What to do? It’s impossible to try and control the ego, so we have to trick it into working with spirit and not torture us – at least until the end of the song. The ego’s housed in the head, and is trying very hard to keep us there, so that we’re safe and it’s done its job well. But it’s a bit like a misshapen clone trying to save the day. We all know it gives terrible advice. And the last thing it wants is for us to have fun and feel free or dan dan daaaaaa, joy, its nemesis. Experiencing the breath as we breathe in, and focusing our attention on the heart, our true center, not the head, goes a long way to help us connect with spirit. And practicing this lightly, freely, helps imprint that feeling in the body and stops us holding on, and trying so hard.

Very few people can get up in front of others and just turn it on. For most of us, it’s a learnt process that takes practice and focus. And for many people this fear starts in childhood. All it takes is one embarrassing experience and the die is cast. Plus we live in a society that splits people up into winners and losers, and we don’t want to embarrass ourselves and be the loser. Plus, most of us feel subtly wrong in some way, not quite up to par, so no matter what we tell ourselves, the ego is whispering its rubbish into the soul. And the more we try to ignore all this negative stuff, the easier it is to obsess it.

With all this pressure on us, often before we’ve even taken a breath, it’s amazing we still want sing. Perhaps, though, we’re doing it for a different reason – for ourselves, because it feels good to exercise the diaphragm, free our emotions and share our true power while we sing, despite the ego attacking us at every opportunity. It tells us we’re showing off and that we’ve no right to be there. This makes us feel restricted and often ashamed. No wonder singing/public performing is so blooming challenging for want of a better word. When we sing from spirit, we’re essentially letting go, trusting our bodies and our intuition and not thinking about ‘ourselves’ at all. We’re being a channel for the spirit, which is the same essence in all of us. And when we connect through the power of the diaphragm, we’re helping others connect, and to remember that connection. So, in essence, we’re raising the energy of a room, raising the spiritual pressure, if you will. Then everyone feels better – by connecting with your own spirit, you help connect others with theirs. And this can only be done by letting go and trusting.

Once you’re in spirit, it’s easier to connect with the truth of the song. The ego is always going to try and butt in, but the trick is to accept, rather than deny it. And overcoming it is always a process. First of all it’s merely recognizing the negative belief or feeling – ‘I see you’. Once the subconscious has recognized it, and you’ve told it this response has to go, then changing the negative response is a process. Noticing it after, then during, then stopping one self before, then walking down another street*. Slowly we get to like our voice – and we put in its place simple joy centered in the heart. Then when we get up in front of an audience we’re simply raising the energy of a room, a single strand in a tapestry of lights rather than the conquering hero in a room full of worshipers.

Each and every one of us has a story, and something to say and are pretty blummin amazing, no matter what our egos tell us. All we have to do is that, and be that, and resonate with that and trust our bodies and our voices and like ourselves, surrender and let instinct and spirit be our guide and the song sings itself.

Get to know your voice, practice the difficult parts so you know how to produce technically, exercise your voice and be the best you can be (yes, practice, practice, practice) and there’s no way you can fail. Everyone can sing, it just takes work, love and focus.

If you’re not hearing what you want to hear, it can help to practice and look in the mirror. You’ll see the mistakes – usually simple – you’re making and find how it feels when you get it right. Program that feeling into your body to make the change so the bad habit changes.

* Wayne Dyer

Beware of the note sounding forced, and to achieve a light yet full tone, it can help to imaging that your body is huge Cathedral as you breathe it to very center of the diaphragm. Breathe in, then let go as you sing.

Taking this even further, imagine you’re breathing up from the center of the earth and then from the soles of your feet. The breath connects with the diaphragm, traveling up the body, and into the mouth.

As soon as one tries to control this process, however, it sounds like it and it’s all over. Our deepest instinct is to control the breath (and, well, everything), but what we really need to do let it go and surrender. Experiencing the feeling of singing instead of worrying about the outcome of our actions.

The path of the breath when singing is: we breathe in air from all around us, experiencing it in the mouth and feeling the air flow over the larynx. The larynx connects us to the diaphragm via the heart. If we breathe in lightly yet joyfully, the air combusts in the heart to create a feeling of joy, which in turn helps the diaphragm to relax and open. This in turn opens the path to the ‘sacral’ point where our creativity and instinct is housed. Sing from there and you get a rich, creamy tone. Remember to use the larynx and tongue to create the vowels and control the pitch and tone.

Connecting

There are many ways to connect with the breath. The traditional way is to imagine that we’re breathing in from the air around us. Another way is to imagine it coming up from the earth, through the bottom of the feet. Great for blues and gospel – you’re literally rooting yourself. Another is to breathe in to the back. This takes the pressure off the front of the body, which needs to be as relaxed as possible.

Another way that’s been helping my students with their posture at the same time as breathing into the back is to imagine that you’ve huge wings, and that you’re standing on the edge of a cliff with your back to the sea, far below you. This certainly makes one stand on the ball of the feet and open the chest at the same time.

We also connect with the breath differently during a song. A ballad requires a deep connection to the breath and diaphragm. We tend to breath more deeply and need to control the note smoothly. A faster song is a completely different experience. We experience the breath vitally, letting it take us to the places in the body where the note can vibrate clearly. Everything’s going too fast for thought, so we have to trust the breath to support us and free us.

And to do this with any truth at all we have to get out of our own way, trust our body and come from our ‘place of silence’, almost observing what we do while trusting ourselves at the same time. We’re then in a place of mastery, and know that we can chose whatever feeling we want to, and this is something that is just moving through us and is gone, so in some way isn’t us at all.

The ego hates all this stuff. It hates joy and risk. It hates getting out of our own way – where’s the fun in that? It wants us to stay stuck in the head (third eye, at the seat of the soul – once more the yin and the yang together) and talk us out of getting out of our comfort zones/into the body in any way, shape or form. And ego is completely yang. Always looking to the future, looking out for our safety and basically looking out for itself. And hiding the truth from us in plain sight, usually. A virtual smorgasbord of neuroses, our shadow self. We all have one and suffer daily. Even famous people.

So we should be gentle with ourselves when we approach singing, for the fear that comes up can be overwhelming. But overcoming it is a process, and denying it merely makes it worse. We’re indicating, and waiting for the right time to get in the right lane.

When we’re in our spirit, our source energy, we know it. Drunk during karaoke for example. Everyone else is brightly lit and having a fab time, so why not just go for it and worry about it afterward, if one can remember at all.

Our ego tells us that we’re trying to be the center of attention and showing off, that we’ve no right to be there and that everyone else is far more attractive/confident/talented than us. They may be right. But we’re not doing it for then, ultimately. Yes, everyone wants to entertain and be loved and get to be the star of their own film, and the fear that they might fail at that and then have to deal with said failure that can be overwhelming.

When singing, we’re ultimately doing it for ourselves. We’re in our bodies, enjoying communicating with the diaphragm, which is usually tense and mangled up because of all the controlling we’re ‘having’ to do in our daily lives, and it feels so great to let go and simply enjoy it, take it our for a spin and a canter. When we sing from a relaxed, connected diaphragm it just feels great.

At this point we: trust ourselves and our intuition, our bodies and minds working together. It feels effortless. We laugh off the mistakes, noting the place in the song so that we can go back at a different time and work on that part (away from the song) until we have it right (maybe not drunk during karaoke but you never know. A singer never sleeps).

So, first of all, we have to fake it till we make it. Allow our selves to be the center of attention. It’s not narcissism, but self respect. Honestly, ossifer. If the song is sung with narcissistic movitation, then it won’t move the audience, and you’ll feel that something is wrong, if you have any empathy for them. Every performer worries that they’re a narcissist, I suspect, and do we not all have the propensity to be all things? But when we really connect, aren’t we trying to get out of our own way and express our true inner selves, and by so doing, simply being a channel? So we owe it to ourselves to have some self-respect, and if that’s hard to find, to know that finding it is a process. We’re indicating, but there’s that bloomin truck in the way.

The first thing is to know that you don’t have to do anything. In that, simply being is enough. Practice simply being on stage, or imagining your self simply being your self. Talk the lyrics of a song. Try to find a few different ways to say the lyrics, like an actor finding the subtext. Imagine you’re different people, each with a different story speaking the lines for example. Make them real for yourself. Feel them. Connect with the diaphragm and sacral point through the heart, feel your inner energy, say the lines again. Then sing the song from there. Obviously, do his when there’s no one else around at first, since this can be challenging, but just try and sing the song from a real place, what it really means to you, how you’ve always imagined you’d wanted to sing it. Then get used to singing from there. Sing to the radio, sing through your repertoire, and start to feel how it feels to go there automatically, and that it isn’t so challenging, just a learnt response.

Most often when we sing a song from a real place, as ourselves, with no frills, trusting our bodies and instincts, it works out. We somehow know how to do it.

To do this technically, learn to connect with the diaphragm and sing from the sacral point. Learn to dance between the chakras, the energy centers, when singing, trusting the body, and observe yourself doing that at the same time from the place of silence. Learn to connect the inner dots and everything else takes care of itself. When you sing from a place of trust, with the energy centered in the heart, it all works out. And we also know when we’re blocking, and the mind is getting in the way, and when we’re trusting. As we indicate, waiting to change lanes, gradually the egos’ blockages drop away as it learns to work with us, and the path of the warrior (because you have to be brave if you’re going to be a singer) is to surrender and simply raise the energy of a room, and shine like the single thread in a tapestry of lights, not convince the whole room to vote for him/her for ever and a day thereafter shaking off the helpers’ hands as we snatch the hat and cape triumphantly (no real reference to the great JB intended).

And that some times you’ll feel you’ve done that well, and sometimes you’ll suck, but that’s the path of the warrior, my friend. Because in truth, when creating music it’s all the moment, the here and now, and simply trying to stay in it.

Most often though, it’s the fear of it, rather than the experience, that is the motivating force. When we actually get in front of an audience they are welcoming, and want us to do our best. Most people are nice. And who wants to know the nasty ones? Not I, said the fly. But knee jerk reactions from childhood/adolescent embarrassments/trauma can run very deep. Even if we’re fine once we get up on stage, the fear leading up to that moment can be crippling.

First of all, it can help to accept, rather than reject the fear. It becomes the elephant in the room, and all we can think about if we’re not careful.

Also, we think that we’re performing for others, when we’re really doing it for ourselves. We spend so much time in our heads, controlling our lives – and, by default, our experiences – that our diaphragms take the brunt of all that effort and tension, often being constricted in many places. Singing takes the diaphragm out for a canter, letting it relax and play (which only works when we sing with a relaxed diaphragm, and right from the very center of it).

A quick exercise to release the diaphragm: Imagine you’re falling backwards into a million cushions and laugh at the same time. Really laugh, with joy. Now sing a note and let the diaphragm do the singing for you. It’s a very different experience, and a very different sounding note.

We often think the energy’s path is out, then in. Energy first, then attention. When we train the body to come from a still, silent place first (the place of silence centered in the heart), this is the stepping-stone to being in tune with spirit. From there, we act. By letting our selves ‘be’, we’re then one step ahead of the game, so to speak, and can actually act more quickly funnily enough, and make better choices. By going in, then out, we keep our confidence and share our true experience with an audience, thus raising the energy of the room, reminding the audience that we all share the same human experience.

Which brings us back to the subject of the article, good voice, bad voice. To truly raise the energy of the room, the whole of the human experience has to be shared, warts and all. Which means sharing the shadow self, letting it all hang out in fact. This is the scariest thing to do, but the only way we truly share our whole self. We want to be liked and to put on our best face.

But this doesn’t have to be a huge, ghastly experience. To share our whole self with an audience, all we have to do is just be, and know that it’s enough. That we don’t have to be good, merely authentic. That we don’t have to control the experience, that we can’t control the experience because intuition and feeling can’t be controlled (so, in essence, all we can control is how we let go) and that, in essence, we’re getting out of our own way so we can raise the energy of a room, and by simply being true to ourselves we’re also reminding and re-affirming to others that that is all it takes.

Our spirit knows that we deserve to be there, and that confidence springs from self-respect. We all know that. It’s just hard to do it when you’ve got people looking at you, much easier in the bedroom mirror/kitchen/shower/somewhere I might not want to know.

Our mind tells us that changing that belief will take a very long time due to said traumatic experiences explained above. But the truth is that we can change the way we feel, in that we can choose to feel another way.

We have to be able to do that to sing, in fact. We have to believe in the song so much that we take a back seat and let our instincts take over, training the body over time to do it for us. We’re then simply a channel through which spirit can express itself.

No small tall order. We’re most often taught not to respond in this way, to let go and surrender when singing. We’re used to being in control and to controlling our experience, hence the battle when we sing, the ego’s buttons being pushed into overdrive like a hyperventilating aunty.

In essence, when singing we’re learning to come from a place of trust, over time. Trust in our vocal technique, trust in our instrument, trust in our emotions, and trust in our instinct. A lot of trust there. Something else the ego hates. Hey ho.

The secret to singing is that it’s experiential – all about feelings. Committing to the meaning and feeling of a song absolutely, so that we get out of the way and let the body sing for us.

And yet the negative feelings can be so strong that they’re all we focus on. Another secret of getting over the resistance is to accept the fear and allow your self to feel it. Our instinct is to run away and try to block it out, which means we than obsess it and can think of little else. By owning the fear and allowing it in our consciousness, we then get bored with it after a while and can focus on some more positive, life affirming feelings.

If you’re new to singing, be gentle with yourself and understand that learning to sing is a process and isn’t going to happen overnight. So try not to judge yourself and to ‘ballpark’ a lot of things. Our voice is a muscle, and so is the ear. Everything is gradually learning to work together, like the muscles of the hand flexing and releasing.

With a new song, first of all sing it through and mark the breaths. Most of the time this is obvious, but if you’re unsure, let it go with the meter of the lyrics, and by that I mean where you would naturally breathe when having a conversation. So often you hear a singer take a breath at the wrong time in a sentence when a different focus would get a much more powerful result. For example the sentence: ‘I need to tell you I love you’. Let’s say it takes a long time in the song to get to ‘I love you’ and you need a lot of breath. If you haven’t plotted where the breath comes in the song, breathing at the wrong place would ruin the emotion. ‘I need to tell…you I love you’ has a lot less impact than ‘I need to tell you…I LOVE YOU!’ You give yourself a run up to the emotion, take a breath (and leeway is always allowed for emotion, so you can afford to take your time), then you have the breath to give the buzzwords of the sentence real clout.

Once the breaths are in place, then it’s time to look at the general shape of the song. Where is the dramatic high spot/s of the song? How it the story told? Read the lyrics through a couple of times and feel the emotion, feel how the song naturally builds and releases. Try to express emotion from the diaphragm, not from the throat.

Then try and find the subtext in the song. If it’s a happy song, read it in a sad way as well. Make up a story to go along with it. Then read it in way that incorporates both. Then sing the song simply expressing the emotions of the song in the moment and see what happens.

It can be helpful to remember that singing a song well takes a lot of practice. There’s a lot to remember, a lot we have to practice technically and emotionally so that we can ‘just let go’ and trust the body to do it automatically.

By practicing the poetry of the lyrics, it connects us to the basic feeling of a song. The path is: connect with the emotion, let go, then give the song to the diaphragm and instinct.

Now it’s time to look at the ‘build’ of the song. Where is the dramatic high spot, and how does the breathing lead up to it. Can you manage the high note? Where are the difficult vowels? Practice the whole song with the ‘deadmouth’ technique, connecting the note to the diaphragm via the larynx.

Now relax the jaw (imagining there’s just air at the sides of the jaw, no tension) and open up on the high notes, smiling at the back of the throat as you do so, everything wide and free.

Now sing the song, allowing yourself to feel the emotion, tasting every word like it’s a delicious cake, savoring the consonants, letting every note resonate in the center of the body as much as you can.

When we sing, we can’t place every note with the mind; we’re snowboarding down a mountain trying to be as present as possible and hoping we get to the bottom in one piece. By practicing a song as minutely as possible, studying every angle, you’re imprinting the emotion memory into the boy so that you can then trust it to deliver when you’re performing the song. Then rather than trying to sing a song, you’re present in the experience while at the same time coming from a place of mastery and relaxation.

Or at the end of a song, to further express emotion. “Ad-libs” in modern genre songs are usually quite simple, using blues links and/or rhythmic patterns. “Improvising” is what jazz, rock, blues and, sometimes, folk musicians do when they, essentially, play around with the chords of the whole tune, making up new melody lines, riffs and rhythmic ideas using the harmony of the whole song. So it’s much more complex than ad-libbing, where one is usually only improvising over a few bars here and there. We’re going to be mainly looking at ad-libbing in this article, touching briefly on improvising at the end of the article.

Why bother? you might ask, and rightly so. The reason why it’s worth a little work is that having a basic knowledge of music and rhythm can free you up enormously and help you find your own voice. It can be done by ear, but if you want to get a sense of freedom into your performance then a certain amount of basic knowledge is paramount. You’re no longer rigidly sticking to the tune, you can hear what the other musicians are doing and are part of the whole picture, rather than the lone voice out at the front of the stage. This opens up enormous opportunities for you, the singer, and the choices you can make within the song. Even if you choose to simply stick to the tune, your phrasing will be more finely tuned and subtle. And even if an audience doesn’t know what you’re doing, they’ll feel and hear it.

You can learn to do it all by ear, but if you don’t know where to start and it’s all a complete mystery, you can train your ear by listening to the chords and practicing syncopation, i.e. rhythm. If the latter is the case, then I suggest you check out the articles “How Music Is Constructed”, “How To Read Music” and “How To Feel Rhythm” before reading this article.

If you do have a basic knowledge of music, then read on:

Starting To Ad-Lib

We’ve looked at chords, scales and rhythm, from bars to Breves to semi-quavers in the first two articles mentioned above. We looked at syncopation in the “How To Feel Rhythm” article. Now let’s look at using rhythm, using the chords of a song, to create a solo. I”m going to take the last few bars of the “Amazing Grace” verse used in the Chapter “How to Sing A Song, Putting It All Together” lesson of the online tutorials:

singingfromthecenter.com/fullprogram

The last few bars are a particularly dramatic part of the song, and so present a great opportunity to ad-lib:

end-of-amazing-grace

The grids above the sheet music are guitar tablature showing the chords and fingering for guitarists.

There’s now a Bb7 chord in the arrangement, which opens up new harmonic possibilities.

In fact, using these 4 bars and 2 chords, we can learn the basics of ad-libbing and improvising.

The first step is to recognize the chords and be able to sing them, scales and arpeggios, until you can do so from memory:

Key of Eb:

Hear Eb scale

And Bb7:

Hear Bb7 scale

And how they work in the song:

end-of-amazing-grace

The next step is to sing arpeggios (up and down an octave in intervals) to the scales:

Hear Eb arpeggio

The arpeggio is playing the 1st, 3rd, 5th, octave, 5th, 3rd and 1st (root).

Hear Bb7 arpeggio

The arpeggio is playing the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 5th, 3rd, root of the chord.

Here are a couple of examples of how arpeggios can be used:

Arpeggio

Arpeggio 2

A simple arpeggio, combined with the from the chords of the song creates another little tune.

Once you feel you have the scales and arpeggios pretty much down, the next step is to start singing little tunes and riffs made up of scales and arpeggios, but combining them rhythmically to make it more interesting (there’s a quaver pick-up into the first beat of the bar to the lyric ‘was blind…’ in this version):

end-of-amazing-grace-2

If you’re finding the time difficult, then here’s the click track version:

end-of-amazing-grace

Try clapping a few rhythms, as in the ‘How To Feel Rhythm’ article.

If you’ve a piano or guitar to practice with, then you can obviously also play the notes of the chords and sing them as in the examples above.

The ear is a muscle just as the voice is, so repetition in this way helps you recognize the shape of a chord and where the key notes are within that chord. You’re ear then hears the color of the chord.

The trick is to also use the feel of the song when ad-libbing. Amazing Grace is very much a Gospel tune, and so it lends itself to blues licks, and the blues scale.

Notice that a simple B7 chord is akin to the Mixolydian mode, and so works with the blues scale, since one is essentially flattening the seventh (as in the Bb7 scale MP3 above).

It’s the the 7th of the B7 chord gives these few chords their “blues-ey” flavor. So the chords” arpeggios need to reflect this, in other words, using the Ab, which is the 7th of the B7 chord:

Hear B7 arpeggio with 7th accented

Sing along with the instrumental track below and try to pick out the arpeggio, accenting the 7th:

B7-chord-repeated

Now try making up a tune using the track above, and see if you can pick out the 7th.

Then try doing the same thing with the root, 3rd and 5th (using the Bb7 arpeggio MP3 for reference).

Then, once again, try making up little tunes over the chord, and see if further recognizing the different notes of the chord has made a difference.

Now try doing the same thing with the chord of Eb, using the Eb arpeggio above for reference:

Eb-chord-repeated

The next step is to try doing the same thing with the actual tune:

end-of-amazing-grace

end-of-amazing-grace-2

Here are a couple of ad-libs using track 1 above, which is also from the full program lesson “How to Sing A Song, Putting It All Together”. The first two are Gospel’ey and the last one Folk-ey:

ad-libbing-amazing-grace-1

ad-libbing-amazing-grace-2

folk-ad-libbing-amazing-grace

So, lots of possibilities, using just two chords at the end of a verse. By making up little tunes, we’re essentially inventing/using “riffs” and “licks”, like putting together the parts of a puzzle. And, by now, you should be able to hear the chords that the ad-libs above are using: Eb, B7, Eb.

As I mentioned above, with modern genre music most improvised licks use the blues, the blues scale and mixolydian mode (as in the B7 chord), i.e. nothing too fancy. In fact, it often sounds unnecessary when you make the improvising too complicated, since most modern genre music is about telling the story in the clearest, most direct and emotional way.

However, by the same token there’s no point in just singing any old thing. Ad-libs need to fit the feel of the song and lyric, within the context of the whole song. Usually at a pertinent point in the performance, helping the song build in intensity. The licks above would have more impact at the end of the song, but since we’re only using the first verse in this instance, licks at the end of the first verse it is!

Rhythm

As I also mentioned earlier, the rhythm, of a song is just as important as the notes you’re singing. And the same holds true with improvising. Where you start in the bar changes the feel of the ad-lib, for example.

The first two ad-libs above start on the ‘and’ after the 2nd beat of the bar, the last example on the 1st beat of the bar. Notice that the last example sounds “straighter”. Generally, if you start an ad-libbed phrase on the second beat of the bar, or on the pickup (‘1 and 2 and 3 and‘ for example), it will have more weight and color.

Try singing a few phrases and clapping along at the same time to the track below, i.e. sing the phrases you’re clapping. There are a few examples in the ‘How To Feel Rhythm’ article if you’re stuck, and here are a couple of clapping examples from the same article (using the instrumental soul version below) that might be useful for reference:

Example-of-rhythm-improvisation

Example-of-rhythm-improvisation-harder

amazing-grace-soul-instrumental.mp3

Or clap the phrases that you’re singing to the Amazing Grace first verse instrumental tracks:

amazing-grace-Instrumental

end-of-amazing-grace-Instrumental

Putting It All Together

Learning to ad-lib is like learning a new language, or putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Mathematical, yet rooted in the emotion of the song.

You can obviously take this further, and approach any song, or part of a song, in the same way:

1. Learning to recognize and hear the chords by singing scales and arpeggios, then playing around with the rhythm making up little licks and riffs.

2. Then starting to recognize other chords until you feel just as comfortable with a sus 4 as with a major chord, for example (the next step from is to study scales and the chords relative to them, which takes you into the realm of the Jazz musician).

4. If you’re ad-libbing, try making up some phrases using the lyric, or just part of the melody, or a combination of the two.

And lastly but never leastly, trust your instinct and try not to judge your performance.

A Few Amazing Grace Versions

Ad-libbing and improvising can help tremendously when tackling different genres, all of which demand a different approach and technique, and often sense of time (are you behind, ahead or right on the beat?).

When a song is a classic, such as Amazing Grace, it can lend itself to changing the feel and often the chords to create completely different versions of the same tune.

So for these purposes, here’s a soul, jazz, folk and country version. I’ll also be using these versions to explain the sheet music, i.e. how the music is notated, and how the chords have often been changed to give a different color and/or feel to the tune.

(Many thanks to pianist/composer/arranger Terry Disley for arranging and playing these Amazing Grace versions: terrydisley.com).

Soul Version:

amazing-grace-soul-version

Soul – a step away from Gospel, still rooted very much in the blues. Looking at the sheet music above, we can see that it’s in 4/4 rather than the traditional 3/4 time. The accent of the track is on the 2 and 4 (the tambourine and hand claps), and the vocal veers away from the traditional timing of the tune, making it a kind of ad-lib in itself.

You also might notice all of the music in these versions is written out in longhand. If you’re performing an arrangement of a song, then unless you have a music program that prints out the music (Sibelius, or one of the many music software programs will also often do this: Cubase, Sonar, Logic and Digital Performer being a few of the professional level programs), then an arrangement is often written out in this way – in this case by musician/composer/arranger Terry Disley.

This is a three stave arrangement, with the vocal being the top line, the piano the middle and the bass the bottom. Once again, the time signature and key (Eb, 3 flats) on the left hand side of the page. Notice that the piano and bass are grouped together, also on the left hand side of the page, to distinguish the difference between the lead line, i.e. the voice, and the instrumentation.

The opening motif is shown by way of the syncopated rhythm of the piano and bass working together. The bass is bringing in the feel of the tune as a pick-up into the first bar. The slur on this pick-up means “legato”, i.e. a “smooth” feel, as in the opposite of “staccato”.

This is a different kind of slur than the one on the 5th bar of the vocal stave (the bar at letter “A”). This slur joins three notes together as one, to make a triplet. I mentioned triplets in the “How to Read Music” article, and here is one, alive and kicking.

The Eb before the crotchet is a semi-breve with a dot. A dot meaning “half as much again”, and a semi-breve being two beats, this makes this note three beats long. The triplet after this is thus a beat long, i.e. a crotchet, to make up the 4/4 time. To count a crotchet triplet: hold your finger in the air and describe going down and back up. The first count at the top, the second the bottom, and back up to the top. One, two three.

You can also see accents (second bar), ties (second bar again, for example), rests (4 bar rest on the lead line at the beginning), crotchet rests starting on the second bar (the first bar being after the pickup. The crotchet rest is the squiggly line) and an example of a quaver rest on the 5th bar in the piano stave. This would be counted “one, two, and three four”, the “and” being the rest.

The forward looking slash in the piano part is not a rest, but means ” play the same chord for these amounts of beats”. So, for example, in bar 13, Bb-7 to A7b5, it means two beats of each chord.

We also get to change the note within the key. Right at the beginning of the tune, on the bass pickup are the notes: G, Ab and A. Ab is in the key of Eb, but not the A. So the “hash” looking sign means “raise the note a half tone and play an A, not an Ab”. The slate is wiped clean at the beginning of the next bar, which is why the same sign pops up again on the 6th bar, to once again un-flatten the A.

“Sim”, on bar 7, means “similar”.

The chords of the song have also been changed, lending a different color and flavor to the song and giving it a bit more depth. I’ll explain the harmonies in the next section of the article, the Jazz version.

As far as being a singer and working with a chart (sheet music), an accompanist and an arrangement, the first thing to notice is the feel of the song. This feel is very syncopated, with the accents on “1 and 3″, i.e. the first and third beats of the bar. This means that your phrasing needs to work with and reflect this. Once again, it can help to think ” one and two and three and four” etc. In other words, it”s in 4, but if you feel it in 8, then the rhythm will feel easier and your phrasing will have more subtlety.

Jazz

amazing-grace-jazz

This Jazz version is played in a classic ballad style, with both the bass and piano accenting the ¾ time. Yet again, think “one and two and three and” for the feel and time.

Since this is a Jazz version, and Jazz is music based on improvising, it’s now time to look at the chords in more detail, and also how one might improvise or ad-lib using the chord voicings above (a chord voicing meaning exactly that, like the different voices in a choir. Chords are traditionally “voiced” from the root up: root, 3rd, 5th and onwards depending on the chord).

The version above is in the original key of Eb, but I found that both the Jazz and Folk versions sounded better in a lower key, so I chose C for the Jazz version and Db for the Folk version. For simplicity’s sake we’ll be looking at both versions in C, the median key since Db, having 5 flats, makes things very complicated. The Jazz version in C is shown after this next section.

Transposing A Song

So let’s say you have the music for a song that works for you, and need to transpose it into a key that’s in your vocal range. Taking the example above, we need to transpose the song from the key of Eb to C. On a keyboard or guitar, simply count down (or up, whichever is simpler, i.e. nearer the key you’re transposing to) the number of semitones to your destination.

Eb to C is 4 half-tones, or semitones, including Eb:

Transposing Eb to C becomes:

Eb – C

D – B

Db – Bb

C – A

B – Ab

Bb – G

A – F#

Ab – F

G – E

F# – Eb

F – D

E – Db

And back to Eb.

And so we get the new key.

The Chord Voicings

The sheet music above, in the key of C, is in ¾ time and has a four bar intro, the basic notes of the motif written out for piano and bass. The letter “A” in this case, is the where the voice comes in. In this instance, having a letter A is useful during rehearsal or performance. Saying “Ok, let’s pick it up at letter “A”, for example, saves a lot of time and explanation.

We’ve already looked at the major and minor chords, the 7th’s and a few other chord possibilities in the articles ‘How Music Is Constructed’ and ‘How To Read Music’. There are a few chord possibilities in the Jazz version that were only mentioned in passing in those articles, however:

The first chord is C over G, which is the second inversion of a C major chord. A chords inversion relates first of all to its bass note. C major triad contains the tones C, E and G; its inversion is determined by which of these tones is used as the bottom note in the chord. And so each bass note used indicates the identity of the chord:

Root Position: When the root’s in the bass.

After this, the different positions of the bass are called inversions.

The first inversion of the C major triad is E – the third of the triad – with the fifth and the root, C, stacked above it:

In the second inversion, i.e. the first chord in the Jazz version, the bass is G, the 5th of the triad, with the root and the 3rd above it. Thus forming a 4th and a 6th above the (inverted) bass of G. A second-inversion triad is also known as a ’6 4′ chord and would be written as C/G:

Third inversions exist only for chords of four or more tones, such as 7th chords. In a third-inversion chord, the 7th of the chord is in the bass position. For example, a C7 chord in third inversion consists of Bb in the bass position (the 7th), with C, E and G above it, and would be written as C/Bb:

And on to the next chord, G13. Simply put, this means “use the 13th in the chord”. If you count “G” as 8 (i.e. you’ve already counted up a major octave), then continue till you get to the 13th note, which in this case is an E:

In effect this is the 6th note of a G scale. So the:

9th is the same as the 2nd, the

11th the same as the 4th and the

13th equivalent to the 6th.

By using what’s commonly called the “upper part of the chord”, this then gives the color of the chord dimension and subtlety, and is known as an extended chord. It’s also useful to remember that if you have a musician who knows his or her stuff playing with you, they might well do this automatically, and hopefully with a certain amount of taste (less always being more). When the sheet music states something as specific as a G13 chord however, they’ll know that this actual voicing is paramount.

And on to F minor, the 4th note in the key of C, and also part of the cycle of 5ths (one, four, five as it’s most commonly notated, C to F to Bb). A simple F minor isn’t indicating a 7th but is just flattening the 3rd, a nice contrast to the subtlety of the 13th chord before it.

C to G7. The line in between the two chords meaning: 2 beats of C, 2 beats of G7. The G7 meaning “a G major chord with a minor 7th”, and F. A major 7 being the F#.

To C. Enough said.

Then C to F7b5. The F chord is like a half-diminished chord, but has a major rather than a minor 3rd:

To F major 7. This uses the major rather than the minor 7th, E rather than Eb.

C over E, the first inversion of a C major chord:

Hear the bars above

We now get into modes. By using E as the bass note, it’s suggesting the scale of E. But by using C, E and G, the upper part of this voicing, we’re essentially flattening the 3rd, 6th and 7th of the chord. This is the same as the Aeolian Mode (once again, modes are briefly mentioned in the article “How To Read Music”).

A minor. Nuff said.

D9, another extended chord. A 9th chord typically includes the 7th and a major triad structure:

Hear the D9 chord above

F over G:

Hear F over G

Since G isn’t in the triad of F, this isn’t a chord inversion. The 7th of a straight F chord is played by the G in the bass, the 7th, 9th and 4th voiced by the F triad in the treble clef, making this a specific way to voice an F7 chord.

G7. A major chord that includes the minor 7th.

A-7. A minor chord that includes the minor 7.

G minor 7 to F#7b5. Same as the F7b5 but a semitone down.

Country Version

amazing-grace-country

Above is the Country version in Eb. As I mentioned earlier this version worked better in a lower key, so here it is in C for easy reference:

Traditional American Country music’s roots go back all the way to the early settlers. To the Folk, Celtic and “old time” music of the Irish, British, Scottish and Dutch peoples, originally centered in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. From there it was influenced by Gospel music and the blues, and because it was the main form of music played at dances and the like (think of Irish jigs and Scottish reels), the rhythm is highly accented (a one and a two and a three and a four and a etc). The same applies with this recorded version, i.e. once again it can help to think “One and a two and a three and a four” to get the feel of the rhythm. You can see this reflected in the bass line, which is notated as a simple two notes to a bar rhythm, i.e. 2 minims to a bar. You can hear that the guitar in the recording is further helping the groove by marking straight 4/4 time. With the feel clearly stated by the guitar and bass, the piano is free to be more expressive and help the track breathe. The chords are a bit straighter than the soul version, the only out of the ordinary chord being Eb/Bb, the second inversion of Eb (as in the inversions of the Jazz version above).

Nothing new the rest of the chart except the ‘repeat’ sign at letter A and the end of the piece.

Folk Version

amazing-grace-folk

For folk, in this instance, think “old school and straight forward”. The only difference in this sheet music is the tie on the lead line (i.e. vocal) in the last two bars. A dotted minim makes the count 3 (a minim being two counts, the dots half as much again), so with the tie the total count is 6.

In Conclusion

So we’ve looked a the basics of ad-libbing and improvising: what it is and some simple ideas on how to develop these skills.

And we’ve seen how, by changing the chords and the feel, we get very different interpretations of the same song in a completely different genre.

And from practicing the exercises above and the information from the articles: ‘How Music Is Constructed’, ‘How To Feel Rhythm’ and ‘How To Read Music’, you hopefully now have a deeper understanding of:

1. What the other musicians are playing: how the music is constructed – the chords etc.

2. The rhythm. And as we saw earlier, when you have good rhythm you’re then free to play with phrasing and timing, and you always know your place in the music (how the tune fits in with the chords, where you are in the arrangement at any given time).

3. How to approach improvising, and so free up your performance, so you’re not ‘stuck’ always singing the same thing in exactly the same way.

And as I mentioned earlier, how we sing the song also depends on many things: the genre, the tempo, the feel etc. We saw how, in the Soul version of Amazing Grace, the chords leant themselves to a more Gospel, blues-y interpretation, using chest and diaphragm together, with the resonance opened up to the chest. The folk version was very ‘straight’ and the country version accenting the 2 and 4 of the bar to give the vocal swing, the tone a purer one than the Jazz and soul versions.

All of the chords in these versions were subtly changed, but the most radical differences were in the Jazz version. You can hear the difference in the harmony and chord voicings, and the wealth of possibilities this opens up for all concerned. The singer can potentially make more elegant choices, although in this instance I mostly stuck to the tune but changed the phrasing – once again, I felt, less being more. With subtler chords, when it’s time for a musician’s solo, there’s a suggestion of harmonic content much richer than the other, simpler versions. Once again, appropriate to the genre. The tone was a mixture of breathy and clear note, with a lot of communication between with the larynx and diaphragm.

Improvising

A quick re-cap:

1. Get to recognize the chords, so you can hear them coming up and recognize the difference between them.

2. Sing scales and arpeggios around the chords, to get them fixed in your head.

3. Learn some licks and riffs that fit over the chords.

4. If there’s an unusual chord that your ear is finding it difficult to hear, for example the F7b5 in the Jazz version, make up some little tunes over the chord to help you recognize it.

This may seem like gruntwork, but your ear is a muscle just as your voice is, and the subconscious a powerful tool. Once the ear has recognized the chords and has some ideas how to use them with rhythm and pitch, hey ho you’re improvising.

A good jazz musician, or a musician that’s interested in improvising, learns the intricacies of scales, and how they relate to various chords. So in effect they understand not only all of the different chords and chords voicings, but also modes, and have an extensive knowledge of how to use different scales over various chords and their voicings. Because as a tune progresses, there’s usually a harmonic flow and structure. For example chords resolving, as we saw earlier with the II V I progression. There’s a natural logic to the whole process. And in this way, as mentioned earlier, learning to improvise is akin to learning another language: everyone in the band playing with rhythm and harmony using the song as a vehicle to do so. And hopefully all at the same time or at least in the same room.

A couple of my students had exactly the same reaction from the same virus (none of us, of course, knowing who gave what where to whom), and it took more than a year to slowly go away. Over the course of this time, I did a lot of research on the subject and found out the following info. If anyone has anything more to add, then do feel free to post on the forum under “New To Singing” in the topic: “Throat Problems”.

Having tried everything (which I’ll list below in order of efficacy), I found that gargling with raw aloe vera juice (no additives, no pulp) was the answer. The problem cleared up in a matter of weeks. I have another friend who strained his vocal cords who also tried doing this and it seemed to also clear up the problem in the same amount of time. This is my only corroborating evidence so far, however. Trader Joe’s brand was the one that did the trick.

Next were: Gargling with warm sea salt, preferably rock salt. Or steaming with a few drops of eucalyptus in the water before hand, then gargling with the salt, and doing this twice a day. This worked very well (plus my face was really clean), except that I’d find any excuse not to do it, and in the end realized it was never going to happen on a regular basis.

Steamer

Eucalyptus Oil

Next came “Vocal-Eze” throat spray, which I found online. This didn’t help my particular issue, but it did feel very nice on the chords and that it was doing the voice a lot of good. Reasonably priced, too. It’s available at a number of online stores, Amazon always being a good bet. I paid $9.99 plus s&h for mine:

Vocal-Eze

After that came gargling with bee propolis and the essential oil myrrh, recommended by a friend. I found the propolis a lot more palatable than the myrrh which, although it felt like it was helping, I phased out in the end because of the taste. Another option, which I think I’d now opt for, is to gargle with the tincture. Mixes well with water and feels a lot smoother on the cords. Here’s an example of an online search:

Propolis tincture

Myrrh tincture

As a last, last, last resort I would suggest using a throat spray such as Chloraseptic. This would only be feasible, I think, if you have no other recourse and have very little voice. For example, you’ve a really important gig, an extremely hoarse voice and you don’t know where else to turn. Throat sprays such as this relax the vocal cords so we can sing, but often at the expense of the cords. Because it numbs that area so efficiently, we over-sing and can cause damage. Very rarely permanent (I would hope), but you’d be hoarse and sore for a few days. So if you’ve two gigs in a row, it might be ill advised since it’ll sound twice as bad the next day. To abuse the voice in this way on a regular basis is a very bad idea, since regular misuse of the voice can lead to nodes on the cords, which you really don’t want. The vocal cords are extremely tough and resilient, and bounce back from all kinds of misuse, but there’s a limit as in all things.

Aloe Vera Juice. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby (or in your country:-), then try to find a juice that has no preservatives or pulp.

Sea Salt. Nuff said.

Steamer

Eucalyptus Oil

Vocal-Eze

Propolis tincture

Myrrh tincture

Chloraseptic

Once you have the knack of opening up the jaw when singing high, experiment with the vowel sounds and the shape of the mouth. For many people, a wide rather than a long shape works best (try to keep the lips as relaxed as possible).

Take a song that you’re working on with a difficult high note, for example a word with an “a” vowel (“take”, “make” etc). Starting low in your range, sing gradually up the scale, changing the vowel to a rounder shape as you sing higher and higher, i.e. to an “eu” or “o” vowel. At the same time relax and open the jaw, focusing the note in the mouth. Putting a “g” in front of the vowel can also help “ga, ga, ga, geu, geu, go, go” etc.

Also, experiment with the larynx. It can help to imagine that you have a ligament within the larynx that’s moving, but the larynx itself is staying relatively still, making the changes the larynx is having to make to find the tuning of the song much more subtle.