Sunday night - Tuning with Kim Hulbert

TUNING
In the first half of this session Kim Hulbert talked abot all the factors that influence our ability to stay in tune.

Words and Notes
Getting the words and notes right is not as easy as you think. We don't get enough repetition in rehearsal so need to work on them individually, and not everybody does this. As you get older it takes longer to learn. Use whatever techniques work for you. Some arrangements are challenging. Try working on particular measures rather than the whole song. If you can't start anywhere in a song you don't know it well enough.

Breath Deficient

Tonal Centre
It's difficult to keeppa cappella music in key. Kim demonstrates by asking us to sing Tomorrow's Another Day with the baris singing a wrong note. Six score sheets this weekend had 'wrong notes' written on them. Another exercise: all parts except lead sing doh; all parts except bass sing doh. We should all be albe to sing our own part against doh. Kim calls this 'toning'. It helps cement doh. If you can sing in pitch, don't give in to everyone else in rehearsal, stay on the key.

Note: Directors need to explain why the pitch is not doh, if it's not

Intonation vs Out of Tune
If intonation is on your score sheet, it means it didn't tune because of vocal production issues. Out of tune on your score sheet means wrong notes.

Mixed Voice
Take the upper voice down instead of the lower voices up. We tend to take our lower voice up and this affects the pitch. Gravity is not your friend, it's a constant battle. If even one or two parts use a mixed voice that is not appropriate, it will affect the pitch, for example Bari and Lead with Bari singing in head voice; Tenor singing with vibrato

Vibrato
Someone asked about vibrato and Kim says most voices have some and the difference is speed: the slower the speed the more we notice. Speed it up by bringing your voice closer to your bony surfaces. You don't want a vibrato that adds a fifth note to the chord! There are several causes of vibrato: lack of breath support, shaking jaw, too tight.

Kim pays tribute to Lara Browning-Henderson, her voice teacher.

Energised held notes
Think about your abdomen, not your throat, as your instrument - take a better breath to fix problems - energy is mindset as well as muscle - no energy vs too much energy - energising the last syllable of 'tomorrow' - go all the way through to the next word; and all through the dipthong of 'day'. Choruses are a mixture and people need to be dealt with individually. Instead of holding think of lifting. When a singer sings in a MRI scan everything keeps moving and undulating. The voice changes all the time, there is no perfect voice.

Breath Deficit
Your voice gets tighter when you lose air - fix it by allowing it to move [I'm not sure what I meant when I wrote this down!]

Key changes
Make the key change if you have one. Several groups had problems with this. If you can't handle it, don't do it, or a sing a song that doesnt have one. Add head voice (10% for a half step, 20% for a whole step) to the key change and stay the same in the new key; also identify who has the leading note that drives the key change (ie the 7th of the preceding chord - eg from A flat to A, G sharp is the driving note)

Vowels
If the voices have different resonances then they won't be in tune - you have to choose the same vowel and the same resonances.

Intervals
'Up is a bigger step, down is a smaller step' works most of the time but you have to be accurate instantly. Exercise singing 'book' up and down scale -when the mouth is small for a word like this you need to get to the right note instantly (Jean Barford taught this exercise)

Synchronisation
Chords must align, otherwise they are out of tune.