I’m leading a singing workshop tomorrow. I know I will have 35 singers, seven of whom are men. Five of those are tenors.
That means that I can choose song arrangements accordingly. But what happens when you’ve no idea in advance which voice parts you’ll have?
Usually I would expect most of the men at my workshops to be baritones, with a few basses. I rarely get many tenors. So it’s great to be forewarned about tomorrow.
When I lead a workshop open to the general public, I will only know how many male and female singers will be coming, not which voice parts they prefer.
Sometimes I have loads of sopranos, and other times loads of female tenors. And occasionally just one man.
So I need to be prepared and to be sure that my arrangements will work for all sorts of voice combinations. Here are a few things you can do to be prepared.
limit the vocal range
I make sure that none of the song arrangements I teach will be too high or too low for the average untrained singer. The highest I’ll go is the D just over an octave above middle C. Sometimes I might have the option to cheat that up to an E if I have singers who can reach that.
At the other end of the range, I’ll always ensure that the tenor part can be sung by either men or women, This means no lower than the G below middle C, but also no higher than the F above middle C.
Most men will be baritones, so I limit the range of the bass part. The lowest I’ll go is the low G, an octave below the tenors’ lowest note. I’ll probably not go higher than the G an octave above that.
choose the number of harmony parts to suit
Always make sure you take more songs than you’ll end up teaching. Have a variety: some in two parts, some in three, and a few in four. When you find out which voice parts you’ve got, you can then choose which ones to teach.
With a two-part song, you can easily split the men and have half on the higher part and half on the lower. Same with the women.
With songs in three parts, you can try doubling the low part, with all the men singing an octave apart so you can accommodate both tenors and basses/baritones. If you have lots of basses, you can always give the men the tune an octave lower, and keep the other harmonies where they are.
Four part songs can be suitable if you discover you have a reasonable range of voice parts.
be flexible
You need to be able to change things as you go if necessary. If you find one part goes too low or too high for the voices you’ve got, then give them the option of singing a different note. You can check through your arrangements beforehand and flag up any potential problems. Then you can come prepared with optional harmony notes.
Because of the voice parts you end up with, you might have to be radical. For example, give the two sopranos the tune, joined by a couple of tenors singing an octave lower.
You might try abandoning harmony altogether and get everyone to sing the melody. This is a great opportunity to focus on getting unison voices absolutely perfect. You could then work out a few simple harmonies on the fly and add them to the mix. Or even try some improvisation!
don’t have expectations
If you spend ages working up a brilliant four-part arrangement of a song, only to find you’ve not got the right voice parts, you’ll be very disappointed. Prepare to let some of your fixed ideas go.
I once ran a Beatles a cappella day. I didn’t take booking in advance, so was pleased when 40 singers turned up. I usually expect around 10% men at my workshops, so when 20 came I was rather surprised!!
I took a few moments and hurriedly re-arranged some of the female tenor parts so they could be sung by men, and jazzed up the bass parts a bit.
When I ran the next workshop in the same place, only three men came. Fortunately, I hadn’t expected 20 again.
Chris Rowbury
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