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.

You might find that understanding or reading music, or singing the song, i.e. the actual notes, isn’t the major problem. For many singers, rhythm is the main issue. It’s easy to get lost, hard to find the accent of the beat and it’s generally all a mystery.

This is particularly true if the performance is sounding “flat”, i.e. no emotion behind the song. Feeling the rhythm as you sing also helps enormously with:

1. Phrasing, i.e. feeling your own internal rhythm
2. Which in turn helps you find your own voice
3. Good phrasing. This stops the performance from feeling too uniform, thus getting boring, i.e. if it’s a repetitive song, singing everything the same.

Feeling rhythm is as much of a learned response as actually singing the song, and just as important. Once again, it’s something that you have to work at, so it becomes part of the emotional memory of the body. In other words, you have to learn feel it, not think it. Over time feeling time becomes second nature.

And “having good time”, i.e. singing in time and with a good feel, is also just as important as good breathing technique and singing in tune and pitch. You always know where you are in the song for one thing (at the beginning of the verse or about to sing the chorus for example), and on a deeper level you can play with the song and give your performance greater depth and subtlety.

If you find rhythm is a big problem then help is always at hand. You can learn to be in time, just as you can learn to sing in pitch with good tone.

The first practical thing to do is tap your foot, or a part of your body, in time to the music as you’re singing. If the song’s in 4/4, the most common Western time signature, just count “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” (if you have no knowledge of music, or how to read it, then I suggest that you also read the articles “How Music Is Constructed” and “How To Read Music”. Just the basics, but it should help to shed some light on the subject).

Try to feel the first beat of the bar, what musicians call, strangely, “1“. Listen to the song and try to hear the rhythm. There’s usually an accent on the first beat of the bar, often with the bass drum or bass guitar if it’s, for example, a track with the classic line up of drums, bass and guitar or piano.

Rhythm And Rhythm Notation

Understanding how syncopation, i.e. rhythm, is created and notated can also help tremendously when learning to feel time.

As I mentioned in the other theory articles, music is extremely mathematical. And rhythm plays a great part of that equation. We’ve looked at how music is broken down into bars, and how they make up the structure of a song in the aforementioned article “How To Read Music”. To re-cap, here’s a breakdown of the variations of notes one might expect in music:

We start with a Breve. Two whole notes, 8 beats:

A breve

Then a semibreve, or whole note. 4 beats. 1 note to a 4/4 bar:

To a minim, two beats in length, 2 to a 4/4 bar:

And a crotchet. One beat in length, four crotchets to a 4/4 bar:

And a quaver. 8 beats to a 4/4 bar:

2 quavers can also be notated as:

or a single quaver:

The stem can be drawn with the stem facing up or down, shown by the flag on the right hand side of the note, depending on the path of the music.

Double the time of quavers are semiquavers, 16 beats to a bar:

The double line at the top shows it’s a semiquaver.

A single semiquaver looks like this:

The squiggly line after the notes in this diagram in a semiquaver rest (for more on rests see below).

To a demisemiquaver, the same as a semiquaver but 32 beats to the bar, shown with 3 notes to the tail instead of two.

Syncopation

Syncopation is physically created as soon as we move away from the regimented use of a note. We create syncopation in musical notation by using dots, ties, rests and triplets. Here’s a syncopation example. One bar intro ‘in time’ and then one bar of syncopated rhythm, shown below:

Hear The Bar Above

4 straight beats and then a crotchet, two quavers, a quaver rest, a quaver, a quaver rest, and a quaver.

(As a musical check note, you might see rhythm notated as a small ‘x’, with the tails etc the same as normal notes. A drummers part, for example).

However, we need to feel the beat we’re singing, even if we’re singing the song from sheet music. Some people have this ability naturally, and for others, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a learned response. The “emotion memory” of the body has to learn to count, so that you always know where you are in the song and where the beginning of the next bar is.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Get to grips with the rhythm: clap some different rhythms. Start easy and then get more complicated.

First in straight4/4 time: first crotchets, then quavers, then semiquavers :

Clap along to straight crotchets, then quavers then semiquavers

2. Now clap on 1 and 3, i.e. the 1st and 3rd beats of a bar:

Clap along to 1 and 3

3. Now every 2nd and 4th beat, called, even more spookily, “2 and 4″. In 4/4 time, the 2 and 4 accent is used time and again. Getting to feel this rhythm is particularly useful:

Clap along to 2 and 4

Now clap the same thing to a 4/4 metronomic beat:

Click track

Once you feel you have it, experiment with how, you personally, feel the beat. Accenting the 2 and the 4, are you right in the center of the beat, or behind it? Or naturally ahead? In Jazz, having a loose, groovy feel to this rhythm is called “swinging”. Pop music is generally more on the beat, i.e. in the center. Rock can be both. Indie can be both but tends to be more on the loose side. Soul can be both but is best, for me, when it’s behind the beat. If you listen for it, you can usually hear it in how the drums and bass work with each other. Pop music tends to be more in the center because not only does the music seem to demand it (and it wants you to dance, goddammit!), but is quite often a programmed loop, quantized (keeping it to a regular, exact, beat) and programmed in. So the music feels more regimented, and thus in the center. Of course, you can allow for this in the programming, but when something is played live its always going to breathe better. However, sometimes the exact beat makes for some very interesting textures within a song, so once again there is never any real hard and fast rule with song making.

4. Chose a tune you like that’s relatively simple, where you can hear the instruments clearly. It being the rug that ties the room together, I’m going to stick with Amazing Grace for the moment, using the (instrumental) 4/4 soul version from the How To Ad-Lib article as a demonstration. Try clapping along to the track below:

amazing-grace-soul-instrumental.mp3

There’s a very loose feel to this version. Try to clap along on the 2 and 4 and feel the loose rhythm in your body. Try dancing and clapping – even if it’s just tapping a foot.

And few other things to try:

1. Mark the 4/4 time and try to also accent the first beat of every bar. Then do the same thing with the second, third and fourth.

2. Now get used to counting in double time: ’1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and’. This makes it much easier to feel the rhythm, and also get those little accents that are just in-between the beat etc.

3. Try mixing up the 1 and the 3 and the 2 and the 4. 2 bar of 2 and 4 and then 2 of 1 and 3 etc.

4. Now try doing the same thing but put in the odd accent on the different notes in the bar as well, for example clapping on the 1 and 3 and 4.

5. Now try doing the same as in 4. above, while counting 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 at the same time.

6. Now try doing the same as the above while moving in rhythm. Once again, even if it’s tapping a toe!

7. And when you feel you have the basics down, try clapping a solo, like a drummer. Mix up the time etc, but, mainly, try and hear the music and how you’re interacting with it. Feel the rhythm, and trust your instincts.

8. It needn’t be that complicated, but try and make the phrases you clap relate to each other, like you’re telling a story.

9. And start to experiment with where you come in on the bar. Starting on a pickup beat into a bar (one and two and three and four and) sounds much hipper than right on the beat of one, for example.

If you’re still really stuck, try and learn a solo by ear. It’s amazing what the subconscious retains from concentrating that hard! Ella Fitzgerald is a good one to try. You’ll pick up on her phrasing, and she’s always clear and spot on with her timing.

Here’s a clapping example:

Clapping Example 1

And a slightly harder one (listen out for the triplets):

Clapping Example 2

By now, you’re hopefully listening to and hearing music very differently, so now might be the time to go back and clap along to the

amazing-grace-soul-instrumental.mp3

‘ad-libbing’, i.e. making stuff up, and see if it’s made a difference. And also remember, the spaces in between, the rests, are just as important as the notes you clap, so it can be very simple.

In fact, you’ll find that you have a different feel and perception of the “time” when you come back to singing a song.

If you really found the above exercises hard, start out with even simpler rhythms, then gradually make them more and more intricate. Try interweaving them so that they tell a story, are in some way related to each other, even for just a couple of bars.

5. Now let’s sing the song. Read the lyrics like a poem. Try to connect with the feeling of the song through your heart and diaphragm, a relaxed diaphragm being the doorway to your intuition and emotion.

6. Now sing the song to the instrumental track above, and see if it’s made any difference.

Here’s an example of the soul-type version with vocals for reference:

Amazing-grace-Soul-version

I mentioned in the clapping section above that the spaces in between the notes are just as important as the notes themselves. By the same token, the same applies when singing a song.

(There’s also a folk, jazz and country version to try, which you can find in the ‘How To Ad-Lib, Or Improvise’ article).

A Few More Tips

If you tried the above to no avail, then here are a few more tips that might be helpful:

1. If we imagine that the diaphragm is not only just the breathing instrument of the voice, but also where the feeling comes from, the solar plexus is the center of the emotion of the song. Listen to your instinct from there. It’ll tell you what to do. If it tells you to move your body in a different way, then try it out. If it feels wrong, then you are on the way to doing it the right way. If it feels right, odds on you’re truly expressing the song. It’s the whole body expressing the song, balanced, that gets real and lasting results. If you’re voice is centered, and you’re using your core energy, it’s OK to move around because you know where you’re going back to, where your internal spirit level is.

2. A singer is, at best, part of the whole band. Music is always a sum of the parts put together to make: music. So listen to the other musicians, especially if you’re in a band. If you’re singing karaoke, try to hear the different instruments within the song, and how the piece is “put together”. Especially how the rhythm of the song works with the chords. See if you can hear the difference between the musicians. And how they interact with one another. Hear the bass line. Hear the feel of the drums – is the drummer or the rhythm track behind the beat, in the center, or ahead? Hear if the drum and bass are playing together, and are “locked in” or “tight”, daddio, i.e. is the rhythm section tight?

3. As I mentioned earlier, you can take this further and learn a few solos (see the section below, “Learning to Ad-Lib, or Improvise”).

4. Record yourself. What we hear in our heads is often not what an audience hears. I’ve often found that you can “get it” when you hear what you’re truly doing, or at least know the next step forward.

5. Choose songs that you love, and that mean something to you personally. Let the audience come to you, rather than you focusing solely on them and what they might be thinking of you. This always results in losing focus and confidence. And last but not least, commit to the song completely. You then stay in the meaning of the song while staying centered.

By ‘commit to the song’, I mean ‘make the decision to focus purely on what you’re doing here and now, and not judge it’. Easier said than done, but this can be a learned response as much as anything else. And the decision has to come from you: make the decision that the whole of your body be connected to the song. The first line of the chain is to feel the song in the center of your body, like a ball the size of your fist behind your diaphragm (for me it’s a white one which stops it getting tense, but that is of course arbitrary). The next action is to relax the diaphragm as you breathe in, and so on up the chain until the note comes out of your mouth. The decision to commit to the song, and to the meaning of the song, is made before you’ve even taken a breath.

6. In other words, once you’ve tried the technical stuff, forget it and surrender to the song, the feeling and story of the song. See if the body takes over, now that you’ve started to re-program it, and if you’re singing the song differently as your focus changes.

Learning to Ad-Lib, or Improvise

If you found the exercises in the “Rhythm And Rhythm Notation” section useful, as I mentioned above, then you can take this idea further and learn some jazz solos. Ah! you might be thinking. She’s sung a lot of jazz. I hate jazz, it’s so far away from the music I like. In which case, of course, don’t do it. But for the curious, I’ve tried this out with quite a few students, and it’s always been helpful. It helps amazingly with learning to build a song through phrasing, and to ad-lib at the end of a tune (whatever genre). If you noticed a difference doing the clapping exercises in the section above, then learning to put notes to the syncopation is the next logical step. The article “How to Ad-lib, or Improvise” deals with the basics of these issues. Most modern genre music is either directly related to the blues, or a watered down version of Jazz and European harmony. So there’s an element of jazz in there, even if it’s just an F7 chord! When learning to improvise, obviously, start easy. Try some simple blues licks for starters. Sometimes, that’s all you need. If you’re trying to find your own voice, or have a real problem with rhythm (or any number of reasons in between), then try something medium, then really hard, i.e. build up to it. Ad-libbing is like learning a different language. It might seem like a Herculean task, but in my experience, once again it can be really fun.

If improvising just isn’t your thing, then once again just try clapping along to one of your favorite songs. Listen to the rhythm, the instruments and how they all fit together. Try to isolate them and hear how everything works together.

Ending A Song

Lastly, you might have the time down, but ending the song is causing all sorts of problems. If you’re singing with a band and have the luxury of practice, then first of all work out what you’re going to do. Most endings are pretty obvious. Three times round the last phrase, a pause and then a chord or two for a ballad, for example. This is easier with well-known modern genre songs, because everyone knows the famous version, or has the sheet music in front of them, and you play and sing it like the record. So just learn what the original singer did first of all (not ideal, obviously, since you want to sing any song in your own way. Once you’ve learnt the original, you can experiment with different endings etc). The issues with how to end a song usually come in the genres of rock, blues, jazz and folk. With rock, you usually rehearse or have written the song, or you have the original singer once again (the article “How To Lead A Band, How To Count In And End A Tune” might be useful here). If you’re in a live situation, are at the end of the song and don’t know what to do, look at the keyboard player or guitar player (they’re at the front of the stage, usually, so everyone can see them), and follow their direction. A downward motion with the hand usually means a chord, or else they’ll make a movement like “end of song” (a finger slashed across the neck being a popular sign). And if you trust your instinct, you can usually tell where the tune is headed, and hear as the chords are resolving to an end of the song. And if not, then watch that keyboard or guitar player. So follow the band, and once again resist the temptation to just go for it and be hopelessly wrong, i.e. the band knows how to finish the song, so follow their lead. If you know the arrangement and feel confident, then take charge and give the signals to end the song.

Many thanks to:

Pianist, composer and arranger Terry Disley for playing and arranging the soul version of Amazing Grace

terrydisley.com

wikipedia.com

I mention in that article how mathematical music is, and musical notation (for example, sheet music) is no exception. Everything is split up into parts and segments, starting with the whole form of a song, right down to the millisendth of a note, and vice versa. When you understand the form, and how each increment of that form is broken down, i.e. notated, then reading music is relatively easy.

3 Octaves C To C

With sheet music, a three octave scale in C would be written like this:

Low C to High C Scale

If we think in terms of a piano keyboard, middle C is the note in red. Anything below that is part of the “bass clef”, the curly sign on the bottom left of the diagram. Anything above that is the “treble clef”, and is described by the sign on the top left hand side of the music. The time signature is also shown on the left hand side of the music, in this case 4/4 time, the most common of time signatures. A bar means a whole section of that time signature, i.e. four beats. The horizontal groups of lines in the diagram that make up both the treble and the bass clef are called “staves”. There are 5 lines grouped together in a stave.

In the sheet music above, the staves are broken down into 6 blocks by vertical lines. Each block is called a bar, and denotes 4 beats, thus creating the 4/4 time signature indicated at the beginning of the music. The musical notes are then notated in time the with beat of the music, and thus the pacing of the bars.

Notes can be placed on a bar in the white spaces, or on the black lines, each line of the stave representing a note on the scale.

For the black notes E G B D F I learnt this rhyme as a child:

“Every Good Boy Deserves Favor”

And for the white notes it was F.A.C.E:

“F.A.C.E.”, face.

Notes

The notes in the music above are “crotchets”, meaning a single beat, and in 4/4 time, there would be 4 crotchets to a bar, making four single beats, 1,2,3,4. Once again, music being mathematical, a single bar can be split into further increments. We start with a Breve, often called a double whole note in American and German terminology. One note, 8 beats. It’s either shown over two bars (yet again, in 4/4 time):

Hear A breve

Or notated like this:

The diagram on the left hand side shows a hollow oval note head, like a whole note, with one or two vertical lines on either side. An alternative notation consists of two adjacent hollow oval note heads, as in the double noted bar on the right .

SemiBreve

Once again sometimes called a whole note in American and German terminology.

A semibreve is 4 counts long. So in 4/4 time, a semibreve would look like this:

Hear A semibreve

A Minim

A minim is two beats, the above diagram showing 2 minims in a 4/4 bar.

Hear A Minim

A Crotchet.

Four beats to the bar.

4-Crotchets

A Quaver

8 beats to the bar.

Hear the bar above

Quavers can also be split up into increments. So two quavers look like this:

Hear the bar above

A single quaver is notated like this:

The stem can be drawn facing up or down, shown by the flag on the right hand side of the note, depending on the path of the music.

Double this time are semiquavers, 16 beats to a bar:

Hear the bar above

The double line at the top shows it’s a semiquaver.

A single semiquaver looks like this:

The squiggly line after the notes in this diagram in a semiquaver rest (see below).

To a demisemiquaver, 32 beats to the bar, which is just getting silly:

Rests

If there’s a space in the music, or rest, this is shown as:

A whole bar:

This bar rest also translates as a two bar rest, when it’s shown, for example, after a semibreve:

The single bar rest (squiggly sign), meaning one beat:

The above 4/4 bar shows a crotchet, a crotchet rest and a two bar rest.

A quaver rest looks like this:

And a semiquaver rest has a double tail on it, shown after the two semiquavers:

And a demisemiquaver rest looks like this:

Keys

OK, so that’s the basic notes and rests, and how they’re shown on the stave. Now let’s look at keys, i.e. what they are and how to recognize them. I mentioned keys, scales and chords in the “How Music Is Constructed” article. Every song has a key (with only rare exceptions, for example, free Jazz). The key of a piece of music can be a complicated subject. But, in a broad sense, it means that the note the key pertains to is the song’s harmonic center, or tonic. In other words, if the song was in C for example, you could play the note of C more or less throughout the piece as a bass note and hear the key (see the section ‘Finding a song’s key’ for more info).

Music is also generally written in either a major or a minor key. The major or minor depends on the scale on which the key is based. The key of a song is shown at the left hand side of the stave.

The Key of C looks like the very first scale above, with nothing on the left hand side of the stave, having no sharps or flats. “C” is also sometimes written to denote the key.

The Flat Keys

F : 1 flat, Bb:

Bb: 2 flats. Bb and Eb:

Eb: 3 flats. Ab, Eb and Bb:

Ab: 4 flats. Ab, Bb, Db, Eb:

Db: 5 flats. Db, Eb, Gb, Ab, Bb:

Gb: 6 flats. Gb, Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb:

Cb: 7 flats. Fb, Gb, Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb:

By the time you get to Db, it’s getting ridiculous. 5 flats and above make these keys really hard to play for any musician. By just changing the key to either C or D, a simple half step in either direction (whichever is most comfortable for you, the singer), you’re making everyone’s life much easier.

The Sharp Keys

G: 1 sharp. F:

D: 2 sharps. F and C:

A: 3 sharps. F, C and G:

E: 4 sharps. F, C, G and D:

B: 5 sharps. F, C, G, D and A:

F#: 6 sharps. F, C, G, D, A and E:

C#: 7 sharps. F, C, G, D, A, E and B:

The same applies as above. From B onwards, these are pretty redundant keys.

Minor Keys

I mentioned relative minor keys in the article “How Music Is Constructed“, and how they relate to the cycle of 5ths:

A minor key has a flattened 3rd, 6th and 7th note. Each minor key is related to a major key with the same amount of sharps or flats.

So, looking at the diagram, it shows that the key of C is related to A minor. The key of C has no sharps or flats:

and neither does the key of A minor:

And so on round the cycle: the relative minor of G is D minor, D is B minor etc.

Finding A Song’s Key

If you have sheet music that doesn’t have a key written in the left hand corner, you can find the key in a number of ways:

1. It’s quite often the first or last chord, or else the chord the first chord resolves to.
2. It’s the predominant bass note (if the key is F, for example, you can pretty much keep playing an F in the bass and it’ll sound right).
3. If you have a keyboard or guitar, then if you can pick out chords it becomes much simpler. You’ll see certain chords repeating themselves. If the key is G, for example, you’ll find yourself playing the F# again and again. A big sign that the key is G.

Half Tones, or Semitones

What about half notes, or semitones, i.e. the equivalent of a white to a black know on the piano? This is notated by sharps and flats:

The diagram and the sheet music above show F to F#, a semitone.

Playing up octave using every note, i.e. every semitone, is called a “chromatic scale”.

Sharpening And Flattening Notes

If you want to write a note that’s not in the key of the piece, for example a semitone higher or lower than the current note you’re playing or singing, then this is notated by a flat or sharp sign before the note.

Hear The Bar Above

Once you’ve assigned the command to the music with a raised or sharpened sign, it’ll keep being played as such until you tell the music to do otherwise. So if you want to go back to the original note that fits in with the key of the song, then the opposite sign is used to once more raise or lower the note a semitone. This snippet is in the key of C. F is sharpened to F sharp, and then flattened back to F.

Dots

Hear the bar above

In the example above, there’s a dot after the crotchet, the first note. A dot after any note means “half as much again”. This makes the count of the dotted crotchet 1 1/2 beats, the quaver (half a beat) completing the first half of the bar, i.e. 2 beats, and a 2 bar rest completing the 4/4 bar.

The dotted minim 3 beats, the crotchet 1.

Ties

Ties work in 2 ways. They either simply tie the note together, as in the bar below:

Hear the bar above

A dotted crotchet (1 1/2 beats) a tied crotchet (1 1/2 beats), a quaver rest and a quaver for the first bar, with a semibreve the next bar.

The second crotchet is tied because it’s in effect tied to the 2nd half of the bar. The first dotted crotchet and quaver being the first two counts, the crotchet, rest and quaver making up the 2nd 2 counts.

Hear the bar above

A tied, dotted minim make up the two bars above. When a note is tied it means: play it once, for the duration specified. In this case across one bar into the next. The note above is 5 counts (the first minim being 2 counts, the next dotted minim, 3 counts).

Syncopation

“Dots” and ties create syncopation – changing the length of notes so they’re no longer regimented, i.e. strictly in time. Mixing up the length of the notes creates rhythm, and as soon as rhythm is introduced into a song, it becomes syncopated.

The examples used in the ‘Dots’ and ‘Ties’ sections above demonstrates this.

When thinking of the rhythm of a song, for example 4/4 time, it can help to count in quavers: one and two and three and four and etc.

For more on syncopation, check out the article: ‘How To Feel Rhythm‘.

Triplets

Hear The Bar Above

Another thing to now throw into the mix before moving on is triplets. This is simply a single note, but counted in three. To count a crotchet triplet, as in the bar above, hold your hand in an upright position and count “One, two, three”, moving your hand ‘up, down, up’. One is the upright position, two, the down, three the up position once more.

Triplets can be counted over any value of note: breve, minim, quaver etc.

Articulation

Articulation actually means, “how things are articulated”, or joined together, for example a skeleton or the syllables of a word. In music, the articulation means “what happens in between the notes”. The rests, the accents, the expression of the piece. And articulation depends on what’s at the beginning and end of each segment, as well as in between. We’ve already looked at rests and dots, and will be looking at some basic terms over the next few paragraphs.

Accents

In music notation, an accent mark means “accent the note”. The most common form being the fourth note in the diagram above.

The first note means staccato, meaning the last part of a note should be silenced to create separation between it and the following note, creating a note about half as long as the note value indicated.

The second note means staccatissimo and means a staccato note even smaller than staccato.

The third note, the teepee accent, means ‘play with a combination of accent and staccato‘.

The fourth note, the Accent mark, means that the marked note should have an emphasized beginning and then taper off rather quickly.

The fifth note, the tenudo mark, indicates that a note is to be separated with a little space from surrounding notes.

Legato

Legato is the opposite of staccato, and means that the notes are played “long”, very connected, like there’s no space between them, i.e. continuously. In the bar above, legato indicates this musical feel.

Slurs

A slur looks the same as a tie but has a very different function. Indicating a legato feel, a slur sign means “blend the notes together seamlessly so there’s no space between them”. With a tie, the note doesn’t move, but is “held”.

Slurs can be performed quite fast, as in the sheet music above. Along with violin sections, a lot of singers use slurs as an artifice, often to great effect. Christina Aguilera, Maria Carey, Celine Dion, Beyonce et al. Usually based around a blues or pentatonic scale (check out scales in the “How Music is Constructed” article), they’re a form of ad-libbing. And for more on ad-libbing check out the article: ‘How To Ad-Lib, or Improvise’.

Portamento

The first sign above means Portomento and/or glissando. Portomento means to wobble the note very obviously, similar to using a heavy vibrato, and glissando means to wobble the note and glide, upwards or downwards, a technique used extensively in opera. The bottom symbol above shows the sign for ‘glissando up’ and ‘glissando down’. Portamento was also used extensively by early sythesizer players (think Rick Wakeman), rock guitarists when using the whammy bar(nearly every heavy metal guitarist alive or dead), and, last but not least, the classic portomento instrument, the organ. Hammond in particular. Plus church organs and everything above and between.

Scoops and Falls Offs

These signs are used by composers to show they want a slide down from the note, or a scoop up to it. They haven’t been standardized (except maybe for glissando, the last one, yet their appearance is pretty explanatory.

Grace Notes

Hear example

A grace note means, in essence, an ornamental note, an embellishment to the original. Either on the way up or down to the target note. Used extensively in classical music, this kind of embellishment is usually left up to the taste and skill of a performer in modern genre music, but occasionally you might see it notated.

Tempo Terms

Grave – Very Slow

Largo, Lento – Slow

Larghetto – A little faster than Largo

Adagio – Moderately Slow

Andante – “Walking” Tempo

Andantino – A little faster than Andante

Allegretto – A little slower than Allegro

Allegro – Fast

Vivace – Lively

Presto – Very Fast

Prestissimo – Very Very Fast

Moderato – Moderate(ly)

Molto – Very

Accel., Accelerando - Gradually becoming faster

Rit., Ritardando – Gradually becoming slower

Songs

We’ve now looked at the basics of music notation, let’s take a look at some sheet actual music and what you might expect to encounter.

Songs come in many shapes and sizes, and, although rules are made to be broken, most songs are written in the form of either a verse, or verse and chorus, or verse, chorus and bridge. The classic form for a song is verse, verse, bridge, verse. This form of song is called a “standard”, and refers to the works of composers such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Usually 16 bars for each verse and 8 for the bridge (middle bit), 32 bars in total. Modern genre songs often veer away from this format, so you might just get a verse and a chorus repeated with a small solo section, for example. Or just a riff or hook, repeated at various times throughout the song (for example, rap and hip hop).

Let’s look at the formation of the song used in the “Singing A Song – Putting It All Together” section of the program, the timeless “Amazing Grace”. In this song there are simply 16 bars to each verse, which make it like a traditional Folk song. So we need only look at a single verse to see the basic form of the whole song. To demonstrate this, the version below is a simplified form of the chords and tune, in the key of Eb.

Hear the verse above

Not the most inspiring of versions when there’s no groove, i.e. syncopation, just the basic tune. However, once again we have the time signature in the top left hand side of the sheet music, 3/4 time, demonstrated by the click track. One and two and three.

The chords are played depending on the bars indicated. The notes of the tune are part of the chord within the bar.

This sheet music is split into the treble clef (higher) and bass clef (lower). In this instance, the chords are in the bass clef, the tune in the treble clef. It’s in the key of E flat, shown at the left hand side of the music.

The beginning chords are E flat, the key of the song, then A flat, the fourth note in the key of E flat, and then back to E flat again. And the tune fits in to the key of E flat with every note:

The 9^th (the lyric ‘how’) simply means that from the root of E flat, or wherever you start the scale, you keep counting up 9 notes. So after an octave, E would become the 9^th, G the 10, A flat the 11^th, B flat the 12^th and C the 13^th.

Amazing Grace Full Song

And moving on to the full sheet music of the Amazing Grace version (above) used in the Full Program section “Putting It All Together: Singing A Song”:

This is another 3 stave version of the sheet music, with voice, piano and bass in that order (piano and bass are grouped by the curly sign at the left hand side of the page). It’s in 3/4 time and the key of Eb, with a 4 bar intro.

The chords have been somewhat changed from the first ‘straighter’ version, bringing out the blues and Gospel feel of the song (for more on chords, chord voicings and construction and how they ‘fit in’ to a song, check out the article “How To Ad-Lib, Or Improvise”. There are four different vocal versions of Amazing Grace, soul, Jazz, Folk and Country, with sheet music).

D.S.Al Coda

There’s one sign used in the sheet music above that’s net yet been mentioned, however, D.S. al Coda. Loosely translated, this means ‘ repeat back to the coda sign’. And when the coda is reached, i.e. the coda symbol, to jump to the end of the piece, symbolized by a second coda symbol, and to play to the end. This is notated in the music above as a coda sign at letter A:

There are repeat signs in the same bar of the music. On the next page at the end of the second set of staves is another repeat sign. These two signs are always seen together and mean, of course, ‘play round and round’. The writing ‘repeat A (coda sign) X 5 take Coda last X means just that: 5 verses and then the coda sign, the circle with a cross in it, and jumping to the second coda sign with Coda written by it, to the last 5 bars of the tune.

And So…

There are a plethora of examples of the notation described earlier in the article in the “Amazing Grace Full Version” sheet music above. Semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers, triplets, rests, a letter A, dots, ties, slurs, a Rallentando, coda, repeat signs et al. Ah yes, and the little sign at the end of the song, the slur with a dot above it on the very last bar, means ‘pause’.

For more information on how to read sheet music, chord voicings and musical notation check out the article “How To Ad-Lib, Or Improvise”. There are four different versions of Amazing Grace (soul, Jazz, folk and Country) with sheet music explained and vocal MP3 examples.

Many thanks to:

Musician/composer/arranger Terry Disley for arranging and writing out the Amazing Grace Full Version sheet music:

terrydisley.com

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.theoreticallycorrect.com/MusicFiction/index.html

http://www.dolmetsch.com/index.htm

http://cnx.org/content/m11884/latest/

http://library.thinkquest.org

for many of the above diagrams and information.

I took classical piano lessons as a child, and music never made any sense to me. Why the endless scales, etc, and what did that have to do with playing “Fairy bells”? It was only many years later that I made any kind of connection at all between the two, when I studied Jazz music theory. Much of the complexities of music were explained in a way I could finally understand. So for those of you to whom “how music is constructed” is also a complete mystery, this might help, in part, to shed some light on the subject. “Why should I bother?” is the obvious question that comes to mind, and the reason is, that understanding some music theory can help tremendously when performing a song. It helps one hear what the band is doing, even if you’re simply singing along to a karaoke track. For when you understand how everything is working together, and how the tune, i.e. your part, fits in to that whole, you’re no longer the lone voice out front, but intrinsically part of the whole thing, a necessary piece of the musical puzzle. And since most modern genre music is a distillation of the blues, which Jazz springs from, and European classical harmony, most of the songs you’ll be singing will usually be using this notation and a distillation of these harmonic ideas in one form or another.

Although music seems to be all about feeling and emotion, at its root it’s extremely mathematical and also beautifully simple. From there can spring enormous complexity, like a mathematical equation. Let’s look at a simple major piano scale to demonstrate this, C to C:

C to C

Hear The Scale C to C

A major scale is 12 notes in total, consisting of tones and semitones (or half tones). Every song you’ve ever heard (and by this I mean Western music), every piece of music ever created, springs from the notes of just one simple scale. Notes plus rhythm equal music. For within this major Scale of C, just taking the white note keys as an example, are also the scales of D, E, F, G, A and B. And if you use the black notes, you get the scales of D flat (or C sharp), E flat (or D sharp) etc, etc and so on up the scale, 12 scales in total (more of this later), 12 notes to a major scale. Already, what appears to be very simple has the potential for considerable complexity.

We calibrate scales by how many white and black notes there are. For a major scale its tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

A semitone is a half step, a tone is two semitones together, a whole step, for example C to D on the piano keyboard above.

Hear A Whole tone

A half tone, or semitone is, for example, C to D flat (or C sharp, notated C#, depending on the key you’re in):

A Half Tone, or Semitone

Hear A Semitone

So a scale is collection of tones and semitones. I mentioned earlier that a major scale is: tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

The same thing applies for all of the other keys, for example D to D: tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. You count the tones and  semitones from the note on which the scale starts. However, to play a major scale in D using this system, we need to play the F# (F sharp) and C# to get the same result as a simple major C scale:

D to D

Hear A D major scale

…and so on up the keyboard, i.e. this applies to every note: C, C#, D, Eb etc.

Since music is so mathematical, it has a natural order, i.e. harmony. You can write music that’s chaotic, but we hear the chaos because it’s the opposite of the harmony we’re used to.

Chords

Going back to the scale of C, it uses all of the white notes, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, 7 in total. The harmony of music is constructed by taking certain “key” notes of the scale to make “chords”. These form the “shell” of the chord, and give it its color, and are formed most commonly by taking the 1st, 3rd, 5th and then octave of the scale (i.e. same note as the root, but 8 tones higher).

So the Major chord of C would use: The root, the basis of the harmony of the chord, C, then the third note, E then the 5th note, G and then the root again but 8 notes higher, C .

Major C Arpeggio

Hear A Major C Argpeggio

A chord played in a ‘staggered’ sequence, as in the MP3 above, creates an arpeggio (sometimes referred to as a ‘broken chord’). An arpeggio is usually constructed from the key notes of a chord, for example the arpeggio above is the root, 3rd, 5th and octave of a C major chord. Once again, the same major scale arpeggio can be constructed in all of the keys, by playing the same notes in sequence.

You make it a minor scale, thereby changing the “color” of the chord completely, by flattening the third note, i.e. playing E flat in the key of C.

A C Minor Arpeggio

Hear A C Minor Arpeggio A D Minor Arpeggio So a minor D chord, for example, would be D, F, A, D. In other words, you've flattened the 3rd, and substituted F for F# (sharp): D Minor Arpeggio

Hear A D Minor Arpeggio

Every chord has a color. And you can enrich the colors by adding variation to the chord.

A chord starts out very simply, i.e. a major chord, but can become very changed by moving one note a semitone, as in the example of the minor arpeggio above. Flattening the third gives you a minor chord. As in the example above, a chord changes its color and tone most commonly by flattening or sharpening the 3rd, 5th or 7th.

The next step in changing a chords’ color is to change the 7th note, thus creating a 7th chord. Once again as in the example above, a 7th chord can be major or minor by flattening the third or 7th notes.

Here are all of the 7th chords:

Major 7

In the key of C, the Major 7th note would be B:

C Major 7th Chord

Hear A C Major 7th Chord

The Major 7th is used extensively in pop music, i.e. a major 3rd and a major 7th (in the key of C, as in the piano keyboard above, the 3rd is an E and the 7th a B). And just within this change of a chord, we start to get complexity and a pull to the harmony, i.e. the symmetry, of the music.

Minor 7

If you play a C chord with a major feel, i.e. the E (C, E, G, and B – no need to play the C again in this case since you already have it in the chord, what they call the root note), as in the “major 7th” chord above, it sounds very different than if you play the same chord but flatten the E, making the chord a minor one. This gives the chord a very “sad” feel, the pull of the major 7th against the minor 3rd:

C Minor Major 7th

Hear A C Maj Min 7th Chord

I mentioned earlier that if you flatten the 5th of a minor 7th chord, you get the blues scale:

Hear The Blues Scale In The Key Of C

Make a sequence out of this chord, a pattern of chords that relate to each other, and you get the blues.

The Blues

Let’s take a look at a classic 12 bar blues sequence. I mentioned that music has a natural symmetry to it, and this is at work when we play a song. The chords are constructed in sequence, with everything relative to the key of the song, i.e. its root. So in the key of C, all the chords relate to the key of C:

C7 C7 C7 C7

F7 F7 C7 C7

G7 F7 C7 C7/G7

Hear A Classic Blues Sequence

Some notes sound “right” when played in sequence, and have a natural pull, i.e. harmony to them. The F7 leading out of the C7, the G7, F7, C7 progression sound “right”. This is because all the chords are related to the key of C. F is the 4th note of the scale of C and G the 5th. So why the 4th and not the 3rd, or minor 3rd, i.e. part of a major or minor arpeggio for example?

The Cycle Of 5ths

I mentioned the natural harmony within music earlier. It often sounds right when chords “resolve”, i.e. they complete an equation. You can hear this at the end of a song, when there is a chord that the song “feels right” to end on. The strongest ‘root movement’ (which is what the bass is playing) is actually either down a perfect 5th or up a 4th. When you start on the second note of a key, for example in the key of C you would play a D, and move up a 4th and then down a 5th. This is called a ’2,5,1′ progression, and it’s more commonly written using Roman numerals ‘II, V, I’:

Hear an Example of a II IV I Progression

You can hear this ’2, 5,1′ progression throughout modern genre, Classical, blues and Jazz music.

You can also play the cycle of 5ths through all of the major keys. Starting on any note, the cycle will always lead you back back to your original starting place:

The triangle sign in the diagram above means ‘major 7′.

This ‘Cycle Of Fifths’ is often depicted in a circular diagram. So, once again, wherever you start, it’ll lead you back to the same place:

Cycle-of-Fifths Diagram

Many thanks to: Theoretically Correct.com for this image

Hear The II V I Progression In all Keys

This MP3 plays the II V I chord progression sheet music shown above.

The Relative Minor Keys

A minor key is called a relative minor key because it has the same amount of sharp and flats as its counterpart, the relative major. Looking at the ‘Cycle of 5ths’ diagram above, we can see that for every major key, there’s a ‘relative minor’ key next to it.

And a minor key is called a ‘relative minor’ because it has the same amount of sharp and flats as its counterpart.

We can get an idea of this by just comparing 2 scales on a piano keyboard. The “relative minor” of C major is A.

As we saw earlier, the key of C has no sharps or flats:

C to C

However, when you play A to A instead of C to C, but use only the white notes, you get the scale of A minor:

A Minor

Since A major has three sharps, C, F, and G, flattening them (shown here in red) creates the scale of A minor.

Hear The Scales of C Major and A minor

The sequence of ‘tone, tone, tone, semi-tone, tone, tone, tone, semi-tone’ is the same for all of the major keys, moving through all the notes on the piano: C, Db, D, Eb, E, F and so on. And the same rules apply to the minor keys (tone, semi-tone, tone, tone, semi-tone, tone, tone: flattening the third, 6th and 7th).

Back to the blues. As I mentioned earlier, you can hear in the blues example a few paragraphs above, how the chords move and have a “rightness” to them. Chord progressions are never fixed, however. For example, the last chord of the blues progression above is a G7, a “passing chord”, which takes us back to the C7. So in the last bar there are three beats of C7 and then one of G7. However, just staying on the C7 would work just as well. Musicians often work out their own way to play certain chords and chord progressions, which are called “voicings”, i.e. how you “voice” the chords. As a singer, it helps enormously to be able to hear the chord and how the chords move within a song. You then don’t have to rigidly stick to the tune and can take more risks (check out the article “How to Ad-Lib, or Improvise” if you’d like to learn more about this).

The “colors” of chords, or chord voicing s, aren”t just limited to making them a simple major, minor or minor 7th. We saw earlier how changing just one note in a 7th chord completely changes the chord. In fact, there are 5 types of seventh chords.

7th Chords

C major 7th (1 3 5 7). Major 7th Chords have a major 3rd and a major 7th. As musical notation, this would often be written as C with a triangle after it, or C Maj7.

C Major 7

Hear A C Major 7 Chord

Dominant 7th. C7 (1, 3, 5, -7). Dominant 7th chords have a major 3rd and a minor 7th. As musical notation, this would be written as C7.

C7

Hear C 7 Chord

C minor 7 (1 , -3, 5, -7). Minor 7th chords have a minor 3rd and a minor 7th. As musical notation, this would be written as either C-7 or Cm7.

C Minor 7

Hear A C Minor 7th Chord

C-7, flat 5 or the “Half Diminished” or “Half Diminished 7th”. Half-Diminished chords have a minor 3rd a flat 5th and a minor 7th. As musical notation, this would be written as C-7 flat 5 or C with a circle and a line through it at an angle.

Cm7b5 (Half Diminished)

Hear A Half Diminished Chord

Diminished 7th (1, -3, flat 5 ,double flat 7th, i.e. the 6th). Fully Diminished 7th chords have a minor 3rd, a flat 5th and a double flat 7th, equivalent to the 6, i.e. the 6th note in the scale. As musical notation, this would be written as or C dim7 or a C with the Circle sign and then a 7.

C Diminished

You can play all of these chords in sequence, from the Major 7th to the fully diminished, and hear, just by changing one note at a time, that as the notes get crunched together, the chord sounds more complex:

Hear The 7th Chord Progressions

In sequence the chords in the sound bite above are: C, C maj 7, C 7, C min 7, C half diminished, C Diminished

Suspended 4th Chord, or Sus 4. And now we get more complex. Play the 4th and the 5th (leaving out the 3rd), get what”s called a suspended 4th, or a sus 4 chord.

C Sus 4

Hear A Suspended 4th Chord

If you play the same chord, the sus 4, then change it to a simple major chord, i.e. moving the 4th to a 3rd, you get a classic “resolving” chord, heard a lot in Classical and Church music, for example.

Hear A ‘Resolving’ Chord

Once again, one note making all the difference.

You can also sharpen the 5th, or flatten the 5th. And yet again, you can play all of these chords in sequence and hear how the harmony changes as you do so. You can keep counting up from the octave, so you get the 9th, 11th and 13th, what”s called the upper part of the chord. And each change of harmony gives the chord another name, and another color.

Modes

We’ve looked at how quickly we can reach considerable complexity from a simple scale.

We can see the possibility for even greater depth, however, when we look at “Modes”, once again used a lot in jazz. Any good musician, guitar axe heroes included, needs to have a knowledge of modes for their playing to have any real edge. In the sixties, “Modal” music became popular, when, for example, the whole tune would be written using only a few chords and a ‘modal’ approach. Often the bass player would play “the root” and the chords would change over the static base note, thus suggesting different modes, i.e. the sound of different chords played against the repeating bass note. Wayne Shorter”s “Windows” or Miles Davis”s “All Blues” or “Freddy the Freeloader” being a few examples.

Once again, we can see how simple and complex music is by just looking at the basic modes in the key of C. Some of these modes are used in modern genre music, and some, are simply, not.

By just playing the white notes in the key of C, the scale sounds very different, depending on the note we start on:

Basic Major scale: See diagram and MP3 of piano scale above.

Dorian Mode. This one is easy to remember. By playing “D to D” (i.e. just the white notes), we’re essentially flattening the F and C, making this mode akin to a simple D minor:

Hear The Dorian Mode

Phrygian Mode. This scale is E to E (again just the white notes) and sounds very sad. Composers use this scale if they want the music to sound Oriental. It’s also heard a lot in Spanish, Hebrew and Gypsy music. Once again, you’re flattening the F and G, C and D notes, the scale starting with a half-step, E to F:

Hear The Phrygian Mode

Lydian Mode. This sounds almost the same as the major scale. Starting on the F and playing up the octave, once again just the white notes. The only difference is the 4th note, which should be a Bb to make it a normal major scale. By playing a B rather than a Bb you are “raising the 4th”. This was actually the “Major scale in the middle ages”, and is the basis for Gregorian chants and the like. The major scale as we know, with a flattened 4th, came about much later.

Hear The Lydian Mode

Mixolydian Mode. This has the most intricate name, but is also the easiest to recognize. Played G to G (white notes) it has a flattened 7th, and is used across the board for Rock, Blues and Jazz.

Hear The Mixolydian Mode

Aeolian Mode. A to A, playing the white notes. We’re essentially flattening the C, F and G. It’s also called the Natural Minor Scale.

Hear The Aeolian Mode

Locrian Mode. B to B, white notes. Verrry odd to the ear, and hardly ever used.

Hear The Locrian Mode

So we can start to see the intricacies of music, everything based around a system that’s so simple it’s hard to believe such amazing complexity lies waiting to be discovered.

And now we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to move on to the next part of the puzzle: How to Read Music (link).

First of all, if you’re a classical student, and love the genre, then listen to your teacher if he/she advises you against singing modern genre songs. Classical singing is very different from modern genre singing, and it might end up by being vastly confusing. If your technique is strong you won’t be harming your voice, but, in my experience, it takes a completely different set of “emotional chops” (i.e. skills). In other words, the thinking is very different. So once you’ve learnt to sing within the modern genre, it might take some re-adjustment to go back to classical singing.

My own experience has been with classically trained singers who’ve already made the decision try modern genre songs, so they’d made the decision to move away from classical and try something new. A couple of them did, indeed, switch between the two with no apparent problems, but that risk is always there, if you’re a committed classical performer.

The most common genre that classical singers wish to try is jazz so let’s start there. All of my classically trained students had the same experience: because classical training is often so thorough, they found it hard to “loosen up” and get with the beat, daddio. I think the reason for this is that our bodies learn habits fast and they can be tough to change, especially when classical singers usually start their training so young. For example, a classical technique often requires pure head resonance and a round vowel for the pure note, but a jazz voice is focused on chest resonance and a more breathy tone, or using a pure voice to a breathy voice, with a “wider” shaped vowel at the back of the mouth. A ways away from each other. Also, jazz singers are often behind the beat, Billie Holliday coming to mind, who was often so far behind the beat she was about to slide off the edge of the world. And eventually did, unfortunately. Classical singing demands “perfection”, which means being more in the center of the beat. In fact, as an observer, classical is like the creation of a perfect vase, going from one perfect moment to another. Contained and clear. Once again world’s apart. I’m sure some singers can manage this easily, but all of my experience so far points to it being a challenge. So here’re a few tips that helped my particular students:

First of all, get to grips with the rhythm. Clap the rhythm. First in straight time, i.e. 4/4 if that’s the time signature then getting faster and faster, i.e. crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers, then clapping in syncopation. You should have a much better feel of the time when you come back to singing the song. Start with basic 4 beats to the bar if it’s in 4/4, then the 8ths, then the 16ths. Then clap the 2 and 4. Most modern genre music accents the 2 and 4. Then try 1 and 3. Then try switching between 2 and 4 and 1 and 3. Then syncopate the clapping, like you’re performing a drum solo. Remember to feel the rhythm in your body as you’re performing the song, even if it’s just clicking you’re fingers or tapping a toe. This’ll help with phrasing. The spaces in between are just as important as the notes you sing.

Like as not, you have a level of technique from your classical training. So the challenge often isn’t purely technique, but also how you are thinking of using your instrument. This is where the rhythm also comes in. If we imagine that the diaphragm is not only just the breathing instrument of the voice, but also where the feeling comes from (you might already be connected to this theory), i.e. the emotion of the song. Listen to your instinct from there. It’ll tell you what to do. If it tells you to move your body in a different way, then try it out. If it feels wrong, then you are on the way to doing it the right way. If it feels right, odds on you’re truly expressing the song. It’s the whole body expressing the song, balanced. If you’re voice is centered, and you’re using your core energy, it’s OK to move around because you know where you’re going back to.

A jazz singer is, at best, part of the whole band. Music is always a sum of the parts put together to make music, and this is especially true in jazz. So listen to the other musicians, if you’re in a band. If not (and maybe also), start listening to some jazz. See if you can hear the difference between the musicians. And how they interact with one another. Hear the bass line. Hear the feel of the drums. Hear if the drummer and bassist are playing together, and are “locking in” or “tight” (daddio ho ho).

You can take this further and learn a few jazz solos. Ella Fitzgerald is a great one, since not only being a stunning singer and musician, she also often sang more in the center of the beat. Look out for her scat on “How High The Moon”. Or find a solo that you love and put words to it. It’s amazing how quickly the subconscious learns the language of jazz, and how this will transform your performance. You’re having to think on you’re toes, “out of the box”.

Record yourself. What we hear in our heads is often not what an audience hears. I’ve often found that you can “get it” when you hear what you’re truly doing, or at least know the next step forward.

Choose songs that you love, and that mean something to you personally, let the audience come to you, rather than you reaching out to them, and commit to the song completely. You then stay in the meaning of the song while staying centered. The diaphragm is not only the breathing apparatus, but also where we primarily emote (i.e. the term “gut reaction”). So it can help to relax your diaphragm every time you breathe in, i.e., the feeling of smiling, or feeling happy, and at that moment open yourself to your inner musician. This also helps root your voice, while centering both your performance and voice.

One last technical thing that can be helpful, to help connect you to your chest voice, imagine that there’s a metal plate that goes from the note to about an inch below your collar bone that is curved outwards, i.e. towards the back of your neck. If you reflect the sound from there, you’ll open yourself to your chest voice and this will, in turn help to take the focus away from head resonance. As a rule of thumb, modern genre singers use chest rather than head resonance, especially for the high notes.

Practice singing a pure to breathy note, and vice versa for the breathy Jazz type voice. And soft to loud, loud to soft. Round shape to wider, more oval shape and back again, using more air from the diaphragm for the emotion.

For some improvising ideas, the “How To Ad-Lib” article contains some basic improvising ideas and samples.

Once you’ve tried the technical stuff, forget it and surrender to the song, and the feeling and story of the song. See if the body takes over, now that you’ve started to re-program it, and if you’re singing the song differently as you’re focus changes.

Pop and rock genres can be a little easier, in that the song is usually felt more in the center of the beat. Really good, classic rock singers have often had some classical training along the way, and rock is akin to opera. You HAVE to have the chops to make it work, but you also need to be loose. Once again, phrasing and feeling the rhythm is key.

Pop singing often uses a different type of resonance, i.e. the mask around the eyes, but using chest resonance at the same time. Think almost a “square” shape at the back of the mouth, which gives a slightly metallic sound (think of classic “bubble gum” pop – “Micky” by Toni Basic, for example).

Soul singing is very much the same thing. Round vowels, but using a pure to breathy tone for dynamics, and using chest resonance for tone.

“Opening up” is an incremental thing, and isn’t going to happen overnight. I think, bottom line, it’s giving yourself the permission to follow your instinct and to take risks. Feel the rhythm, and let yourself MOVE. Not just for the sake of it, of course, but within the context and feel of the song. An audience won’t care if you perform cartwheels (actually, they’d probably love it), although if it’s in the middle of “I will always love you” it might not quite resonate.