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How to Teach Part-Singing - An Introduction

Singing in parts is not intuitive for new singers. Choosing repertoire that aligns with this literature hierarchy will provide for greater levels of success with your choirs.

Unison Singing

Before we can teach singers how to sing in parts, we must first teach them how to sing well in unison. This video will outline Seven objectives for teaching unison singing: development of tone singing with accurate intonation proper use of breath exploring use of the voice in different registers (e.g., head voice, chest voice, falsetto) navigating the written score watching and responding to the conductor reinforcing steady beat

Unison with Drone

The first step in teaching part singing is allowing singers to experience singing with a drone pitch. Follow along as I describe what to use as a drone, the purposes for using the droned pitch, and how it fits into this hierarchy for teaching part-singing.

Echo and Ostinato Songs

This video outlines steps 3 and 4 for teaching singers how to successfully sing in parts, no matter the age. Echo songs seem simple enough to teach, but how should you teach them, and what is the point? This video walks you through the why and the how. From there, I show you how to add in an ostinato to the melody that you taught in the echo song. Use this technique to create arrangements of songs already in the repertories of your choirs.

Partner Songs

Partner songs are the fifth step of the literature hierarchy. If you want your singers to sing independently, follow these steps!