The song we’ve picked for our next virtual choir is a new one from Fischy Music: ‘A Little More’. It has a great summer vibe and excellent ear-worm qualities!

This one we will sing in unison for the verses (so everyone is singing the same tune) but we will then split into harmony for the chorus.

The male voices singing the tune and altos/sopranos singing in harmony. You can find a copy of the vocal score here.

Zoom Meeting

We will be hosting a Zoom meeting to go over everything which may be helpful particularly for those who have not done this before. This will be on Saturday 20 June at 3 p.m.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85231797859?pwd=QWV6S2h2aGQ2ek9WakJhL1RUNkg3dz09

Meeting ID: 852 3179 7859
Password: 316953

We will go over everything at that meeting but here are some notes so you can make a start on learning the song and preparing!

And for any old hands out there, you know what to do already so you can just start recording when you are ready to go for it!

Kevin Haggart, our organist, has created three backing tracks which highlight each of the vocal parts so you can choose the appropriate one to sing along to.

Soprano Voices

Download audio file here or listen:

 

Alto Voices

Download audio file here or listen:

 

Male Voices

Download audio file here or listen:

 
Technical Instructions

We recommend having a good few practice sing throughs before you film yourself and then when you’re ready to go, you can record yourself by playing the audio track through headphones on a device other than the one you are recording on. This way, the recording will only pick up your lovely singing! (I personally found it easier to only have one headphone in my ear so I could hear myself singing better, but that’s just personal preference!)

Do as many takes as you need – I know I have never once got it right the first time! And remember: even if it sounds a little weird to hear your voice on its own, when everything is edited together it will sound beautiful!

A couple of little notes about filming: if possible, try to film somewhere quiet and well-lit (ideally with you facing a window) so that the videos look lovely! Please film landscape instead of portrait – it is so much easier to edit everything together if the videos all have similar proportions. Lastly, please keep recording until the music finishes! This just means that we don’t have some people’s videos cutting out way before others’ and means we’ll have a better finished video.

The Cue Clap: for this song we would ask you to clap on the first beat of the third bar. So when you listen to the introduction's "Dum-Dum-Dumm, Dum-Dum-Dumm, CLAP-Dum-Dumm, etc. It is the same bar that the drums start.

While we can absolutely have people film on their phones/tablets, recording using Zoom itself results in a much smaller file which is more manageable (both for sending the file and for editing the video together). If you do record using Zoom, here are a few extra instructions:

1. Turn off "Automatically adjust volume" and then set the slider yourself. Start around the half way mark and then try singing as loud as you are going to get and watch the blue indicator line - you do NOT want this to go much over half way at your loudest - adjust to suit.
2. In "Advanced" (button at bottom right of the Settings window) checking the box to allow "Enable Original Sound"
3. In this same section turn the options for "Suppress Persistent Background Noise" and " Suppress Intermittent Background Noise" to Disable.
4. When you then go to record your session on Zoom ensure that you have clicked the link at top left hand corner that would say "Turn on original sound" so that it illuminates in blue and says "Turn off original sound" - it is a bit of awkward language, but when it is blue then you are recording the original sound from your microphone.
5. Ignore all of this if you are using Zoom on a tablet or smartphone as these options are not available!
6. If you film on Zoom, the files will be saved once you end the meeting and it should save an audio file and a video file – it’s helpful for our editing if you can send us both of those!

If this is all a bit complicated, don’t worry. It’s fine to just film on your phone/tablet – just be aware the file will be much bigger and might take a while to upload (depending on how good your internet connection is!)

When you have your recording, it would be helpful if you could rename the file with your name and which part you are singing (or playing), then you can upload your files directly to me using this dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/request/Nfqhvyw5mF4dHTX8hAK1

Have fun!