IDENTIFYING & SCORING PARTS IN MUSIC

Most music Directors and Choristers find it hard to identify and separate parts in a song and this makes it difficult to effectively score songs which in turn prevents effective song rendition in their presentation. In this article, we are going to be sharing some layman’s secrets on how to identify and separate parts in a song.

KNOW YOUR TONIC SOFAS

Music they say is a combination of notes and sofas to create melody and harmony. These notes are produced by the basic tonic sofas ( Do Re Mi Fa So La TI Do) in music. Every song’s melody and harmony is a combination of these Sofas. They form the basis for the separation of parts. Every tone in music is a product of the combination of two, three or more of these Sofas. How these notes are combined to form a chord is what produces the various parts in a song.

KNOW THE VARIOUS VOCAL PARTS IN A SONG

There are three basic parts in a simple song namely, Soprano, Alto and Tenor. There are other parts like Bass, Meso Soprano, Contra- Alto etc., but for this article, we will be concentrating on the basic simple parts of Soprano, Alto and Tenor. Every Chord on the keyboard is formed from the tune produced by the notes of these parts. For instance, a chord made of Mi So Do’ Simply means that the Tenor note starts with Mi and Alto So while the Soprano part starts with Do’.. This largely depends on who is singing the melody line of a song. There are times when these notes could be re-arranged (e.g. Do Mi So), but your ability to identify which part is singing which note depends largely on your knowledge of the tonic sofas.

LEARN AN INSTRUMENT

This is very key to scoring the parts of a song. Since we have already established that knowing your sofas will help you identify the parts of a song. It is also very important to know that you should be familiar with a musical instrument (e.g. keyboard, Bass Guitar or Lead Guitar) for you to easily identify the sofas of each part. Having a basic knowledge of any of these instruments will make it effectively easy to score the parts of any song. It also makes it easy for you to know when there is a transpose or modulation in a song and if it’s by half a note, a full note or more.

BE FAMILIAR WITH THE LYRICS AND TUNE OF THE SONG

To effectively score a song, IDENTIFYING the parts should not be the first thing on your mind. You should be very familiar with the melody of the song and its lyrics. knowing the song fully will make it easy for you to know where the parts are separated in a song and when everyone is singing in Unison.

SCORE SONGS IN A QUIET PLACE

This is very important. Scoring songs in a noisy environment can be very distracting and less effective. Some songs are so compact in their Vocal parts that it will be very difficult to identify or separate them in a noisy environment. This is why some people prefer scoring songs late in the night when everywhere is silent or early in the morning before the brain gets too busy.

USE HEADPHONES

If you want to have every detail of the parts of a song, you need to use headphones. This is because headphones, in most cases clarify the parts more and reduce external noise.

LEARN TO IDENTIFY THE GENDER VOICE BEHIND EACH PART

This is a layman’s way of scoring a song. Separating what you hear into male and female voices is a big step to successfully separate the parts of a song. Once you are able to identify the male parts, the next thing will be to separate the female voices into the Sharpest Vocal Texture (Soprano) and the less Sharp one (Alto). This is because, for most songs, the Soprano has the highest Vocal range followed by Alto and Tenor singers respectively. This is not a fixed rule but in most cases, it is a basis for separating most parts in a song.

Practising these few guidelines will help you score songs effectively. As a music minister, your responsibility is not complete if you can not effectively identify the parts of a song. This is what makes rehearsals easy and interesting.

Josiah Kadiri

He is a vessel who believes so much in the power of music and how it can be used to change lives. He is a man who is very calm and friendly, has a very positive disposition to life and he is also a very powerful strategist!