Vision Music

[woland99]

As a sort of corollary of the inspiring discussion on Meaning of the Blues
I thought I would post a short set of instructions on How to Sing.
Written by great Julio Cortazar and published in his in his "Fames and
Cronopios" book (required reading for all musicians).

Peace,

JT

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR SINGING by Julio Cortázar

Begin by breaking every mirror in the house, let your arms fall,
regard the wall loosely, forget. Sing one note, listen from the inside.
If you hear (but this will happen much later) something like a landscape
immersed in fear, with bonfires in between the rocks, with semi-nude
silhouettes on tiptoes, I believe you will be well on your way, the same
if you hear a river where vessels painted in yellow and black descend,
if you hear the taste of bread, the feel of fingers, the shadow of a horse.

Afterwards buy solfeggios and a tailcoat, and please don't sing through
your nose and leave Schumann in peace.
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[nylenny]

I thought I might revive this old thread by metioning that I have found singing to be one of the best ways to develop my ear. I am not a singer, but I try to sing phrases that I transcribe, which I find makes them more "organic" and easy to remember. I also find it easier to transcribe something I can sing.

Thoughts?

[corky4strings]

they say if you can sing it you should be able to play it.
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corky




let your fingers do the walking i do

[Larry_DC]

Definitely. Even with a voice like mine which will send birds north for the winter. It helps internalize the sounds.

[Brad Kinder]

singing lines is something I've gotten in the habit of doing also. It has definitely helped close the gap between my ear and fingers.

[Mark]

[nylenny]

Wanna turbo charge your transcribing?

When I am being especially disciplined in my practice, I use a program called, "Sight Singer 2.5" ( http://sight-singer.en.softonic.com/ ). You can adjust the level of difficulty, and scale source (diatonic, chromatic, modal).

I've found the best way to use the program is to sing (without the guitar) the melody and then play it to check. You can also do both simultaneously, but it is not as challenging.

The company that produces the software makes some other programs ("Ear Steady" and others), but this is the only one I've found to be valuable.

There is a great book, btw, called, "Music for Sight Singing." It starts out pretty easy (folksy melodies), but contains a lot of material. It's about a year's worth of college-level sight singing. Great for your reading chops.

[kbgtr001]

[nylenny]

kbgtr001 said:

[Dean]

That's one of the reasons I love blues and jazz so much,you can kind of wing it sing it.Like in blues,some of the words are kind of words,or English is a bit skewed.I know we are talking tone here,but the words are sometimes pronounced and sang different then normal.If Buddy Guy did not sing the way he does,and us the words the way he does,it just would not be the same.Like the title of one of his songs...Done got old....Hope you can understand this post...JMO Oh , I agree singing helps,even bad singing.hahaha
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What don't kill you makes you stronger

[Mark]