Singing Pianist - Playing Your Own Vocal Warm Ups

Vocal Accompaniment
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As I wrote about in a previous post, singing well and playing well doesn’t automatically equate to a singing pianist extraordinaire. It takes lots of practice miles of singing AND playing to get that smooth connection we all love from the great singing pianist such as Diana Krall and Fats Waller.

So playing your own vocal warm ups is a great way to improve your singing, whilst clocking in time accompanying yourself. If you know your skills well, than you can focus more on your voice.
If you are not familiar with your major scales, than this will also help you gain mastery over those as well. It’s a win, win, win.

First 5 Notes of All 12 Major Keys in Half Steps

You can start with the resonate Mmm sound over the first 5 notes of each major scale. Moving in Half steps, you’ll go from low to high. I’ve outlined my normal range here C3 to G5. It’s a common one for many women and men, so you can try it out exact and then adjust for your particular range.

Mmm’s

First 5 of All Major Scales, Half Steps.pdf (261.8 KB)

For this very same exercise, you can change it up by singing mp Oo’s over it.

You can even do Bubble Lips over it! Sky’s the limit!

You’ll hear that my singing is not perfect, especially at the bottom and top of my range, as well as the breakpoint. Don’t worry about being perfect in your warm ups. Focus instead on deep breath work, and how your body feels when the sound is produced, how your posture is at the piano while you are playing and if you are able to lock in the notes on the piano with your voice.
When you use this as a warm up before your repertoire practice, you will see very quickly where your voice is that day. Over time, you’ll gain valuable information about your particular voice, and build an effortless connection that you’ll notice in your accompaniment.

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I started watching the lessons and am just all smiles :smiley: This I find one of the amazing features in PianoGroove - I just love it! I was wondering - apart from all the superb list we already have for the Sing and play lessons. (beautiful singing too!) - Do we also get the chance to vote for songs ? or is there already a thread for this maybe? Thanks again ! All the best! :heart:

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Lyndol’s classes at here PG inspired me to take a -singing with combo class- at Seattle’s Jazz Night School. Singing should be required for all instrumental players–it’s helped me become a better piano player and musician all around. Was a great experience to overcome the fear.

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Hi Kristeta :wave:

I’m glad you are enjoying the vocal/piano lessons.

Yes if you have any suggestions or requests let me know and I will pass them onto Lyndol for her consideration.

It would be great to add more lessons to our vocal section so all suggestions are welcome!

That’s wonderful Rebecca, thanks for letting us know.

Lyndol created lots of insightful posts in the vocal accompaniment section of the forum. Definitely worth reading over if you haven’t already, check out that section here:

https://community.pianogroove.com/c/practice-inspiration/vocal-accompaniment

You can also find more information in the ‘Vocal Accompaniment Syllabus’:

All vocal-themed posts are referenced in the ‘Forum Threads’ section of the page.

Cheers!

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That’s so wonderful to hear, and so glad you guys are benefiting from the courses. The jazz school I studied operated under the same principal - that singing should be required for all instruments since it helps to integrate the music internally. And any time we face our fears, we just become better players to congrats.
And yes, I’d LOVE to have suggestions for tunes you’d like to sing and play.

Thanks again for the feedback and all the best to you for your continued success in music,
Lyndol

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