harmony how-to
Use recordings to improve your performance
H
Phil McShan
The Vocal Majority Chorus philmcshan@ vocalmajority.com
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ave you ever heard a recording of yourself and been surprised at how you sounded? You might have said “That doesn’t sound like me” only to realize that is exactly how you sound to others! One of the best ways to improve your performance is to see and hear yourself as your audience sees or hears you. Even the best ears and eyes can miss something in the moment of a performance or a rehearsal. As The Vocal Majority prepared for international this summer, we used recordings to help each of us improve in between rehearsals in several ways. Updated audio recordings. Like most groups, we are fortunate to have amazing learning recordings from studs like Gary Lewis and Tony DeRosa. These recordings are invaluable for shaving time from learning notes, words and early interpretation. However, as our directors and coachScreen captures from es made subtle changes, we found that training videos of our learning recordings were suddenly out The Vocal Majority of date. So, each week as we improved, we made recordings of the contest set and published them on-line the next day. This gave the men the opportunity to reinforce the updated plan and helped us avoid spending a lot of time working up to where we left off the previous week. Individual vocal recordings. Our performance team asked each man to record himself individually for feedback and coaching. We gave them opportunities to record singing from the risers at rehearsal, or at home singing along with an updated recording. Then, each man was evaluated by a coach who provided positive and constructive feedback. This exercise the front (facing the camera) and the back (facing was invaluable in the improvement of the away from the camera). For ripple moves or section overall sound of the chorus. We also quickly dismoves, we added in basic graphics to the video to covered the most common areas of improvement remind the guys of their exact movement based on needed, and worked those areas into our craft and their positions on the risers. coaching sessions. Individual performance recordings. Our philosoChoreography instruction. The learning curve on phy is that an individual’s visual performance must choreography can be a challenge when it comes be believable, genuine, and from the heart. Our to retention. So this year, we created choreograamazing coach, Erin Howden, asked us to play phy videos that were posted online for the men with abandon. In order to ensure that every guy to practice with outside of the rehearsal. We did was doing his part, we asked each man to be rechorus left and chorus right versions both from
The HARMONIZER • November/December 2014