Vocal Rehearsal

One thing that came out of last week's full band rehearsal is that Eric's upper range was working for him a lot better than lower down. This seems to be a bit of a rule of thumb for singers anyway: that a lot of people start off feeling "more comfortable" in the lower part of their range but SOUND better higher up. If you're not Johnny Cash or Stephin Merritt, don't go too low. I've had to learn the same thing myself. My first solo show featured several low-baritone songs as warmups and EVERYONE who commented on my singing said I was better later in the show.

So we took some time last night to work out some more vocal arrangements for Eric, so that he can do harmonies in a part of his range that works better for him and sounds better overall. And that came together quite well.

In fact, a couple of songs in which I consciously chose not to write too many lyrics for the choruses, concentrating on holding long notes and vowels, had been suffering from a bit of tedium with just my voice. With just one harmony, the choruses start to pop again. This is very yay.

There's another song in which the second verse is twice the length of the first and third, and what I've been trying to do is go up an octave in the second half of the verse, for dramatic effect. Problem is, my falsetto isn't robust enough to be reliable. I'm okay in rehearsals if it's one of the first things I sing, but if I've overextended myself at all, forget it. Well, guess who can sing the part? Indeed, he'd been thinking of suggesting to me that he take it, even as it had been occurring to me to pass it to him. If I can work on my chops to the point of getting up there myself, maybe we'll double. If not, I'll stay in the original octave and we'll harmonize. WIN.

Doug was going to try to make it later on but didn't show. No problem ... however, I happen to have heard Doug sing and I'm pretty sure he will add something very good when he gets the drum parts down and joins in vocally as well.