Musically Conversant I: Basics of Harmony and Meter
Suggested class times: Thursdays, January 6 – 27, online via Zoom. More info, and registration.
To sing and make music comes naturally and intuitively to most people. If you’re ready to go beyond your current intuitive abilities and expand your toolbox of musical options, this guided tour of how scales, chords, rhythms, and meters work together is for you! Designed for singers who can match pitch, keep a beat, and can sometimes find harmonies to sing on a given melody. Learn to find new notes to sing in a harmony, how to find your way around the most common scales, and how to keep track of your place and find cool rhythms in most common meters.
Musically Conversant II: Intermediate/Advanced Harmonic and Metric Vocabularies
Suggested class times: Thursdays, February 3 – March 3, online via Zoom. More info, and registration.
If you spend enough time making music, you’ll inevitably have some understanding of how it moves in time, and how notes and chords work in a scale. With this course, you will expand your vocabulary of harmonies you can create, and the range of rhythms and meters that your voice can gracefully dance in. Designed for singers who understand basic harmony and rhythms who want access to fancier chords and meters. You will learn: how to find 7ths, extensions, and suspensions in chords; how to recognize and create a variety of extended-harmony chords; how to sing using a variety of uncommon scales; how to find rhythms in a variety of uncommon meters.
Circlesinging and Vocal Improvisation 101
Suggested class times: Tuesdays, January 25 & February 1 (or by arrangement), online via Zoom. Also available as an all-day intensive. More info, and registration.
Amado has studied techniques for improvising with a chorus or a small group of singers with Bobby McFerrin and some of his vocal collaborators, notably Rhiannon and Roger Treece. For a solid introduction to these techniques, Amado can meet with you individually or in small groups. Learn enough in two Zoom sessions to get started with your first circles, or have Amado visit for an in-person training session followed by a public community-singing event the same day.