OK…I am practicing singing a couple of runs from Sam Cooke’s gospel standard Wonderful.
As I am singing however, sometimes I notice that all of the notes are not clearly hit.
Cooke often does very fast runs that is easy to gloss over when attempting to sing them. But doing that gives you a muddled sound that sounds less professional and as if you don’t really know what you are doing.
What is really helping however is this micro focused approach of singing the run. Singing it multiple times. And making sure that each note is clearly sung.
So what am I doing.
I sing the run. Multiple times during the day. Probably 2 – 3 times an hour. If it is wrong…I do the following which I call “run practice” which is in addition to singing songs.
- STOP!
- SLOW DOWN!
- MAKE SURE DONE CORRECTLY – rhythm, tones, lyric, and volume.
- SPEED BACK UP!
I am not necessarily up to Cooke’s speed yet, but I am improving…
Now…This is in addition to normal song singing that I practice also.
And I am finding that this “run-practice” greatly improves my singing of songs.