Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts – Backing Vocalists

By Tim Bowdler | April 30, 2010

Tips for praise team backing vocalists You just turn up, stand in front of the mic and sing. There’s tuning, no adjusting the sound, it’s just you and your voice. Sounds simple enough – there’s no kit to carry – and if you are blessed with a decent voice, you’re good to go. But it’s […]

Free Worship Resources Index – Posts on Vocals

By Marie@Musicademy | April 29, 2010

Here is a comprehensive list of all the vocals resources, help and advice on the blog. Go to the store for vocals DVDs, harmony DVDs, backing tracks, warm-up CDs and throat sprays. Free Lessons & Video Clips Contemporary vs traditional singing techniques Coaching classical singers to sing in a contemporary style Adding vocal colour – […]

Ask the Expert – How to expand a singer’s vocal range

By Catherine Nicole | March 19, 2010

  Here’s Cat White’s third post giving advice on vocalists (the first, on weak and thready voices and the second on singers that run out of puff).  This time Cat deals with advice for working with singers that have a very limited vocal range. (One can only do middle C to about D, the other is much higher, […]

DVD reviews in Worship Leader Magazine

By Marie@Musicademy | March 11, 2010

Those nice people at Worship Leader Magazine have reviewed a number of our recent DVD releases. We thought you might be interested in what they had to say. Feel free to add your own review in the comments at the bottom. HARMONY AND BACKING VOCAL Volume 1 of the Harmony and Backing Vocal DVD is […]

Ask the Expert – Singers that run out of puff

By Catherine Nicole | March 10, 2010

Here’s Cat White’s second post giving advice to vocalists (the first, on weak and thready voices is here). The subscriber was asking for advice for singers that run out of puff quickly especially with up-tempo songs: One possible problem here could be that your singers are finding it difficult to find the right places to breathe in songs. […]

Ask the Expert – Advice for sufferers of postnasal drip

By Marie@Musicademy | February 25, 2010

Uma from the UK called to ask for advice for singers with a sinus problem called postnasal drip where a regular drip from the nose to the throat means she has to constantly clear her throat – something we know is not good for vocal health. Here is the advice we gave: When someone has postnasal […]

Ask the Expert – Weak and thready voices

By Catherine Nicole | February 17, 2010

A subscriber from the UK emails: “I hope you can help with a problem we have. In our music group we have some female singers who need some help on a number of fronts: 1    Voices are fairly in tune but very “weak and thready” 2    They run out of puff quickly especially with up-tempo songs […]

Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts – Worship Leaders

By Tim Bowdler | January 31, 2010

The life of a worship leader is a happy one. These people get all the fame, the royalties, the best-looking girls (or boys), they get to travel around the world and sing their carefully crafted compositions to lots of loyal followers. They are perfect in every way… No. The truth is they get irritable, they […]

Graham Kendrick’s Guide to Psalm Surfing

By Marie@Musicademy | January 11, 2010

  We’ve been looking recently at ideas for spontaneous worship, inspired almost entirely by a seminar I attended by Graham Kendrick. In the last post I described how Graham uses a basic groove and perhaps a chord sequence to provide a foundation for singing in an improvised style from the Psalms. I’ve done a bit […]

6 Tips – Backing Vocals

By Andy@Musicademy | January 7, 2010

  Blend One of the keys to good Backing vocals is learning to blend so however many vocalists your have it sounds like one voice. So watch the lips of the worship leader or lead singer and try to match their starts, stops, phrasing, volume tone and vibrato. Only sing melody to emphasise phrases or […]