to abandon the idea quite yet. 

After doing trial and error with the last idea we began thinking again. We came up with the idea of taking a fast paced pop song and turning it into a slow paced ballad. Once again we were faced with the problem of what song we wanted to do. Eventually we started playing around with "starships" by Nicki Minaj. We learned very quickly that this would be an easy song to slow down and add harmonies too. We began singing through the song and added a few simple harmonies where they seemed to naturally fit. 

So far as a group we are working very well together. If I had to give us some targets to make future rehearsals more productive I would say that we need to learn how to manage our time better. In today's rehearsal we chose a song near the end meaning we ran out of time and didn't really get much rehearsing done. We also need to stop ourselves from getting distracted whilst doing research for songs. In our group we have a good range of voices and a mix of male and female so our final sound should be strong. 

Summer Erin and Yahya Vocal Arrangement

CMU105 Musicianship 1A : Summer Erin and Yahya Vocal Arrangement

Harmony

Lately we have been learning about harmony. How to create harmony and what not to do with harmony. We also learned how to successfully create four part harmony (SATB) for vocals. In class we chose to learn a vocal arrangement for "Run" by Snow Patrol. To begin with we spent some time warming our voices up to make sure that we didn't damage our vocal chords. Hayley taught us a few vocal exercises that we can do in our own time to make sure that our voice is frequently exercised. I found this very helpful, because, as a singer I am always looking for ways to improve my voice and singing technique. We then stated what our comfortable range was and which vocal part we prefer singing. Although i have quite a wide range and i can sing Soprano notes, I am most comfortable singing alto and always have been. We all stood around the piano and began learning our parts. Eventually we pieced it all together and managed to learn a substantial chunk of the song. I found that this exercise was very helpful for teaching us to hold our own harmony as some people in the group hadn't had many opportunities to practice this. 

We then split off into our own groups and were given the task of composing our own vocal arrangement. I worked with Summer and Yahya and we decided to do a mash-up of "Umbrella" by Rihanna and "Singing in the rain" from the musical singing in the rain. We allocated each other sections of the song and tried singing it through a few times before we began playing around with harmony, rhythm, accents and dynamics. Eventually we came out with a finished product and we began cleaning it up. The biggest problem we came across was being able to pitch our notes for a harmony after we had been singing the tune. We found the best way to progress past this was to sing the section over and over until we all understood the interval between our notes. I believe that our final performance was successful and sounded good. Having the mix of male and female voices gave our piece a bit more strength and depth and helped produce a higher quality sound.