3.5 Vocables: easy vocal improvisation activities  (Page 3/3)

Scat singing

Objectives and assessment

• Objectives - The student will practice hearing and reproducing (vocally) the individual pitches in chords that are typical of jazz harmony. The student will practice crafting simple vocal improvisations based on these pitches, using rhythms appropriate to the jazz style.
• Evaluation - Evaluate students on participation and success in following directions. If musical competence in singing or improvising is a reasonable class goal, evaluate individual success in producing a pleasing melody that is appropriate to the accompaniment. When evaluating improvisations, listen both for accuracy of pitch and for jazz-appropriate rhythms.
• Adaptations - For young students or those unaccustomed to singing, keep the exercises very simple. It's better to allow the student to successfully explore a single chord than to be unsuccessful at following a complex progression. Encourage rhythmic variety rather than a great variety of pitches. Remember that a scat on one or two pitches, if done with appropriate and interesting rhythms, is very acceptable, even in a professional setting.
• Extensions - For advanced or gifted students, follow these exercises with a chance to improvise on an instrument, or to improvise vocally to a more challenging accompaniment, such as the chord progression to a well-known jazz standard. If you can't provide such an accompaniment, they are available on CD from many sources.

Materials and preparation

• If the students are unaccustomed to singing or to improvising, you may want to warm up for this exercise by doing the Vocable Singing activity first.
• Decide on one or more short, simple three-chord jazz progressions. There are some suggestions below .
• Be able to play the progressions yourself well, while demonstrating and accompanying the class, or make or obtain recordings that feature the progression played repeatedly, many times, without pause. Unlike the activity above, the accompaniment here can sound like a typical jazz accompaniment, with drums, bass line, and block chords. (Some jazz instruction books come with accompaniment recordings that you may find useful.) Ideally, you should have a piano at hand for the demonstration part of the activity, particularly if you think the students may have trouble "finding" the pitches in each chord, but you may wish to switch to recordings for the actual exercise.
• If at all possible, find some audio recordings of scat singing to share with the class, and gather the equipment necessary to do so.

Procedure

1. If necessary, explain that jazz is a style of music that arose in the African-American community in the early twentieth century, was at one time the most popular music in America (and elsewhere), and is now a term that describes several different styles of music that have also influenced many other genres, including modern classical, rock, and pop music. Explain that one of the defining features of jazz music is improvisation , the art of making up, on the spot, a melody that goes with a given accompaniment, and that scat singing is a common way for jazz singers to improvise.
2. Share the audio examples you have gathered.
3. Explain that, in order to improvise, instrumentalists must know the fingerings for the notes that belong in the accompaniment, but in order to do scat singing, you just have to be able to find, with your voice, notes that fit. Notes that "fit" with a chord include the notes in the chord as well as the notes of a particular scale that goes with each chord.
4. Have the students suggest and vote on a syllable or syllables to sing together.
5. Demonstrate by playing one chord from your progression and singing several pitches that are part of the chord, using the syllable the students have chosen. Ask them to sing the pitches with you, and sing the same pitches again, slowly, with the students.
6. Play a different chord from your progression and ask the students to sing some of the notes that are part of or "go with" the chord. If necessary, emphasize particular pitches that are being played, or continue to demonstrate, while encouraging the students to sing with you.
7. Ask the students if they can identify any pitches that belong in both chords. Can they identify a pitch in the second chord that is close to a pitch in the first one (but not the same)? If not, help them out. Ask them to each choose something to sing. They should all sing at the same time, but they can each choose to sing either one pitch that goes with both chords, or a simple two-note "line" that fits with the chords. Demonstrate their choices.
8. Play a simple accompaniment that goes back and forth between the two chords, while the students together sing long tones on the chosen syllable.
9. Now demonstrate a simple rhythm-oriented scat. Along with the two-chord accompaniment, sing a series of syllables either on a single pitch or on a line that goes back and forth between neighboring pitches. If at all possible, use syncopation , accents and swing rhythms in a typically jazzy way.
10. Ask each student now to individually do a short scat, similar to your demonstration, on their chosen note or notes, with your accompaniment. Encourage them to make up their own syllables for this.
11. If the students have trouble doing this, give them each a second and maybe a third chance. Play some of your recordings again, and encourage the students to imitate, particularly, the rhythms, accents, and style of the performances.
12. Once they do this successfully, you can introduce a third chord if you wish. Help the students identify and sing shared or neighboring pitches between all three chords.
13. Let the students listen to a few repetitions of the three-chord progression. They should listen carefully so they can tell which chord is being played at any given time. It's best to encourage the students to do this "by ear", but if necessary, give them the chord names, write the progression down, and help each line practice moving to the right pitch for each chord. Help them with this by singing along if necessary. Then play the progression a few more times, having them sing long tones, as a group, on their chosen notes (again using the "class syllable").
14. Give each student a chance to scat sing alone with the accompaniment. Be encouraging, not critical. Do not allow disparaging comments from the class, but encourage the students to cheer each other on. Mention that jazz fans often clap or shout encouragement in the middle of a solo when they hear something they think is particularly interesting or impressive.
15. Students who excel at simple one-or-two-pitch melodies should be encouraged to start adding more pitches, either from the chord, or from the jazz scale associated with the chord.
16. If the students are unsuccessful at first, give them further opportunities to do this activity throughout the year. As with any skill, most students will find it easier as it becomes more familiar. If the students like the activity, use it occasionally as a warm-up to music, band, or jazz class.

Suggested listening

Most great jazz singers spend at least some time with scat singing. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Cab Calloway are a few of the giants of the tradition.

Any pop or rock song that features lyrics such as "hey, hey, hey", "sha-na-na", "doo-wop", etc. Bobby McFerrin is particularly imaginative in his use of vocables.

English-language folk songs, carols, madrigals, shanties, and work songs that feature such lyrics as "falala", "trala", "hey-ho", "dilly-dilly", etc.

Traditional songs from other cultures. Many Native American and African cultures in particular often use repetitive syllables that an English-speaker will easily recognize as being vocables. In particular, you may want to try to locate recordings of mbira with singing, as this is the technique being imitated in the activity.

There are also many songs from popular children's movies (Disney's "Jungle Book" and "Cinderella" for example) that feature vocables.

Suggested music

These are just some simple suggestions for each activity, mainly to illustrate the process. Alter them or make up your own as appropriate for your students. Advanced students will probably want longer progressions. Some students may want to write their own. Each page is available as a PDF and also as a figure below. The suggested progressions for scat singing include a repeated ii-V-I progression and a I7-IV7. Note that, for the latter, the students may also improvise on the notes of a blues scale. The suggested accompaniments for vocables , although written with Western rhythm and harmonies in mind, are particularly apt for students who have been learning about mbira music. Note that the first two, in particular, may be conceived as either 6/8 or 3/4; you can encourage students to try to voice melodies that do both.

Easy jazz improvisation

Mbira-style vocables