Welcome! Before we start singing, here are the key elements of the exercises.
The concept
The idea behind the sing-along exercises is simple: you’ll develop a better pitch, timing, phrasing and feel for variations and improvisations while training your ears and technique through singing along with the exercises. This is because muscle memory and your ‘normal’ memory store all the important data. Like the distance between notes, timing, etcetera. This then becomes part of your subconscious through repetition.
So doing things ‘right’ most of the time increases you’re chances of more or less automatically doing those things right in the future. Plus you’ll be building a vast library of ‘melodic phrase building blocks’ you’ll start using, expanding and varying ‘automatically’.
The difference
Sure, you would learn and develop these things through years of listening to music and studying and practicing songs. These exercises are here to accelerate this learning process. By targeting specific areas.
Progressive
The exercises are progressive; meaning they start easy (even for beginners) and gradually become harder (even for pros).
NOTE: there are 5 exercises on each page!
Description
Most exercises have a description about their function. Everything in these descriptions you can’t understand can be learned from Songbird’s theory guide in the ‘How to sing jazz’ course and of course in the ‘How to improvise’ section. It’s optional though. The exercises will still have effect without understanding the description. But once you do understand them this adds a valuable dimension to the exercises that very. That’s why the descriptions are here.
Sing-along video
In the sing-along exercise video Ilse sings the exercise repeatedly. If you’re not in the mood or the opportunity (when you’re on a train for example) to sing-along, you could hum, or just listen. The exercises will still have an effect, though not so much on your vocal technique.
iRealPro
And there’s the option of using iRealPro files of the exercises that are provided here. Owners of that popular app (really affordable too!) can practice each exercise longer or in a different key, tempo or feel.
NOTE
If the exercises are in the right key for you, as they will be for most singers (lower voices will sing them one octave lower), you can start using the iRealPro files right away to exercise longer, or in different tempos or feels.
If you know how to transpose (put in a different key) melodies by ear, you can start using the iRealPro files and change keys right away. By the way, it’s great to simply try these things. Just improvise without fear or judgement on the chords you hear in such an iRealPro file. Inspired by the melodic phrases Ilse sings, or just by ear.
If parts of an exercise are not comfortably within your vocal range, sing them an octave higher or lower, alter the lines (improvise) or don’t sing them at all and wait till the exercise moves into a comfortable range.
Good to know: parts of the exercises aren’t within Ilse’s comfotable range either. As they are meant for singers to deal with that. Since it’s good to define and perhaps stretch the edges of your range and deal with the occasional uncomfortable note within tunes. This is the simple rule: when it’s difficult, relax and sing soft. Never stress and force things!
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