HOW TO PRACTICE AT HOME

At Some Voices, you will learn a new song every week, except in weeks 5 and 10 when you will recap the songs you’ve learned so far.

In your 90 minute rehearsal, you leader will teach you the most important elements of the song. See here for more about how our rehearsals work. To fully learn every song, you will need to use your audio parts to practice at home. Here are some tips on how to make the most of them.

WARM UP

Always take the time to warm up. Use the exercises that you do with your leaders at the beginning of rehearsals. There are also lots of tips and videos online for good warm ups. Here’s one from our Musical Director Laura Howe:

PRACTICE WITH YOUR DROPBOX

1. Hum the song through

Play the ALL version of the song that you are practicing and hum along with it. Humming is a brilliant way of keeping the voice warm whilst also allowing you to listen at the same time. Make some mental notes about the bits you do and don’t know.

2. Break It Down

Sing through the whole song that is JUST YOUR VOCAL PART and identify the bits you DON’T feel are very strong for you. Then practice those isolated bits a few times until you feel you know them more. Then put them back into the whole song and sing through it. Repeat this process until you are confident with it all.

HELPFUL HINT FROM LAURA - On the JUST YOUR VOCAL track (eg. Sop, Alto, Tenor) we make your voice part louder and PAN IT TO THE LEFT. So if you are using headphones and don’t want to hear the other vocals, take your right headphone out and just listen with the left.

3. Make Notes

It can help when learning your voice part to make your own notes. You can edit the lyric PDF on your smart phone or scribble on a print out - adding your own notation to help you remember how to sing it.

4. Test Yourself 

It is important once you feel you are singing it strongly that you test yourself by singing along with the ALL part again. If you only practice with the recording of your voice part, it isn’t clear how much you know it and how much you are following what you are hearing. By adding all the voice parts back in and managing to stick to your line, you can be sure that you know it. Also, this is more realistic to how it will sound to you on the night performing on the stage.

GET PERFORMANCE READY

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Open up

Now you know your part really well it’s time to 'Sing it like you really mean it' (in the words of Louis Walsh). Tap into your inner Whitney/Stevie/Amy! Let rip. Tap into the emotion of the song. You're on your own so enjoy it…

Crack on 

Walk around and do something else while you listen and sing along. Make the song part of everything you do. Commuting, cleaning the house, brushing your teeth, running, sitting around being bored - stick on your tracks and imagine yourself on the stage - feel the buzz.