Harmonies | Lesson 5

To start this lesson we did a group warm up. We warmed up through singing the scale of C while singing multiple phrases such as "Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry". This helped improve our pronunciation of words as well as warming up our vocal cords. We also warmed up through singing arpeggios while singing "la" to prepare us for any leaps that we may have to sing when rehearsing our ensemble pieces.

We decided to start rehearsing Ho Hey first as we thought it would be fairly straight forward for Amelia to learn her parts and join in with the rehearsals. We started by showing her what parts she was going to sing, and we did a run-through of the song to show her what it sounded like so she could pick it up fairly quickly. Once she picked up the song and she started rehearsing with us, we decided to focus on the harmonies throughout the song so we could perfect them. Once we thought the harmonies were perfected and we were happy with the outcome of the song we decided to move onto Blank Space.

We did a run-through of Blank Space without Amelia first to show her what the song sounded like and so she could pick up the song. Once we did one run-through we showed her what parts she was going to sing, and then we did a run-through with Amelia and she picked up the song fairly quickly. Some of the harmonies in the chorus were a bit off so we decided to focus on those harmonies so we could perfect them and move on. To do this we decided to sing our parts separately and then come together and sing in unison. Myself and Evie sung our parts together before Maddie joined in with the melody. Amelia joined in with the lower octave of the melody after Maddie joined in. Then once we were happy with the harmonies we decided to do a run-through of the song. When we were happy with the outcome of the song so far, we decided to move onto the bridge of the song.

We knew what the harmonies in the bridge were roughly, so we only needed to assign everyone harmonies and decide who would sing what. We decided that Evie would sing the melody at the beginning of the bridge and she would also sing the high note at the end of the bridge. We also agreed that Amelia should sing along with the melody after myself and Maddie have joined in with our harmonies and she should also sing the melody while Evie was singing the high note. Once Evie had started the bridge with the melody, I will come in on the second line with a high harmony, and Maddie would follow in the next line with a higher harmony, then Amelia would come in with the melody before Evie sung the high harmony. We thought this was effective as it helped build up the dynamics of the song and also it worked well with the transition between the bridge and the last chorus. We did a run-through of the bridge to see what it sounded like, and we have agreed to carry on working on it to perfect the harmonies.