Quote Of The Day
Question: How can you tell if there’s a chick singer at your door?
Answer: She doesn’t know when to come in
“HA HA” to all you male musicians who have told this joke over the years. It is actually quite funny, but the same holds true with some male singers too. Being able to feel time innately is not always a natural gift for some singers. That’s a tough blow as being able to naturally sense both the number of bars in each section and the groove in a song are an essential part of being a really good singer. There are some ways to learn to be better at feeling and being aware of time. One of the first things is to be able to identify where the “1” or downbeat of the bar is. Typically, in most pop songs the “1” is the dominant feeling beat which signifies the beginning of each new bar. This is the first step in being able to count bars. When you are able to identify the “1” beat then you can figure out how many bars are in the intro, the verse, the chorus, etc. To avoid becoming the butt of anyone’s joke, always know how long the intro is so that you don’t miss it. Some tunes may just “vamp” (which means repeats the same pattern over and over) until the singer decides to come in which gives the signal to the band to start playing the form of the tune. However, most songs have designated intros where you will need to know the exact amount of bars before coming in with the vocal. A good way to count bars is like this: 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4, 4-2-3-4… see the pattern. I know how many bars have gone by because the first number of my “bar count” tells me. This helps to avoid using your fingers LOL. Another good habit to get into is count the bars in your head and not with your lips. It’s pretty cute when my 9 year old students move their mouth to count the bars in the intro, but not so cute when my 30 year olds do it LOL. Another way to train yourself to be able to feel time a bit better is to practice counting bars in each section of the song to help you get an idea of how long a typical verse or chorus section is. After doing this for awhile, I am hoping that you wont’ have to count anymore and will have developed a sense of it without thinking about it and will just be able to feel it. This way, you can relax a bit more and just sing the darn song.
Until Next Time… Breathe and Happy Singing!
Angela
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