On Saturday September 18th the Cultured Pearls had the honor of being coached by Ms Sharon Vitkovsky, baritone of the 1992 Queens of Harmony, City Lights. There were a good many things she worked with us on, but the thing that stuck with me more than anything was the concept of coning your own part.
If you are a barbershop singer you are probably more than familiar with the cone. The cool thing about the barbershop style is that when the bass sound is predominant it brings out the melody so that the listener hears everything (here comes the pun) in perfect harmony. That being said of the whole sound, for optimal singing it is also best that each singer "cones" her part - filling out with more sound when she is lower and not blasting when she's singing up higher. It has also been said that a good tenor is actually more like a volcano, sound bursting out through the high notes and not pinching them up . For this I have made a high-tech MS Paint version of the cone to give you a nifty visual - please hold your applause for my graphic design giftedness.
If you are a barbershop singer you are probably more than familiar with the cone. The cool thing about the barbershop style is that when the bass sound is predominant it brings out the melody so that the listener hears everything (here comes the pun) in perfect harmony. That being said of the whole sound, for optimal singing it is also best that each singer "cones" her part - filling out with more sound when she is lower and not blasting when she's singing up higher. It has also been said that a good tenor is actually more like a volcano, sound bursting out through the high notes and not pinching them up . For this I have made a high-tech MS Paint version of the cone to give you a nifty visual - please hold your applause for my graphic design giftedness.
I had heard this term before, but had not really applied it to my quartet singing in any conscious way. What I found was that it made it easier to do my job and helped lock and ring the chords better. I also learned how to really support the sound when I got into my lower notes. I knew that pushing volume was not the same as giving more sound but I didn't always know how to open up my singing voice to achieve more resonance, and thusly more sound. (Thusly, don't I sound fancy...anyway.) I had been discovering through the awesome coaching the chorus had been getting, how to open up my sound and just how many dimensions it really had. The next step was getting all those places open so the sound could flow freely. When Sharon was coaching us I really started to feel and hear the difference when I did it "right."
But for me the really cool thing was after the coaching when I was listening to the recording I had made. I really heard, in our voices, that thing where the bass is the loudest but the lead is predominant - and its sooooo cool!
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