If you consider that the smartphone in your pocket has more computational power than the first space shuttle, you can easily accept that your laptop and other similar technology can help you learn “Nessun dorma” in an effective way for your next audition—if used properly.
You may be wondering, “What can a trombone player from the Pittsburgh Symphony offer to help with my singing career?”
In my masterclass at the upcoming CS Music Convention, I will show you how with your laptop, an inexpensive USB microphone, good headphones, and free software called Audacity, you can expand your command of the building blocks of basic musical performance such as pitch and rhythm in a fun new way. This will help you gain command of your technique so you can focus on presenting passionate and moving performances.
The first step is to make sure you have a decent and operational laptop, Mac, or PC. Then download Audacity at www.audacityteam
.org. (Did I mention it’s free?) Audacity is a sound recording and editing software that is intuitive and user friendly. If you don’t have one already, purchase a decent USB microphone such as the Audio-Technica AT2020, which you can buy online or at a local Guitar Center for $99. If you already have a Zoom or similar standalone recording device, you can retask it as a USB microphone. As for headphones, standard earbuds are fine, but if you want to upgrade, I really like Sennheiser HD 380 Pro, which you can buy online for $150.
You might be wondering, “What can be done with this stuff?” There are two main ways that I use this technology for practicing or expanding my abilities, and both of these could help you a lot, too: 1) reference tracks and 2) multitrack recordings.
I use reference tracks such as drones and chords to help with intonation and rhythm while I’m working on the nuts and bolts of audition preparation. I’m guessing most singers do not have the luxury of having a pianist on hand every day, which can make working on intonation tricky! Imagine if you had playing in your headphones or your external speaker the exact chord progression you need while you’re practicing and you could practice with those tracks every day in between meeting with your pianist or coach. Not only that, but the exercise of making the reference recordings themselves is a good tool to work on intonation and will help you learn a lot more about the piece you’re working on as you pull apart the harmonies to understand how it all fits together.
Without in-person instruction on how to make the drones, it will take you some trial and error. I learned Audacity myself that way. Following are some ideas to get you started.
First, analyze the piece you’re working on and figure out the chord progression. (Harken back to your theory class days, ladies and gentleman!) Perhaps the piece is in the key of C major and the progression, for simplicity’s sake, is I-IV-V-I. Start with your C-major drone. Be sure and get a tuner out and get your recording set up ready to go, as well as your headphones. Typically I like to record with one earphone in and one out.
Then record yourself singing for 10–15 seconds (or as long as you can comfortably hold that pitch) the root of the chord, C, in a lower octave. Every time you hit “Record” on Audacity, it starts a new track, which certainly helps in this process.
Next, sing and record the upper octave C while listening to your lower octave in the headphone and work on getting it perfectly in tune. It might take you a few tries to get the intonation right. Then stack on top of that the middle G and make sure that perfect fourth and fifth are again right in tune. Finally, add the E-natural for your C-major drone. Congratulations, you have your first drone—and probably learned a lot about tuning while you were doing it!
Follow the same process for the IV (F major) and V (G major) chords. You already have your I chord (C major), so this simple chord progression is now done. You’ll export each drone as an MP3 file. Now all you have to do is drop them into a playlist in iTunes, and you’re ready to practice. You’ll find this far superior to singing with a computer-generated drone because it is a human voice you’re singing with—and not just any voice, but your own! The best news? Spend some time recording your own personal library of major, minor, and diminished drones, and then you can mix and match them for any piece it might be helpful.
Want to work on rhythm, too? Drop those drones back into Audacity on top of a click track (which Audacity can generate itself as a separate track) and you have your chords not only in order but also in tempo, with the click track acting as your metronome. You’ll be internalizing a solid rhythm while you go.
While reference tracks are incredibly helpful, multitrack recording is where all the fun is! This type of recording, known as “overdubbing,” is something I began working with in earnest about three and a half years ago. As some of you fellow musicians can attest to, it becomes tougher and tougher to get out the old tried-and-true methods of practice and you begin looking for fun new ways to maintain and advance your abilities. This is where overdubbing came into play for me.
I was looking for a fun way to get back into shape for the upcoming Pittsburgh Symphony season. I started experimenting with multitrack recording, or overdubbing. I took an arrangement I had done for trombone choir of the march from John Williams’ Superman score. This was the first overdub I ever did. Listen to it here: soundcloud.com/jimnova/superman-overdub. Then, take a listen to my “reboot” version I did recently to see how much I’ve learned since then: soundcloud.com/jimnova/planet-krypton-superman-march.
Start with a Bach chorale (or write your own piece and test out the arrangement yourself). It can be a simple duet, trio, or as complex as you wish. Overdubbing will help you work on singing in tune with other singers in the privacy of your own living room—and since you’ll be singing in tune only with yourself, no pressure! (Fair warning: Good luck avoiding unintended canine solos.)
You will essentially use the same process as recording the drones, but now you are using music and creating a recording. Listen back and use that as an opportunity to check your diction and your pronunciation. Explore pushing your dynamic use and vocal range, if appropriate. Are you in a production featuring a touchy quartet? Make a few octave transpositions to put the other parts in your range, overdub the quartet yourself, and really dig in to see how your part fits in with the other three parts.
After you’ve finished, you can then make your own music minus one practice track so you can continue to practice with the other three parts at home. When you can discover the pitfalls on your own time, think of how much more productive your rehearsal with others will be! (And also how impressed the director might be.)
The great thing about practicing by creating overdubs is you have a product at the end that you can share with others or simply use yourself to see how far you have come in your studies. Much of what you’ll find on the many tracks posted to my SoundCloud site (www.soundcloud
.com/jimnova) was all accomplished with the gear I recommend above. As of this winter, my SoundCloud site has surpassed half a million listens.
With some simple calibrations specific to your equipment (latency correction, gain level, and playback volume), you can be up and running on recording yourself and overdubbing in no time. Thanks to this kind of work, I have made more strides on my playing in the last 3 years than the previous 10 and had tremendous fun doing it!
I look forward to showing you in Chicago how all this technology that’s right under your nose can help you become a better musician in a fun and productive way!
