I led a Beatles a cappella singing day last week. As usual, it attracted people who love to sing pop songs.
Everyone enjoyed it, but many pointed out afterwards how hard it had been to learn the songs.
I’ve made it clear before that my personal taste is that choirs shouldn’t sing pop songs.
However, many singers love to sing pop songs and here is why:
- they already know the song well – nothing new to learn!
- the lyrics are (usually) in English – so no troublesome foreign words
- there are positive associations with the song – memories of when the song first came out and what people were doing then
- they can hear the original in their head – with all the backing instruments and production
However, when they come to learn a harmony arrangement of a pop song, it’s often much harder than expected. Here’s why:
- singers already know the tune well – which often means that learning a harmony part is a huge challenge as they will often gravitate back to the main melody
- we all remember the melody and lyrics slightly differently! – nobody will remember the song perfectly, and many people have misheard versions of the lyrics (there’s even a word for that: mondegreen)
- there is often plenty of syncopation – not only is it hard to get the rhythm correct, but it can vary with each verse and it’s easy to revert to singing on the beat
- lead lines are sung by one person in the original – complex syncopated melodies can be sung more easily by one person. Trying to get a whole bunch of singers to sing exactly the same line at exactly the same time as each other is tricky
- many pop songs are more complex harmonically than you think – you might think those cheesy pop songs you sing along to in the car are simple. But when you dig down and analyse the harmonies, you will usually find rich and clever songwriting with some unusual chords
- there are usually a lot of words – and they’re in English. Which means more to remember, more to focus on (while trying to learn the music), and more to get wrong (we’re good at paraphrasing when lyrics are in English)
Contrast this with the rich harmonies of a Georgian song, say, or a South African one. They often have very few lyrics; all the harmony parts are equally new and unfamiliar to all singers; melodies are often simple; everyone comes to the song fresh.
By all means sing pop songs in English, but realise that it’s probably more advanced than you think and you’ll need to have quite a lot of harmony singing experience. Especially if it’s a cappella.
Chris Rowbury
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