Your complete guide to learning songs by ear

For thousands of years, cultures across the globe have passed songs on orally to the next generation. This requires much repetition as well as active listening.

However, this is no longer a dominant part of many cultures today. What is the best way to learn a song by ear?

How can you avoid singers doing nothing while other parts are being taught? — 4 ideas to reduce waiting time

Inevitably, some singers will wait around doing nothing while the choir leader focuses on one of the other harmony parts. 

Whether you teach by ear (as I do) or use sheet music, this will happen. However, there are ways of minimising this waiting time.

Vocal range 1: 5 relevant reads

This is one of a series of summary posts around a specific topic, bringing together five relevant posts from the past.

This summary is all about vocal range: how it’s relevant to being in a choir and how you might go about finding where you fit.

Problems arising when men and women sing the same pitch: 5 relevant reads

This is one of a series of summary posts around a specific topic, bringing together five relevant posts from the past.

This summary is about the difficulties and apparent strangeness of men and women singing the same pitch together.

When men and women sing the same harmony part

Often, when I’m teaching a song, a man might ask to sing the tune, or a woman might ask to sing the bass.

photo by Keith Hamilton Putnam

I usually say no, as I don’t like mixing men’s and women’s voices in the same part. Why is that?

How I teach harmony songs

An interesting question popped up on a Facebook group: How do you teach harmony parts to your singers?

There were several different approaches, some of them using recordings or keyboards. Here is how I do it.

Why rounds aren’t the best way to introduce singing in harmony

Rounds are often seen as a simple way into harmony singing.

photo by Hyacinth, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

But I would argue that they’re not that simple and aren’t a good way to introduce harmony. Here’s why.

How to sing harmony on your own

I love harmony singing. But sometimes I don’t have the luxury of other people to sing with.



Here are some ways to sing harmony, even if you’re on your own.

What to do if you think someone in your part is singing it ‘wrong’?

There are times when you hear someone in your part singing something different from you. Especially when you are learning a new song.

photo by Peter O'Connor

What’s the best thing to do in this situation? Let’s look at some of the options.

Why my singers don’t use recorded parts to learn songs

Some choirs make recorded parts available to their singers and expect them to know their part when they come to the first rehearsal of the song.



For me though, learning together in the same space is more important so I don’t use recorded parts. Here’s why.

Why do choirs stand in sections to learn songs? Here’s an alternative that might work better!

Most choirs rehearse and perform with voice parts standing together in blocks: all the sopranos will be together, all the basses together, etc.



But there are other ways to rehearse (and perform) songs which might make learning easier. Here is something you might want to try.

Neither fish nor fowl – why most singers don’t fit neatly into SATB boxes

You know the situation: one harmony part goes too high for you, but the other option goes way too low.



The fact is that most of us don’t fit neatly into SATB boxes. What are we to do?

Get out of your singing rut and try something new – it will make you a better singer

I’ve written before about how you can use the long choir break to get better at what you do.

photo by troy

One way is to attend singing workshops lead by a variety of different leaders. It’s a great opportunity to try something new.

Helping singers learn to hold a harmony part on their own

If you’re in a choir you’ll be used to singing your harmony part surrounded by others singing the same thing. But it seems much harder to hold a part by yourself when you’re in a small group.

photo by Eric Kilby

In this post I’ll show you how easy it is, how it’s your own head that gets in the way, and I’ll also outline a process that your choir can use to help train singers to hold a part on their own.

How to cope with learning by ear if you usually read music notation

Many choirs use written notation to learn and perform songs. Over time singers can come to depend on having the dots in front of them.

These singers may then join a different choir or go to a singing workshop where songs are learnt by ear and sheet music is not available. How do they cope?

photo by Molly Germaine

Last week I wrote about how singers who usually learn by ear can cope when given sheet music. In this post I’ll show you how to cope if you read music and usually learn songs using sheet music, but are asked to learn a song by ear.

How to cope with sheet music if you don’t read and usually learn songs by ear

As promised in last week’s post (Singers who learn by ear vs. those who use sheet music – what happens when they swap?), this is the first of two posts helping you cope with an unfamiliar way of learning songs.

Many people love to sing, but don’t read music. That shouldn’t exclude them from joining choirs or attending singing workshops.

photo by Judy Baxter

In this post I’ll show you how to cope if you don’t read music and usually learn songs by ear, but are asked to learn a song by using sheet music.

Buy song arrangements for your choir

Choir leaders often ask me where I source my songs. I’ve written about this in previous posts: Finding songs for your choir and Easy songs for your choir.



One place you can get some tried and tested songs for your choir is from me!

How to learn effectively from a recording of a song in parts

Sometimes you might have to learn your song part from a recording rather than with everyone else in a choir session.

photo by Kathy Cassidy

Here are some hints on how to do that in the most effective way.

Singing is all about listening

I wrote last week about people who think they can’t ‘sing’ because they think they need training or singing lessons first (Your singing voice: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!).

We focus so much on our mouths and what comes out of them, that often we forget one of the most important aspect of singing: listening.

Why are there always too many altos in a choir?

This is an updated version of a post which first appeared as Parts creep (or why there are always too many altos) in November 2007

At the start of term we have an equal number of singers in each part, but by the end of term, there are always too many altos (or sopranos or tenors – never basses)!

Smarties by gadl

Does anybody else have this problem with their choir? Please say you do, and please say you have a sensible solution – it’s driving me nuts!

moving around the choir

Partly because we’re a community choir, partly because of the kind of material we do, but mainly because I think it’s good for people to exercise the whole of their vocal range, I encourage people to swap parts for different songs.

We don’t stick to the normal soprano/ alto/ tenor/ bass categories (we're never that high, and never so low!) and I don’t allocate people to a fixed part or role. We don’t use seats so people are free to move around.

Some songs have three parts, some five or more, some the ‘standard’ four. Not everyone is present every week for a variety of reasons. This is the background to the problem.

start as you mean to carry on ...

When we first start learning a song I try to make sure each part is made up of roughly an equal number of people.

The weeks go by, people come and go, I fit people who missed the first week into a part that is a little thin on the ground. Then suddenly, out of the blue, one week (usually when a concert is looming) EVERYONE seems to be singing alto!

There are no tenors to speak of, the tops look pretty thin on the ground, and the basses are the usual suspects. This is parts creep.

When I turn around people sneak from their part to another part without telling me. They do it on purpose (I'm sure of this!). What was once a well-balanced and orderly choir is now entirely out of kilter. And they deny it!

“I thought you guys were all singing tops when we started?”

“Oh, no, we’ve always been altos for this song”.

And so it goes.

... until it all goes pear-shaped

Of course, some people are in the ‘wrong’ part, some people deny ever having learnt the song in the first place, and some are just doing it (I’m sure of this too!) to wind me up. What’s worse – yes, even worse – is that then half the tops tell me that they can’t even do the concert after all!!!!!

Apart from nailing people’s feet to the ground, labelling them with a barcode on their forehead, making them wear different coloured shirts to represent the different parts, compelling everyone to learn every part of every song equally well, forcing the excess altos at gun point to rejoin the tops, or even culling the spare voices, what does one do??

Suggestions on a postcard, or leave a comment. PLEASE!!!

possible solutions

When I wrote the first version of this post, several people posted suggestions.

1st mate: “Give people a ‘range test’ to see what they can actually handle as opposed to what they think they can.”

I have done this in the past. There are difficulties with this approach though (of course!). The range test may tell you that you have a choir 3/4 of which is made up of altos (damn!). The arrangements I use are designed for community choirs so they are usually within everyone’s range. Although someone may be able to sing very low, they might not want to sing the low parts (what can you do??!!).

M. Ryan Taylor: “I like the idea of having them switch around on a part for an exercise, but I would definitely assign them a permanent part and write it down in the choir's roster.”

Write it down? Roster??!! I think you mistake my choirs for ‘proper’ choirs! We are far more informal than that, and I would never like to impose upon the singers in that way. Besides which, I would lose the roster or the singers would swear blind I wrote them down wrong in the first place!

Karen: “Sometimes I target individuals by saying: ‘You’re so good at picking things up, could you move to this other part?"’ Yes, I do use subtle emotional manipulation with my singers, but hey, whatever works!!”

Great idea Karen, but ... (you knew there would be a ‘but’ didn’t you?) most of the altos are there because they are under-confident, go for the middle ground and safety in numbers, so are least likely to be swayed by flattery and encouragement.

Babs: “Most groups I know of have a surfeit of sopranos, because they get the melody. What I have noticed is that group members tend to follow the strongest voices, so on lines with unassigned voices, there is a drift towards singing whatever the strongest vocalists are singing.”

In my choirs I don’t often give the sopranos the melody line (nasty man!), besides which, they probably have never heard the song before so it won’t help them. And if the song is well-arranged, ALL the parts will sing like melody lines and nobody will think they have the harmony.

You’re right about following the strongest (or loudest or most confident) voices. I try to spread them about to confuse people!

no biscuit!

Great ideas all, but no biscuit I’m afraid. All the decent solutions seem to involve some kind of formal accountancy with books and pens and serial numbers. Not really my style. In any case, you get it all set up and an entirely different group of singers turn up the following week. AND they’re not in the book!

So, my plea once more: any other ideas out there? Please do pop by and leave a comment.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com