Samba Vocalise

This is a warm-up designed for older students. It's a little sophisticated, focusing on major 7 chords and subtle movement. It is a good exercise for interval movement, pitch matching, vowel placement, and hearing chord changes. It's also somewhat challenging as you will hear on the recording.

The Latin jazz groove is marvelous, and you may find some of your students (or yourself) wanting to improvise to the changes. By all means, let them! Play the track over and over to give everyone a chance. Consider also using it to let young jazz instrumentalists play along and improvise. Our pianist (Paul) offers an excellent example of improvisation, or comping, as he was never playing a written part. The flute and flugelhorn double the melodies throughout for reinforcement.

There are three different vocal parts, but they are meant to be sung separately, one after the other. They are not intended to be partners and won't sound right if you try to perform them that way.

Ideally, start with part 1, then go to part 2, then part 3. Part 1 is lower and uses "ah" to open up the throat. Part 2 is mid-range and uses "oh" to emphasize the movement. Part 3 is sung on "ooh" and is meant to employ the head voice. It also helps singers focus on pitch matching. All three parts could benefit from slight accents of each note, but a legato interpretation is also fine. We think your older singers will dig this one.