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JAZZ CHOIR DISSONANCE: FRIEND OR FOE? PDF DOWNLOAD
Do we love dissonance, or tolerate it as a necessary evil? Hopefully we love it but either way, we may not always love rehearsing it. In any case we can learn to fall in love dissonance because it is such a sophisticated and beautiful part of this music we do in jazz! It is thrilling to the ears and plays a big role in communicating emotion in an engaging way.
For many vocal ensembles, singing chords with a a significant amount of dissonance can be a pretty big challenge – at first. Learning to reliably sing intervals like half steps or major 7ths parts between parts with a solid balance and good intonation can require some education and experience. Sometimes dissonance is a bit hidden – the overall chord voicing can sound relatively simple when in fact one of the reasons it’s “pretty” is due to a half step or cluster in the voicing. The ears need to get used to singing this kind of sound and that can take careful rehearsal practice and as mentioned: education.
In this video we’ll take a good look at the two most prevalent types of dissonance occurring in jazz choir literature:
- Half step between adjacent parts, and
- A major 7th between any two parts
In this video we’ll also cover a few strategies for ‘solving’ dissonance through strategic practices in rehearsal..
Remember to get the Jazz Choir Dissonance: Friend or Foe? PDF Download above! It would be a good idea to print it out so you can follow along with the voicings you’ll see in the video, and later play them at the piano.
