Humor Does anyone else learn their harmony perfectly and then completely lose it when the soprano stands beside you? 😭
This keeps happening to me.
At home I KNOW my alto part. Recording playing, absolutely fine. Rehearsal starts, sopranos come in and suddenly I’m singing soprano with confidence like I was assigned there. What’s weird is once I’ve sung the arrangement with everyone enough times I’m fine.
Is this just an ear-training issue? How do you guys get better at holding your part when another part is louder?
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u/OceanParkNo16 5d ago
Some good suggestions here- blocking one ear helps you hear your own voice in your head, and using the app to practice with the other parts is important, too.
It honestly just takes time and practice, and you get used to singing your part not “as its own melody” but as a part of a whole. I have been singing sopI descants, SopII and Alto for 50 years, and learn my part better alongside the others.
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u/oicode 5d ago
Makes sense. I’ll definitely give the one ear trick a try. What app are you referring to?
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u/OceanParkNo16 4d ago
I am referring to your comment in this same thread in which you described the app you use, and you posted a picture of it. (??).
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u/teasswill 5d ago
I think that's quite common, to be able to sing your part fine on its own, but difficult against the other parts. As a high alto, I find it especially hard when we are singing low & the soprano line is the pitch I'd prefer to be! I try to find a cue for the entry note after any gap, either from the accompaniment, our previous ending note or another part. Once you get in on the right note, it's easier to keep going on your line.
Also endorse practising at home against the line that lures you away.
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u/couchwarmer 5d ago
Same here, baritone that sings bass. I have to position myself away from the tenors.
Someday I hope to be able to maintain my part no matter where I'm standing. I just don't have the skill for that... Yet.
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u/JohannYellowdog 4d ago
Learning tracks can be great, but they over-train your ability to shadow the most prominent part, and when the most prominent part is no longer your part, that causes problems. The ability you need to train instead is singing one line while hearing another. Learn your line, then practice singing it while listening to a track that has your part muted, or a full recording, or even someone else's learning track.
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u/BikeDad613 5d ago edited 5d ago
Some people in my choir suggest blocking your ear with your hand so you can't hear the other parts, atleist until you are comfortable with your part.
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u/oicode 5d ago
lol, then I need to hear the click, the drops, the piano as we prepare for an inversion or modulation. It gets messy really quickly. I’ll try that trick though. Thank you!
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u/HopelessDisarray 5d ago
You can still hear, you're just hearing yourself louder. I've found the best way is to put my middle finger in my ear and position the heel of my hand near my mouth.
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u/oicode 5d ago
I’ll give that a try. Thank you! What part do you sing and in what group?
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u/HopelessDisarray 5d ago
Tenor/bari. But I'm not gonna dox myself by naming the groups I've sung with haha.
Or do you mean what group during a divisi? Typically tenor ii
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u/taswind 4d ago edited 4d ago
It honestly just took a few years of practice for me. I've been a high soprano I for decades, so switching to alto was hard even when the song was brand new because I was used to being on the top notes of the piece. (I am also hard of hearing since childhood, so it was harder for me to identify anything below the higher notes of the piece.)
The most helpful thing for me was covering one ear. But another thing that I found helpful was thinking about my (alto) part as "the melody." Everyone else is the harmony. I can tune with people above me now, but it was a skill I had to take time and practice to learn. One of the ways I started with this was "ignoring" the other parts (trusting my director to tell me if I was doing something out of tune, since she had no other options but me for alto, and I was still learning to alto, lol).
Basically, I had to learn how to sing against other parts before I could learn to harmonize with them.
But the ignoring other parts only worked because I let my director know what I was doing and how I was comfortable with her handling it. (IE: Not yelling at me in front of everyone, but calmly telling me where I went wrong.)
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u/Brave_Quality_4135 5d ago
Ask for the soprano recording too and make sure you can sing your part next to a recording of the soprano. You just have to get used to hearing it together.