Description:
Today we begin working on agility for pop riffs! We’ll start nice and easy with falls and scoops. Please keep in mind: other singers might have different words for these effects, but hopefully they’re intuitive and make sense to you.
Our first exercise will also follow this order: fall down, then scoop on [demonstrate]. With any stylistic effect, it’s more than just singing the pitches – it’s also about inflection. Lean into, or place emphasis on, the first pitch in both the fall and the scoop. Let’s try it out!
Exercise 1: Hey 3-2, 2-3
Our first exercise will also follow this order: fall down, then scoop on [demonstrate]. With any stylistic effect, it’s more than just singing the pitches – it’s also about inflection. Lean into, or place emphasis on, the first pitch in both the fall and the scoop. Let’s try it out!
Exercise 1: Hey 3-2, 2-3
Play around with being extra heavy with the scoops and slides as well as very light and subtle for this next exercise.
Exercise 2: Waterfall 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 on Yeah
There are many spots we could incorporate falls or scoops within our songs. Let’s go through the verse of “Never Leave You” and try some out!
Play & sing “Never Leave You”
Bm
You’re in my head
G
You’re in my dreams
F#m
The words you said
G
Comfort me
D
“I will never leave you
A
I’ll always hold you tight
Bm
I’ll Love you and protect you
G
And I will never leave you”
(D)
Those are all ideas you can take or leave. I recommend keeping the ones that felt most natural to you, sounded the best, or enhanced the meaning of the song in some way. Consider adding scoops or falls to your song of choice and listen for them in your favorite pop songs! I promise you’ll hear them all over the place.
Lessons:
- Day 1: Welcome & What To Expect
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Day 2:
Establishing A Chest-dominant Mix
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Day 3:
Breathiness To Belting: Vowel Modification
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Day 4:
Tongue Position And Twang
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Day 5:
“Pressing In” (Body Engagement)
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Day 6:
Falls & Scoops
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Day 7:
Turnarounds
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Day 8:
3-Note Ending Riff
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Day 9:
5-Note Pentatonic Riffs
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Day 10:
Falsetto Dominant Mix
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Day 11:
Onsets
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Day 12:
Abrupt Register Shifts & The Pop Flip
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Day 13:
Stylizing A Song
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Day 14:
Performance & Congratulations!
Instructor: Abram Poliakoff
Abram Poliakoff is a singer, guitarist, pianist, teacher, conductor, and composer. He received a Bachelors of Music in Vocal Arts from USC’s Thornton School of Music and has been teaching music for 8 years. He is currently both the Associate Artistic Director and a tenor in the L.A. Choral Lab, which recently released its first studio album Sonic Visions in the fall of 2019. Abram teaches and performs a wide range of genres including Classical, Jazz, Folk and Popular music in the Los Angeles area. He has also sung with the San Francisco Opera and Pocket Opera in the Bay Area. His teaching mission is to help his students utilize vocal technique to find their authentic and healthy voice while maximizing genre flexibility and a naturalness of expression.