PURPOSES
I use a warm up for my girls’ choir to build:
- A sense / accuracy of half-step ascending and descending;
- Tuning of a chord (or any harmonic structure), especially cluster harmonies, while moving;
- Referencing of intervals from other vocal parts of the ensemble.
STRUCTURE
- Every singer starts from a given pitch, say Middle C. They all start singing an ascending chromatic scales, with using solfége and hand-sign;
- Next, ask one of the voice parts hold at a certain pitch, say Alto 2 on D, while other parts continue the scale up;
- Then ask other parts to hold at different pitches, say Alto 1 on F, Soprano 2 on Ab, and let soprano 1 sing all the way up to B. The harmony should now be a composited diminished 7th chord.
- Sometimes, I use the exercise for them to make cluster chords, where voice parts are holding notes whole-steps apart, or half-step apart;
- Lastly, singers need to come back down together to maintain the harmony, in the example of dim 7th chord, in a parallel manner. I.e. keeping the dim 7th chord at constant when every part singing chromatic down simultaneously.
(“My Go-To Warm-Up” features a favorite warm-up used by those choirs who have been selected to perform during the 2015 ACDA National Conference.)
Jena Dickey says