A while ago I was listening to Beethoven’s 9th symphony, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. In the 4th movement there’s a section where 4 soloists sing together. They all had amazing voices, but I couldn’t help noticing how not connected with one another they seemed to be.
When I asked a friend of mine who’s an opera singer, he told me that in that genre of music the beauty and uniqueness of the tone is the most important thing. Singers aren’t interested in “blending.”
That’s well and good, if you sing Beethoven’s 9th, but if you sing in a choir or a small ensemble, one of the most important things is to BLEND!
What does that mean? It’s obviously impossible to sound exactly like another singer, because each voice is unique.
Here are some things that have worked for me over the years in terms of blending in a group:
- Tune into other people’s volume; make sure your voice doesn’t stick out, making it sound like you’re the soloist accompanied by an ensemble!
- Don’t impose your dynamics on the group, but tune into where the group energy is going. Dynamics – in case you don’t know – are variations in loudness between notes or phrases. Of course, some of these things get discussed and agreed upon ahead of time. However, a piece of music is a living thing, and very often dynamics happen unexpectedly, and your job as a singer is to tune into it and add your energy to what’s happening.
- Expand your awareness to include the whole group! This is probably the single most important piece of advice for singing in a group. Sharpen your ears and be aware of everyone’s part, or where everyone takes a breath, or anything else happening in the group.
- If there’s a designated leader, follow them. This might seem obvious, but many people want to be independent and they’re “allergic” to following others! 😊
- I should have put this first, but…If you’re a religious/spiritual group, pray before you sing. Why? Praying helps every group member to tune into the same source of inspiration (God), and that, actually, makes things a lot easier, because everyone then is following the same guidance. When everyone sincerely tunes into a higher consciousness, very often the song literally takes on a life of its own, and you end up singing it in a way that can be new and unexpected. Later you might learn, from people’s comments, that those unexpected “turns of events” helped them have a particularly deep and powerful experience.
In a future newsletter I will suggest practical exercises to develop some of the above skills to help you and the members of your ensemble to feel more connected as you sing.
