Learning Lyrics

Sometimes you just have to sit down and learn them!

All the songs for the Royal Albert Hall performance have to be committed to memory! That's no mean feat.  Plus our MD has threatened us to learn all our future music too so that we don't rely on copies.  Eeek!

So what are the tricks to learning lyrics.  Our MD outlines his approach:

1. First you use your music and learn your notes.
2. Then use your music and concentrate on the lyrics.
3. Then listen to your backing track and write out the lyrics (you may have to keep stopping to rewind the backing track).
4. Then use lyrics only to sing along to your backing track.
5. Then use NOTHING just your backing track to see how much you can remember.

Don't worry we've all been here and have to do it.  How do you think our MD manages to keep his head up, mouth the words and bring each part in accordingly? He has to learn the music and words too and for more than one part!

When you first perform a piece without copies you feel naked and then become conscious about your hands and how you stand but that's a topic for another day. 

As for writing out lyrics our MD uses the following method:

1. He types into a word processor or similar.
2. The lyrics to be sung are typed in black.
3. For long notes or long tied lyrics he adds a hyphen in the word and an underscore at the end of a word.
4. Que lyrics from other parts he types in brackets and grey text.
5. If there is a definite male versus female section, then he colour codes the male as Blue and female as Pink.

The following extract from the Hallelujah Chorus might give you an idea.  This is for Bass 1, therefore the other singers lyrics are greyed out and in brackets as he will not be singing them.
Ignore the red squiggly underline, that is the word processor objecting to the word being spelt wrong with the hyphen.  But the hyphen is there to remind him to sing the word longer or separated.

And finally with a piece like the Hallelujah Chorus you just have to work out how many 'Hallelujahs' to sing, especially in the end phrase.

Have fun learning lyrics!