Learning Your Barbershop Music - Tips from our chorus

Article in the July, 2002 Pitch Pipe issue

View the original article, Learning Your Barbershop Music, by Carol Kankelborg.

Brief Summary of the article

• We all learn differently, but there are still some general principles that apply to everyone.
  
  
• Principle One: Garbage In, Garbage Out
  
  
• Principle Two: Practice Early, Practice Often
  
  
• Learn what your intelligence profile is to help you understand how you learn
  
  
• If you know your music well, when you get on stage you can relax, and sing to the audience
  
  
• Twelve Steps to Learning Music
  
  

Practical Learning Suggestions

These ideas come from various members of our chorus. Perhaps you will find an idea which will help you learn your music faster and better.

• Review your music just before going to bed. It seems to percolate in your subconscious overnight so that you retain it better the next day.
  
  
• Humans appear to be naturally adapted to learning music. Just think of how many ad jingles and pop songs you can pull out of your head. Songs are often written to help aid people in remembering important pieces of information such as Bible verses or important facts. (How many Schoolhouse Rock ditties do you remember?)
  
  
• Common problem spots include two spots in a song where the words are the same, but the notes or rhythm differ or vice versa. You need to concentrate to keep track of where you are in a song so you do not get confused.
  
  
• Another problem spot is non-barbershoppy or just difficult-to-hear harmonies. If you are aware of the kinds of harmonies which give you trouble, you can focus on those areas in a song.
  
  
• Find patterns or mnemonics in the song to mark trouble spots. For instance, in Ain't-a That Good News, the verses go H-C-R for Home, Crown, Robe. Or move from top to bottom -- Home is a roof over your head, Crown sits on your head, Robe is on your body.
  
  
• If you get a learning tape with a wrong note, record the correct note over it.
  
  
• When practicing, focus on your trouble spots, not the sections you know well. This may seem obvious, but it is more satisfying to review what you are already good at than to struggle with the parts you are not so good at. (Advice from a high school teacher on the topic of studying for a test, but it applies here as well.)
  
  
• "Practice makes permanent." -- Suzy Lobaugh, at Region 24's Gold Rush, June, 2002. Suzy is not from our chorus, but many of us attended her classes at our regional meeting.
  
  
• Pay attention in rehearsal, especially as a new song is being introduced. Simple advice, but oh, so hard to live out.
  
  
• If you don't have a learning tape, make one yourself, plunking out the notes on a piano or other instrument, even if it is only your part. If you cannot play an instrument, get a friend to do so. Singing with a tape of notes and no words shows you how well you know your words. To hear your part in the context of the other parts, record the chorus in rehearsal.
  
  
• Get together with others from your section or from other parts to to work on songs outside of rehearsal. Go out for ice cream afterwards :~)
  
  

Bridger Mountain Harmony Chorus

The Adelettes

Chord Rustlers

Big Sky Youth Harmony Rendezvous
June 18 – 22, 2008

Sweet Adelines International

Region 24