The Knowledge Centre

Welcome to the 'Learning and Development' page. This is a work-in-progress resource for key concepts we use in Meantime. Much of the below will be learned through use and repetition, and improves over time.

This page is currently split into the 'Learning', 'Vocal Pedagogy' and 'Performance' sections. 

Learning Music

Meantime Chorus will provide annotated sheet music and learning tracks for all its songs. Though there is no expectation for members of the chorus to learn to read sheet music, it is a skill that will benefit your learning. If you are interested in developing this skill, please contact the music team.

Here are some ways our members have found useful for learning music. Each person learns in a different way at a different pace. What's important is that you put in the effort to find what works for you.

The Simon Arnott "Netflix Method":

This was named so because it can take only as long as you'd usually spending watching a single episode of your favourite series!

• Listen to the full mix teach track a few times while reading the score (do not sing yet!)

• Listen to your part predominant teach track a few times while reading the score (do not sing yet!)

• Speak along with part predominant to get words and rhythms until you get these right a few times (with score)

• "Oo" the notes along along with part predominant until you get these right a few times (with score)

• Sing words and notes with part predominant until you get right a few times (start to get rid of score)

• Sing with full mix until you get right a few times

• Sing with part missing until you get right a few times

• For extra-confident learning, sing with another part predom until you get right a few times

The 'Chunking' method:

1. Listen to your part passively while doing other things - commuting, working, cleaning etc. 

2. When you have set aside time to learn the song, do so "chunk by chunk" (or "section by section" whatever is helpful to you - split into verses, bars, rehearsal marks etc.). 

Note: Don't go too fast! If you sing a part wrong, stop and try again - don't just keep singing through the rest of the song. Listen to and sing through the section you got wrong several times in a row until it sinks in. 

3. Once you've learned each chunk, start to connect them. Repeat the 'error led' process of repetition until you've internalised the music.

This method takes a little time. Expect it to take you a few half-an-hour sessions to learn a 4-5 minute song. The originator of this method says it typically takes them 3 days in total - the first half of the song on day 1, the second half of the song on day 2, and the whole connected song on day 3. This is a good thing, each sleep helps you to consolidate and learn!

The Lyrics->Pitches->Rhythms method

Learning individual elements then putting them together is one of the oldest tricks in the book. It also enables you to work on vocal technique & performance at every stage without compromising or ingraining bad habits. (Some of the vocabulary below might not be immediately understandable - ask a member of the music team and they will be able to help you.)

Stage 1: Lyrics

• Read the first line, then put the music down and memorise the lyric.

• Perform the line, engaging your inner actor

• Repeat for the second line, then speak all you've learned that far

• Progress with this process until the whole section is learned (verse/chorus etc)

Stage 2: Pitches

• Start to bring singing into speaking by using "singlish" or "call vowels"

• Develop into singing a monotone "modal voice" point

• Learn the pitches in the same way you learned the lyrics in stage 1 (read/listen, memorise, perform). Sing these against a tonic to keep you in key.

Stage 3: Rhythm

• Learn the rhythm, in the same process as stage 1. Start slowly and build to tempo. Use a metronome to keep you in time

Once you've done Stage 1, 2 and 3 on a section, repeat the process with the next section. Try not to rush each stage, you will thoroughly internalise everything about the song if you follow this process.

Dominic's Flashcard system

1. Write out the lyrics for the whole song. I don't do this just for my part (bass), I do it for the whole song.

2. Look through the song and discover what the whole structure is, such as "Verse 1, Chorus 1, Verse 2, Chorus 2, Coda".  There's no right or wrong, whatever 'chunk size' works for you.

3. Memorise the basic structure.

4. Break down the lyrics into the structure sections, then memorise these sections individually.

Now you should know the direction and structure of the whole song.  This will help with orientating yourself in longer wordless sections, as well as understanding the message of the performance. Next it's time to look at your own part.

5. Write down the lyrics and breaths of each section for your own part, including the 'doo's and 'dah's. The breaths are really important!

6. Memorise this, section by section.

7. Move on to the musical parts of each section - rhythm, pitches. For this you have to find out what works for you. I cut the sheet music into individual sections and use this. You could break down the teach tracks into sections.

Record yourself singing each small section and then compare yourself against the actual music.  This will really test you, and not let you get away with flubbing through.

8. Once you have each section retained well, use the Assessment process below to sing through and work on connecting the whole song.  You'll find that by having each individual section learned the whole song comes together so much easier. 

I use Anki, a flashcard app, for this process. I download it on my phone (free on Android, paid on iPhone, free on computers), and put the resources (section chunks, lyric chunks, screenshots of my part section) into individual flashcards. The app then gives me 10 cards to learn each day. Once I've learned the cards, it will show me those cards again over increasingly long periods of time to strengthen my memory. Each day then combines learning new material with reviewing the old. Over time, the reviews are done over several-month-long periods. It's amazing how good this is for long-term reliable memory! If you're interested in this app, please come to speak to me (Dominic).

With all of these methods you have the choice of using teach-tracks and sheet music. It can be helpful to use both. 

Regardless of the learning method you use, be patient with the whole process. Memory by its nature strengthens over time with reviews and with each night's sleep.  Don't expect yourself to learn it all at once. Some people are blessed with fast and reliable memory, but others of us have to work a little harder. That's fine, work with what you've got.

Vocal Pedagogy: vocal fundamentals & how to help yourself & others

At Meantime we're don't want to tell you the "right" way to sing. Instead we want you to work with your voice to find what gives you choices & options, what is efficient & sustainable & repeatable (healthy), and what enables you to bring your voice to the chorus. This section is not all-encompassing, but will hopefully shed some light on some of the concepts and language we use.

Here is a list of some key terms and techniques we will use in our singing practice.

Efficiency:  Efficiency is about doing the most we can with the effort we put in. Fundamentally, your voice comes from air passing through your vocal folds. An inefficient voice uses lots of air to produce a small amount of sound, an efficient voice uses less air to make more sound. For many reasons, producing singing in an efficient way gives your voice beauty of sound and flexibility in expression. A lot of what we work on in Meantime is to find efficient production as our starting point. From here we can find tonal, dynamic and expressive vocal choices.

Say it, Sing it:  This is one of the most effective tricks to find resonant, efficient, natural singing. Say a word or phrase, then sing it. Can you sing with the same sounds as your speaking? In our lives we are well rehearsed in speaking; inside and outside of rehearsals we look to embrace our full, resonant, efficient speaking-voices, with our own authentic vowels. This can be tricky in the average living and working space (the small, hard-surfaced, "loud" cuboid structures we call "rooms").

SOVTE's (Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Exercises): You will hear and do this magical exercise many times and in many ways in Meantime. SOVTEs focus on putting some form of pressure back onto the vocal folds. You can do this in many ways, such as by singing into a cup with a small hole in the bottom or a straw, bubbling your lips together, rolling an R,  putting your hand over your mouth or singing the letter "V".  This process helps your vocal folds to work better, meaning you use less breath to make the same amount of sound. With long term practice, the vocal cords learn to work more efficiently at a baseline - even in our speaking voices. 

No Try! This is a recent mantra used in Meantime. It is about how much effort you should be feeling in your singing. Some, if not all of us have a tendency to put effort into our singing. The mentality behind this could be  "I must be loud" or "I must emphasise this word" or "This is a hard passage/note, I need to try harder". Unfortunately the mental 'effort' we put into this activation leads to unnecessary stress and tensions. So in "Trying" to sing, we end up getting in our own way, making our singing less healthy and our sound harsher and more 'forced'. Instead we say "No Try!". Can you sing the same phrase or note with 50% less effort? How does that feel or sound? What about singing the same phrase but this time "make it easy." Our experience is that by dialling back the physical and mental effort we can sing more effortlessly with a greater depth and flexibility. 

Four out of Five! Another mantra to help us find the sweet spot between a floppy, breathy, disconnected sound and a pressured, brassy, painful sound. A general idea is that singing at the level of "four out of five" as opposed to three or five out of five will help you to find the point between giving too much and giving too little.  Try it out and see if you can find your 'four out of five' sound.

"Blend" vs "match":  In ensemble singing, we look to find a cohesion between multiple voices to create a single, beautiful sound. This unification can be done in several ways - one way is to artificially affect our voice to stop it "poking out", making it fit a particular sound, model or tonal concept. This is called 'Blending'.  Another way is to help each voice to work at its most natural and efficient, reducing any artificial modification to the sound as much as we can. In this way, we celebrate all that our voices are and can be, and our voices "match" with our fullest, most efficient resonance.   The interesting thing is that our voices have more in common when we work on "match" rather than "blend". We don't have to try to sound like anyone else, the whole chorus works best when we each sing as our best selves.

The Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model:  our singing voices on any particularly day are a sum total of our unique biological, psychological and social factors. How? Fundamentally, the body's central nervous system (or CNS) interprets mental and physical stressors in much the same way, which can lead to the body's Fight or Flight response kicking in to physically 'defend ourselves' against issues such as finance problems, relationship issues or physical pain. As tension in the body tends to lead to tension in the voice, this means that any part of our life can contribute to healthy or less healthy singing.  So although it is useful to look at the individual muscles and tensions that might be getting in our way, we can also find great benefits by stepping back and viewing ourselves in the bigger picture.

MIND then body then voice:  Putting the biopsychosocial model into practice, in recent years we've discovered that simply having a mindful moment can have as big, if not a bigger impact on our voices as tens of minutes of physical and vocal exercises. 

"Posture" vs "alignment":  Our body is made of hard bits (bones, making up our skeleton), and soft flexible bits (our skin, muscles, connective tissues etc.). The hard bits are generally meant to support us, and the soft flexible bits generally allow us to move and do. We can't have one without the other, and our bodies are an important interplay between the two. In finding our 'alignment', we aim to have the skeleton do the most work in supporting our upright bodies, allowing the muscles to be free to do their jobs of breathing, producing the voice and emoting. How we stand or sit can put us into positions that increase muscle engagement throughout our bodies. Engagement of the big muscles such as the core muscles and lead to co-opting of smaller muscles; thus even the way we stand can affect the tiny muscles in the larynx, affecting vocal production. 

We find it helpful not to think of our 'posture' as rigid & stiff, but instead to be in a general state of 'alignment' that is flexible & moving. Although every body is different, the landmarks we find useful are:-

Middle of the ankles <-> middle of the knees <-> highest point of the hips <-> highest point of the shoulders <-> holes of the ears

Stretching & strength training:  Interestingly, flexibility is regulated by the brain not the body; the issue isn't in the tissues. Holding a stretch for a long time downregulates the brain-body connection, essentially turning off our safety mechanisms. Increasing the strength of and balancing our muscles leads to the brain unlocking more flexibilty, helping make that alignment stuff way easier and more natural. There is no such thing as too hench. It's the uneven hench that messes with flexibility. So what to do? Walk, move, run, swim, lift, sports, functional movements (squat, hip hinge, lunge, push, pull, loaded carry), yoga, pilates, Alexander Technique, physiotherapy - leaning towards shorter loaded stretches (See Meantime Physio doc).

Holding patterns aka "tension":  Without some level of muscular tension we'd fall over and not be able to do, well, anything! So what we're looking at is excess or unhelpful tension. Using the minimum tension necessary as well as flexible alignment are a little bit chicken and egg, co-conspirators in freeing our bodies and voices. Motion is lotion; movement is medicine. Also, just try lying on the floor on your back, knees bent, feet flat on the floor (semi-supine) - and let it all go. Which can help with the next concept...

"Support" vs release:  breathing is simple, right? In, out, repeat? Actually, for singing, it pretty much is that simple. The tricky part is how most of us breathe for life, and how that habit affects our singing. On the whole we don't need to breathe deeper, or to engage our diaphragm (actually core muscles), or need "more air". Working on the easy release that we had as babies and toddlers, that we tend to lose between the ages of 5 and 7, can bring emotional and physical benfits to our everyday, not just to our singing. Give your core muscles permission to release (free that belly!), your ribs permission to expand, see if you can feel things unlock down to your pelvis and around the sides of your torso and back. Try it standing, sitting, and lying semi-supine.

M1 & M2 voices: These are the terms we prefer to use regarding different vocal registers. You may have heard about chest voice, head voice, and falsetto.  What do they really mean, physically? Thanks to Science, the vocal cords have been directly visualised when using these 'different' voices, and the fundamental difference has been seen - meaning we don't have to rely just on sensations to talk about this. In general, the M1 voice is what we use to speak, and the M2 voice is the lighter sound often called 'Falsetto'. The two types of voice arise when the vocal folds close and vibrate in different ways, due to the interaction of two sets of muscle groups that pull on them. One muscle group is responsible for M1 singing, and another for M2 singing. When we sing up and down our range, there can often be a 'break' between our M1 and M2 voices. However, this is mostly a problem of coordination rather than any physical or immovable structures. We can work to develop our flexibility between the two voices by learning how to coordinate the two sets of muscles. This can give us choices through the full extent of our range, and blurs the edges between "chest", "head", "mix" and falsetto. Both M1 and M2 are beautiful sounds, and can and should be practiced in their own right. Embrace them both. And to work through the process of transitioning between the two voices, a great exercise is to siren on ee & oo up and down your range, embracing your "break". Don't be scared of it, don't try and prevent the cracking of the voice. Feel what happens mentally and physically and notice that it's not as scary as you once thought. Gradually, with practice, it will become a transition instead, and you will have choices through more of your range than you thought possible. The more you love your voice, the more it will love you back.

A note about vocal vocabulary, or "Sing more purple though your 3rd eye":  metaphor and imagery can be fantastically helpful, and fantastically unhelpful. "Sing more choclatey" can speak a 1000 words to one person and nothing or even the opposite to the singer standing next to them. In Meantime we tend to be quite selective in how we communicate vocal tech to try and prevent misunderstanding - unfortunately this is never perfect. So we find that knowledge is useful, and understanding even more so. You are not expected to remember, let alone understand, all of the science we speak about on first (or even twenty-first) hearing. You are encouraged to ask questions and explore you own voice at all opportunities. #therearenostupidquestions. We are all learning, and growing, and making mistakes together. Join the party!

Vocal Health

When we struggle vocally, we hear the the symptoms at the vocal folds, but the vocal folds are rarely the cause of vocal issues or challenges. Thankfully, through the biopsychosocial model we have the answer: Treat yourself well wherever you can. Practice self-care.  Feed your mind, body and soul. 

Sleep
Eat
Hydrate
Exercise / Move / Strengthen / Stretch
Practice Mindfulness
Meet your responsibilities
Talk & Play & Take Breaks
Warm Up & Cool Down

NB short, regular bouts of SOVTE's reduce vocal fold inflammation faster than complete vocal rest.

Importance of warm-ups (& cool-downs!)

"Warm-up" is often less about slightly increasing heart rate and body temperature so that singing muscles work more efficiently and effectively (biological), and more about mentally, physically and emotionally connecting with ourselves, our environment and each other (psychological & sociological)(see BPS above).

Sometimes we can warmup for ages and still feel blargh. Sometimes we can do no warmup at all and sing better than we have in months. In part this is because warmup exercises and advice have been around for a long time, while genuine understanding about how and why different exercises are effective is a more recent thing. And in part this is because warm-ups don't simply just warm us up - that would be too easy! In fact "chill-outs" might more accurately describe the most effective parts of most Meantimer's present routines.

As you explore what is most effective for you, you may find different mental approaches help you get the most from your time. Different ways Meantimer's have connected to warmups are as a time for / a process of:  focus; release; connection; co-ordination; grounding; aligning; freeing; relaxing; defrosting; resetting; letting go; adjusting; prehab.  There are no wrong answers here, your response to how warmup feels is as valid as anyone else's.

Here's a suggested "default" warmup to get you started, based on routines advocated by vocal pedagogues like Ingo Titze and Dr Jenevora Williams. Why not try the below, and explore from there?

Individual warmup focus?

MIND FOCUS (whole self/awareness)
Non-judgemental attention on the present

BODY FOCUS (big muscles)
Stretch -> align -> release

VOICE FOCUS (little muscles)
SOVTE <-> siren <-> call*

(*fry, modal, call)

Example 15 minute version

Mindful Moment - 2 minutes
2m whole self/awareness/acceptance

Stretch - 5 minutes
2m neck
2m hips
1m shoulders

Align+Release - 2 minutes
Ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, ears (or grab some floor)
Thumb in belly button, release to groin, bowlful of jelly
Suspend ribs?

SOVTE - 2 minutes
1m small, speech-range sirens
1m gradually more extended sirens

Siren (oo/ee) - 2 minutes
1m small, speech-range sirens
1m gradually more extended sirens

Fry <-> Modal <-> Call voice - 2 minutes
Work between vocal fry, projected modal voice (normal speech voice pitch), and call voice (“Hey!”)

Find out more

• The 'Vocal Technique' channel on Slack is an excellent place to read, learn and discuss all things related to vocal pedagogy. If you've ever asked the question 'what is mixed voice' or 'what is vocal fry' or 'how do I sing low notes better', you will find a home in this channel. Many members of the chorus have experience as vocal coaches and have trained under reputable vocal pedagogues.

Performance

Performance is important to us here at Meantime. We aim to create an engaging and most importantly, an authentic performance in all our songs. We use a wide array of techniques and skills in the rehearsal process to try and connect emotionally to the characters and messages we are communicating to the audience. The techniques we explore are predominately from a naturalistic standpoint, using the naturalistic acting practitioner of Konstantin Stanislavski as inspiration. 

We are all actors, we all have a responsibility to communicate something to the audience, to make them feel something. 

We thought it would be a good idea to outline and describe (briefly) some of the recurring techniques we explore in Meantime, as the performance team may mention these words or techniques