Moving Singers from Unison to Part Singing

Most commonly, when I meet a new choir student for for the first time, they’ve never seen a piece of Choir music, haven’t sung in two parts, and really just need a “How to Choir 101” course in order to find success in their choir class.

I’ve shared in THIS POST how I introduce a piece of choir literature and teach finding their way around a score.

But, for today, I’d love to share my process of moving singers from unison singing to part singing.

It all happens in the warm up time – which, admittedly, is VERY LONG in the first quarter of school. Why? Because they don’t know – yet – what they need to know to tackle an actual piece of literature written in parts.

1. Find a great unison sound. Focus on support, vowels, placement, listening. All the things we know – but maybe speed past. Don’t speed past them! Focus in and be a little crazy about how good they’re doing – and how that means you can push them to the next level! (It is very common for me to gasp dramatically and exclaim: “What just happened? Who are you people? That sound was AMAZING! I loved the you listened to each other and adjusted your pitch! Your vowels matched! You supported the sound and didn’t give up!” ,etc. PRAISE them for each tiny step! )

2. Introduce canons. We do canons every single day.

   • The first time I introduce a canon, I’ll have them sing as a big group, and I’ll sing the canon part. They are so amazing at staying strong on their part that I will “steal” some of their singers to come to my part (have maybe 1/8 of the class join you.) If they’re still strong in their part, I’ll steal some more and more and more, until we’re singing 1/2 and 1/2, and then I stop singing and just let them do what they’re doing! That’s the first and second time probably.

   • Add a leader at the front of the room. Moving to 2-4 part canons can be a bit more challenging. Put leaders in front of the room; this allows kids in each part to follow someone who is also doing their part. That visual lead is important to them.

   • Once they’re awesome at a certain canon, have them sing in rows or mixed up orders instead of big block sections. Use leaders if needed.

   • Here are my favorite canons for warm up.

3. Sing Partner Songs. Sometimes, I think partner songs are even easier than canons – simply because they’re singing totally different things. I will often start this process the same way I started canons; I will be the second part first, and then add people to my “team.” There are a lot of fun partner songs out there that you can do with 2-3 different songs. Some of my favorites are “Don’t Throw Your Junk / One Bottle Pop / Fish and Chips” and “Ah Poor Bird / Hey Ho Nobody’s Home”.

4. Sing From My Hand. As my new singers learn their hand signs and diatonic scale, we’ll move into “sight reading” from my hand. I’ll do the hand signs, they sing/sign to follow me. Once they’re great at moving in unison, I’ll start doing two parts with this exercise, too.

   • First, I’ll hold one hand static – “do”, while the other hand moves stepwise up and down the scale. The kids are divided into two sections and know which hand to watch. Switch which side is holding static, which is moving.

   • Once they’re good at that, you can start moving both hands stepwise at the same time. For example, both hands move Do Re Mi, right hand holds Mi while left hand moves back down to Do. Then both hands move up in stepwise movement (in thirds – so it sounds great.) Go slowly. They will hear how good they sound!

   • This exercise gets them used to hearing themselves move together – but not in unison. This skill should transfer easily to homophonic singing in literature.

5. These are my go-to songs for teaching beginning singers:

   • “Sing a Song of Nonsense” – teaches how to read the score in unison.

   • “Shake the Papaya Down” by Ruth Dwyer. Three partner songs.

   • “The Dream Keeper” by Rollo Dilworth. Gorgeous song with canon-like and partner-song like harmonies throughout.

We do canons and/or partner songs every single class day (I see my students every other day), and move to 2-4 part canons by the end of quarter 2. By our December concert, we are singing in two parts. I prefer singing literature with partner song / canon harmonies at this point. I do not get to choose who is in what choir in my program; they’re divided by grades and team. There are no auditions. It’s a “ya’ll sing” set up. Because of this set up, we do a lot of things that they think are “just for fun” – but are really to teach part independence, etc. Warm Ups and “How to Choir” are the focus in the first quarter, for sure. Performance literature doesn’t become the focus until late October or early November.

I’d love to hear what works for you! Do you have some tried-and-true literature for new singers?

Happy singing, choir fam!!