Q. My friend and I are performing an original song, soon. I play the piano and she takes care of the vocals. The thing is, I've never accompanied a singer before. How should the piano sound? Like, do I only play chords, or also play the melody, or..? Any general tips?
A. It really depends on the singer. Some have trouble holding pitch, and do better when the melody is played with their singing. Some will have trouble only in certain spots where you want to bring out the melody. Some singers will have awesome voices and will need little help with background and you can improvise your own.
Chords are good, but how you play them can also make a difference, depending on what blends with the singer's voice and how the rhythm sounds. You can play rolling or straight, different inversions, or altered chords with suspensions.
The best thing to do is to have a couple of rehearsals and try different things to figure out what works best for your particular song and singer.
How to get the most out of you practice?
Q. What are some important tips and things to keep in mind to get the most out of you daily piano practice?
A. Its all about how you practice.
Everyday you practice, you need to tell yourself something new about the piece that you didn't tell yourself earlier. Vocalize your practice. You need to speak to yourself, out loud about the concepts in the piece. Tell yourself the dynamics, but specifically how loud or how soft you want to play. Ask yourself if the sections can be softer, or are you soft enough. Tell yourself the fingerings. Reinforce this by memorizing hands separately. Tell yourself lengths of phrases, where the climaxes are, articulation marks, performance directions. The more vocal you are, the better the piece will be. You need to be active when you learn. The more you tell yourself, the more you will discover.
Aim to practice slowly and without pedal. Listen very carefully for well articulated notes, correct rhythm, balanced textures and voicing of chords. Memorize small sections hands separately. If you think you know the section, take up some manuscript paper and notate the music. You should be able to notate everything about that section - notes, articulation, rhythm, dynamics and fingerings.
Spend time listening. I imagine that you practice like most people so you think you listen, but not in detail. Listen to ends of phrases so they are not clipped, that your legato comes from finger legato and not pedal. Remember, pedal is a not a tool for playing legato, pedal is a tool to color music. Listen for eveness in all your running notes. Listen carefully to the phrase direction. Is it moving properly. A good way to listen is to record yourself, then sit with the score and objectively go through the piece.
A good way to improve tricky spots is to transpose the sections into different keys. Keep the same fingering as the original. This will help because it forces you to learn the intervalic relationship of the notes and refines your listening skills. Anything to activate your mind when you practice is good.
all these things can be done away from the piano as well. Learn to score study. Practicing doesn't have to be at the piano, it can be at a table. Conduct yourself through the piece telling yourself what you want to do in terms of musical qualities. That is how I practice when i am flying on tour. I open a score and go through each line reminding myself of what to do.
Practice needs to be conscious. Often, our practicing is not. We think we practice but we are just going over the motions. That is why things get worse. We assume we know things, but in fact we don't. The best practice philosophy is to know that you don't know the piece as well as you do. Always go back to practicing a piece the way you first did. Slowly, hands separately and in sections. When you know a piece, what you are to do is to continue to reinforce things. Tell yourself the notes, harmonies.... etc. The more active you are, the better you will know the piece.
Tips to help secure a piece:
You should always know what key you are in.
Practice all passage work slowly, memorizing the fingering.
Memorize in large sections - no patterns, sequences, look out for repeated sections and understand the form of the piece.
Practice without pedal so you clearly hear every note
Be able to sing all parts of the piece by memory out loud
Be able to start any where in the piece.
The mistakes you make when you play, again are because of detail and are usually a mental thing. When you make a mistake you must over come it consciously, not physically. Playing it over and over won't help. You need to tell yourself what the mistake was, why it happened and how to fix it. Mistakes are preventable, they are not accidents. Mistakes are caused by errors in practicing and preparation. Do not be fooled that mistakes are accidents. In music there are never accidents. Mistakes are also the result of a lack of focus and concentration.
Everything leads back to how you prepare for a piece. The first thing is to practice with detail - always do slow practice, practice more hands separate than hands together. Be humble, understand that even when you are done practicing, there is more to do. You never know a piece well enough until you can write it out on staff paper with every single marking and notation on the page. Horowitz would tell students in master class that knowing a score means you can notate the entire score out with every marking and that memory represents complete understanding of the piece.
Often students and teachers think memory is memorizing the notes and being able to play it back. This is wrong. Memory is the complete knowledge of a piece - notes are only 10%. You must know all the articulation marks, all the rests, every phrase marking, every dynamic, every fingering, note values, pedal marks... etc. Everything on the page, including the page numbers should be known.
This type of detail separates those who are great artists and professionals from those who are amateurs. Musicians with concerts, faculty positions, touring dates are those who respect the music and give it every ounce of focus and detail it requires. I suggest you look into the way you prepare. I often get this question when I do guest lectures from students and teachers and the root always comes down to how someone practices.
Nervousness is a result of poor practice and unconscious practice. The more conscious you are, the less nervous you will be because you will know more about the piece. When you know a piece really well, then you can move forward if you have a mistake, recover easily and continue to make music. You have to believe in your practice. When you trust what you do, the nervousness goes down. We get nervous because we feel we will make a mistake which means we think we didn't practice enough. Well if you are detailed in practice, and have gone through all the steps I've given you then you will feel much more comfortable. But you have to trust yourself.. even if you practice hours with good detail and don't trust yourself, then its over. You have to trust.
How to make your voice better?
Q. Is there anything that singers take like throat sprays, etc. That help with there vocal performance. If so what are things that will help your voice get the best sound?
A. Hi, there.
There are tips on how to give out a better performance and make your singing voice sound better. Here's what I've been taught, what I've heard and what I do whenever I sing:
- Warm up. It's beyond vital, not warming up can result in serious damage to the vocal chords and that can lead to consequences of not being able to sing any more. Good techniques in warming up is to sing scales (both up and down on a piano/keyboard), depending on your vocal range. You can also try reciting tongue twisters, which warms up your tongue, and warming your vocal resinence up with humming sounds. Focus on your breathing, too: deep breaths, and 'tss' sounds when exhaling etc. Try Google or a singing coach for more techniques.
- Drink water and stay hydrated. This refreshes the vocal chords, and helps you reach a wider range. Eat an apple, as well. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but eating fruit like apples do help. I do it all the time. Also, try and stay off caffeine as this dries out the vocal chords and makes higher/lower ranges harder to reach (and potentially does damage to your singing as a whole).
- Yawning. Again, this is a technique that is used in a lot of vocal warm ups but it is very effective and strongly advised by singing teachers as a warm up technique (amongst arpeggios and scales).
- I heard somewhere that drinking a tablespoon of olive oil protects the vocal chords from damage in singing, too. Again, it won't change the sound of your voice, per se, but will both warm your voice up and protect it. That said, don't drink too much. I'm not sure too much olive oil is pleasant! :P
- Also, don't drink milk or eat too much before a performance or any singing in general really. No idea why, it's just something I've heard. I guess because it dries out the vocal chords and will make your voice sound more 'crackly' and...un-warmed up. ;-)
- Singing lessons. Probably the most important (or one of the most), yet I still add it last ;-) Singing lessons are amazing for unexperienced singers. You learn so much and it opens up so many possibilities. You have the oppertunity to sing in the style your voice is (think soprano, mezzo soprano, alto) and you can find you can connect the bridges of singing higher/lower than you couldn't before. If you want to sound better as a singer and as a performer, please try some vocal lessons.
So, there you go. That's all I can think of at this moment in time, but I think they're some of the most important, whether you're performing in front of thousands or in front of your bedroom mirror. I stress on warming up, because while you're not altering your singing voice (which is impossible, per se, but see the last tip for more info). Reasons for this is because a voice that isn't warmed up is so bad to sing with, both damage-wise and to those listening. You won't be able to reach higher/lower notes with ease, and it's not safe to your vocal chords.
Fairwinds and good luck with your singing!
-Tshintshilla
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