Lucid Listening: Vocal Groups 2

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YouTube Playlist: Lucid Listening

LUCID LISTENING – VOCAL GROUPS 2 PDF DOWNLOAD

Featured Artist: the HiLo’s

The LUCID LISTENING – VOCAL GROUPS 2 PDF DOWNLOAD is designed to be used in conjunction with the video. Please download and feel free to use it yourself, in your class, your ensemble or share it! *NOTE that this PDF differs somewhat from LUCID LISTENING – VOCAL GROUPS 1 PDF DOWNLOAD in a previous video.

Lucid Listening is a method designed to facilitate well-organized, meaningful, full-focus listening to music. This is the first in a series of video/Listening Guide pairs which will feature various ensemble types, musical styles and focus on both the brainy aspects of the music and the ones that come from the heart.

The Lucid Listening – Vocal Groups 2 PDF Download is a set of questions which encourage deep listening. (Note that this download is somewhat different than Lucid Listening – Vocal Groups 1 PDF Download.) The Download allows you to follow along with the MichMusic Now video above and can be applied to use with other vocal group tracks. In this video a classic track from the great vocal group, the HiLo’s, Gene Puerling director and vocal group arranger.

Highly focused listening can be transformative for any musician (including singers!) The practice of simply noticing a deep level of musical detail through with repeated listenings, over time, is bound to inspire a higher level of artistry in the musician/listener.

I hope the free PDF Guide is useful to you and your students! Would love to hear from you – feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

ABOUT THE HILO’S

The Hi-Lo’s were one of the more creative and influential male vocal quartets of the 1950s, matching intricate harmonies with standards that were given big band-pop arrangements. Forming in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, they began recording in 1953, just in time for the LP era — an important consideration since The Hi-Lo’s did not have huge success in the singles market. They were all over television in the 1950s, appearing on 39 episodes ofThe Rosemary Clooney Show alone, as well as the shows of Steve Allen, Nat “King” Cole,Pat Boone and others. In the studio, they worked with talented arrangers like Frank Comstock and Marty Paich, and hit their commercial peak with three Top 20 albums on Columbia in 1957 (one recorded with Clooney). Their inventive shadings and the wide range (particularly in the upper register) were, as is well-known, influences on Brian Wilson, and also, as is much less well-known, John Phillips. Wilson and Phillips would apply some of that harmonic influence to recordings with their groups, The Beach Boys and The Mamas And The Papas. Recent jazz-pop groups such as The Manhattan Transfer also have a significant debt to The Hi-Lo’s.