With the Bach Minuet, I initially struggled to place the octave and voicing, as bringing the melodic voice down an octave would have caused quite a bit of voice crossing, and there would have been a lack of clarity between the two voices. In class, with this piece, we focused on modulating and changing solfege/working with altered solfege, so in practice, I worked on finding a place where I could comfortably modulate to and from the keys, and practiced this change a few times before recording it.
I enjoyed singing through this piece. I found that I struggled to hold some of the sustained notes for full value, but I felt I was able to stay mostly in tune through. When adding the top voice, I found I was able to listen to myself, and I tried to blend my sounds together, and while not completely blended, I do think it is closer. I took the time to practice this piece, and each part, over two days, before moving on to record it all together. As far as next steps go, I feel I could improve my intonation, my rhythm and counting, and my ability to blend with myself.
With this piece, I struggled initially to time my first and second voice, and I feel like in the recording, it is still off. I worked slowly with the leaps in this piece, especially larger leaps like sol-re and re-ti. In terms of intonation, I feel as though some of my notes could have definitely been centred more than they were. I feel like some of my notes sat below the note, and I feel as though I didn't sing on top of the notes as best I could have. I did enjoy singing through and performing this piece, even though I did record it at a slower tempo.
This piece was both fun and challenging to record. Challenging because it is a piece I know well, and singing through it with accurate pitches at a slow tempo that would allow me to match with myself was hard at first. When I got to slowing the tempo down, I found it much easier to keep myself in time, and keep the right pitches. Singing the tenor and bass voices were fun as they had contrasting motion to what the alto and soprano voices had, and added harmonies I enjoyed singing.
Recording What Child is This took me a while, especially with keeping myself at a reasonable tempo, and keeping myself in time. The rhythms of the tenor voice were hard to record at first as I kept coming in with the alto voice, instead of before it. I found recording the soprano and alto voices to fun, once I got a hold of the timing and secured the pitches. I had recorded this several times with a bass line, but kept messing up as I would try to read the bottom line, which was cut off, so I recorded a version without the bass line.
I found singing this to be fun, and I had fun recording it. I initially struggled to get the la-re leap, as I would often over-reach and hit the mi, or not leap far enough and hit the do. To fix this, I worked my way up, singing la-ti-do-re, and then la-do-re, and then la-re a few times, and re-la, which helped with accuracy with that leap. When recording the inner voices, I found it easy to tune up to myself, and to the first voice. I was able to record the third voice with very little issue as I had the first and second voices to listen to and tune myself to.
With Lo How a Rose, I found singing the tenor part first to be easiest, and was what allowed me to stay most in time with myself. I initially sang this with a fast tempo, but I realised that singing it slower would allow me to tune up to myself better, and keep myself in time when singing the other parts. With the bass voice, I jumped octaves when the part got too low, to better tune to myself. I found singing the bass to be fun, as it had some leaps and challenged me vocally. I enjoyed creating harmonies through the piece and taking my time with each part. Doing so helped me centre each pitch and stay in time with myself.
This piece, though challenging, was fun to record. I enjoyed how moving notes travelled through the different voices at different times. I enjoyed bringing out these moving notes, which helped my tune up to myself. I initially struggled with the alto voice, and the eighth notes in the 4th and 5th last measures, and would trip over solfege. In terms of singing, I started recording this piece with the tenor part, and moved to alto, then soprano, and finished with the bass voice. Singing the tenor first allowed me to set the tempo while filling the voices for the other parts. I struggled with singing the bass, and jumped octaves throughout, especially towards the end. Overall, I enjoyed singing each part and creating harmonies in this piece.
With this assignment I initially struggled to time the first and second voices with the third one, at a tempo that I was able to properly sing the third voice with. With the first and second voices, I struggled little with the descending motion, as it was stepwise and set to a slow tempo. I struggled a bit with the octave leaps in the third voice, and struggled most with timing the eighth-note movement and lining this voice up with the first two.
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