Tag: Finale

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The Practice of Practicing

I’ve threatened to write a post about how I practice for a while, and I think now is the time. I’m preparing right now for a performance of György Ligeti’s Clocks and Clouds with the New York Philharmonic, and I thankfully was able to get my hands on the music before rehearsals have begun. I flipped through the score and my eyes bugged out when I saw this:

Ligeti-1

I’m not a fan of reading manuscript, especially in the age of digital music. Even though the score was published by Schott, who normally prints lovely, legible music, I have a feeling there hasn’t exactly been enough demand since its premiere in 1973, for them to go through the trouble of republishing a proper, printed version.

That being said, I think I should be able to at least read what I have to sing. That squiggly line you see going through the staves? That’s the bar line. And with everything so squished together, it’s essentially impossible to see what beat goes where. This is a sight-reader’s nightmare.

After I posted this picture onto Facebook, several of my friends suggested that I transcribe it into Finale to make it more legible. With over 200 measures of 12 staves each, I wasn’t too keen on transcribing the whole thing, but it would certainly help me learn the music if I transcribed some of the harder bits.

Here is the same passage, only legible (click on image to enlarge):

Ligeti-2

Now that you can actually see it, you may notice that each part only sings two notes: G# and F#. The trick, therefore, is not trying to find the notes themselves, but making sure you sing those notes at the right time. This is what all the parts sound like together:

[audio: http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Clocks_Clouds_excerpt_piano.mp3]

It’s not so easy to tell which part is yours, is it? In situations like this, I like to use a feature on Finale that changes the instrument a particular staff is playing. Since I’m singing Alto 2, I’ve switched my part to “Oboe,” and all the other parts to “Choir Aahs” (very cheesy MIDI sounds, I know, but they do the trick). This is what the same passage sounds like, only with my part pulled out of the texture:

[audio: http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Clocks_Clouds_excerpt_oboe.mp3]

I practice like this all the time when I’m at my computer, especially with difficult passages like this. I can also turn on a click track to remind me where the beats are, and I can play different passages at different speeds, depending on what I want to target during my practice session.

I don’t only use this technique with difficult-to-read music; I am also a terrible pianist, and I can’t afford to pay a coach every single time I want to rehearse something with accompaniment, so I use Finale to practice my regular rep as well (I’ve written about my accompaniment tracks here).

I do happen to have several very useful skills in the singing world: 1) I’m a good sight-reader, and 2) I have perfect pitch. That means that most of the time, I can show up to the first rehearsal, pick up the music, and sing what’s on the page without very many mistakes the first time around. But I’m certainly not perfect, and when I can get prepare my part ahead of time, it makes the entire rehearsal process go more smoothly.

So, that’s my “process,” such as it is. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section. And if you’re just starting out and need some advice: learn how to sight-read. That one skill will make you ten times more marketable than any other tool in your vocal toolbox.

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Schumann Spanische Liebeslieder

I know I don’t have a whole lot of time to write this post today, so I’ll try make it brief (and start with the easiest piece).

Learning Robert Schumann’s Spanische Liebeslieder was fairly straightforward for me. The idea to put parts of this song cycle into my recital program was actually Benjamin’s, mostly because we thought it might be nice to have a set that involved all three of us (me, Benjamin, and Jeremy), since each composer was going to be accompanying me for his own works. Spanische Liebeslieder was written for four hands and voice; in point of fact, the entire song cycle was written for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone, with some movements as duets and quartets.

I chose three songs within the cycle to perform, only one of which was actually written for alto. Luckily, the entire work is available on this WONDERFUL website called IMLSP, which is a free online library for public domain sheet music. I downloaded what I needed and got to work.

Different singers learn music differently. Personally, I prefer to first read through the music by myself at a piano. If the piano part is too complicated or the harmonies too difficult for me to hear, then I will try to find several different recordings of a piece and listen so I can get an idea of how the piece in its entirety sounds. It is very important for me to try to find more than one recording, because I hate it when singers fall into the trap of imitating recordings. No matter how good the person on the recording is, I prefer to find my own interpretation of the music in the learning process.

However, vocal coaches and accompanists can get expensive, so practicing with a recording is sometimes the best thing I can do to learn music quickly. If the accompaniment is fairly simple and straightforward, I will create my own accompaniment track using Finale and my electronic keyboard. The music input process can be pretty time-consuming, though, so I don’t usually do it unless I know I have time to play on the computer.

Here’s one of my accompaniment tracks for the first Schumann piece: “Tief im Herzen.”
[audio:http://www.supermaren.com/Music/Schumann-Tief_im_Herzen.mp3]
(If you’re interested in using this track for yourself, you can download it here)

Once the music is firmly in my head, I don’t need an accompaniment track as much; the tape loop in my brain will do most of the accompanying. That’s when I start the memorization process. I try to do my memorization at odd hours of the day, such as before bed or in the shower: any time I have a little down time.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had a really good amount of time to devote to memorization daily, and the recital is 4 days away! I knew I wasn’t going to be able to have the Boyle and Gill pieces memorized, but I thought surely I could have the Schumann songs well-cemented in my head. The music is there, for sure, but for some reason, the words are getting jumbled around in my head. My friend Amy wrote about a memorization technique on her blog, and I’ve been trying it with this Schumann. Wish me luck.

I will be performing excerpts from Schumann’s Spanische Liebeslieder on my recital, “Heroes, Lovers, and Dreamers,” on Saturday, March 20, at 8:00 p.m. at St. Mark’s Church in Philadelphia.