Build Vocal Method Resources for your Singers to Develop Outside of Rehearsal

The choral ensemble is a poor vehicle for teaching individual vocal technique. With the limited time we have in front of our groups, and hopefully a large number of singers eager to rehearse, taking rehearsal time to work on individual singing technique beyond a basic level (breath, posture, free easy tone, etc) isn't realistic. At the same time, sending choristers home to practice their parts on their own often begins and ends with singing along to a practice recording, since most singers lack the functional piano skills to accompany themselves or the ear training and reading ability to accurately rehearse parts a cappella. In our ideal worlds, I'm sure many of us would envision our singers working in private study individually to develop their technique while we craft these skilled and trained voices into a cohesive ensemble. Using a variety of free or low-cost online resources, we can build a library of vocal exercises which allow singers to continue to develop their instrument individually without depending on advanced piano or reading skills.

I'll say up front that none of this is designed to replace instruction from a qualified vocal teacher. At the highest level of all ensembles will be singers who have desire and resources (time, interest) to pursue individual instruction and craft their voices as trained singers. For many ensembles, though, the bulk of our singers would probably like to develop their voice but are unlikely to add vocal lessons in addition to the choir. This is for them– something they can practice at home that will positively contribute to their development.

Get a Method

Our first step is to find material in the public domain that relates to vocal instruction. Our normal public domain standby is CPDL, but aside from one sight singing collection, there is little for us in vocal methods there. Searching the voicings for solo voice does give us ample art song/lieder resources, which may be of interest.

The Internet Sheet Music Library Project is an extensive collection of works targeted for instrument and voice. While there are some choral works present in the database, the strength of the ISMLP is solo literature. Like CPDL, navigation of the ISMLP can be a daunting task at first, but one can find a category dedicated to Methods – a listing of instructional methods for a variety of instruments, voice included. Most of the resources in the ISMLP are high-quality .PDFs scanned from the original source.

Because they're in the public domain, you can assume that most of these methods are quite old. That's not to say that they are necessarily out-of-date, though– The Modern Italian Method of Singing (1795) opens with the same technique instructions found in many current methods, and then launches in the Mezza di Voce (a familiar starting point for most technique methods today).

Create your Web Tools

Remember that our goal is to create resources to help the whole range of our singers, especially those without access to a keyboard or piano. I would argue that anyone studying choir at any level of school should at least be able to play find do and play it on the piano to give themselves a starting pitch, and some comfortable readers may be able to simply take the .PDF file and play the exercises for themselves. Let's assume that we want to provide some more aural support, though– both to help the singers navigate the exercises and for the ear training benefits of practicing technique within the tonal context.

I suggest three possible examples of aural support:
1) create a recording of the entire exercise,
2) play tonic triad (or other relevant chord) on the pulse to help the singer navigate the exercise, or
3) play the tonic note (or appropriate root) in the rhythm of the exercise.
Each of these place the burden on the singer to follow different levels of support while performing the exercise. Of course, if your chosen method has a piano accompaniment, you can simply play that.

At this point, we are now staring at a seemingly daunting creation process– recording each exercise in all of the appropriate keys. Considering differing vocal ranges, we are likely to have students start in different keys as well, meaning the order of exercises is going to be different. An oft-overlooked aspect of Sibelius is going to come to our aid though: the Scorch Plugin.

Scorch-ed Scores

Scorch is a web plugin which displays Sibelius scores and will play them back from within a web window. If we enter our public domain method exercises into Sibelius, we can embed the file into a web page so that singers can play them back without having to have Sibelius. In addition, and this is where it gets interesting for our purposes here, the user can control the tempo and key on their end. In other words, singers can choose the key in which they would like to perform the exercise. To move up the scale, they would click the new key and the accompaniment will transpose with them. Scorch is also available as an app for iOS ($1.99) and can access files sent via e-mail or stored in Dropbox. In the iOS version, musicians can turn on or off playback for individual instruments, so you could enter the exercise itself on one track and a sustained do on another, allowing musicians to practice with and without the exercise itself.

Differentiating our Musicians

Doing exercises out of a method book downloaded from the Internet is not a substitute for individual vocal instruction, nor will it grow soloists from our beginner singers. Using public domain material and generating these kinds of practice exercises can give our musicians ways to expand their skills, though, by giving them tools to use to practice their voice on a daily basis. What would a few minutes of scales and exercises in an individual setting, accompanied by a strong tonal accompaniment, do for your singers' instruments? Connecting your warmups and your choice of methods further reinforces the technique being developed in the rehearsal and allows the singers to continue to practice those skills developed in-ensemble on their own (while allowing you to introduce technical concepts during the rehearsal).