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https://artistworks.com/michael-daves/learning/103701
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Bluegrass Vocals Lessons: “Think What You've Done” (Trio Arrangement)
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Bluegrass Vocals with Michael Daves
Renowned vocalist Michael Daves teaches how to sing bluegrass for all ranges of voices. Unlimited access to comprehensive lessons that combine technique training and ear training exercises with classic bluegrass standards. Learn both tenor and lead voicing for famous bluegrass songs, complete with backing tracks, music notation and other study materials.
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Resume from where you last watched ( )?
Yes No
[MUSIC].
All right, this song, Think of What You've Done,
is great song by the Stanley Brothers.
And the Stanley Brothers are very much a part of the brother duet
tradition that we've been talking about.
But you can't really talk about bluegrass trio singing without including
them as well.
Because they did great trios and quartette along with their duet work.
And so, it's a great example of trio sound they get.
We'll get to another one later, too.
Anyhow, so in the key of C.
[SOUND]. It take you through the melody.
Is it true.
So, the melody is here in the middle.
So it's typical stack, there's gonna be a tenor part above and
a baritone part below.
[MUSIC].
And when you're listening
to the trio recording,
it's really helpful.
Obviously, have heard
the three parts by themselves and
that's what we're
gonna provide you here.
But, if you get to know a singing group like the Stanley Brothers.
One thing that I'd I try to tune in to when I'm trying to hear this,
is the individual timbre of the voices.
Now, Carter Stanley, who sang lead, has very distinctive voice and
it's quite different sounding from Ralph's, who sang the tenor parts.
Carter's got this kind of this great sort of warm, sort of mellow, almost a croon.
And Ralph has, of course got this wide open tenor.
It's a very sort of kinda really kind of spooky melody sounding tenor.
So, we listen to the Stanley Brothers, that's one thing I encourage you to do.
Is to try to track, not just the note you're hearing, but
the sound of their individual voices.
And as you listen to more Stanley Brothers music you'll get to know their voices.
It's pretty easy, when it comes to them.
All right, so let me take you through the verse.
And this is a solo melody sung by Carter.
And it's pretty typical format, where you have the verse sung just by one person.
And then the trio harmony comes in on the chorus.
So, heart to heart, starting on the low three,
one, two, three and sliding right to five.
[MUSIC].
Now, I'm gonna draw your attention to what's going on at the end there.
It's like a flat three, then a natural three.
Then move down to two, so really, it's much more common to go,
really, so three, then flat three two.
But here he goes, really through, and does that typical like we've seen this before.
Through, It's really common in bluegrass to end a phrase, through.
Just a little quick drop by a half step and right back.
So anyways, I love picking up on the particularities of
a particular singer and we've been talking about that all along too.
But you can really get a lot, a window into the singer's outlook.
And kind of aesthetic world by really try to pay a lot of attention to those
littles moves.
That, you know, may seem insignificant but if you try to do them with your voice.
First of all, it's gonna kinda get you, use your voice in ways you might not
automatically, she learns something new to do.
But, again, just so much is communicated in little details.
It's a song little different ways one time versus another or one singer to another,
but you can learn so much from that.
[SOUND].
All right, so let me start,
I'm just gonna sing it through with the chords starting on the verse.
So, recorded version of the song starts on the chorus,
but we're going to do the verse through the chorus here in the lead.
One, two, three.
[MUSIC].
I kind of missed interest on that last line,
but one thing I wanna point out.
That it's pretty typical
is that the lead singer in
a trio format will often
sing the pick up notes.
And then have the trio harmony coming on the downbeat and
that definitely happens here.
So Carter sings.
[MUSIC]. And then it's not until the word true,
which is also on the chord change that the harmony parts come in.
So, if you're leading that,
if you're singing lead you wanna be really definitive about that opening line.
Because the other singers are gonna be following you.
And if you're singing with them, you can do something a little with your head or
bug out your eyes.
[MUSIC].
Just to make it really clear where you're coming in, whether you syncopating.
Or are coming in riding on the beat, but
these are all something a lead singer typically does.
And there's certainly a situation like this for
the harmonies parts are waiting after this pick ups to come in.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC] Okay, so
here's the chorus.
I'm gonna take you through the tenor part sang by Ralph Stanley.
[MUSIC] One, two, three, four,
starting on the four note, four chord.
So [SOUND] so, just a word about that harmonically this part what
give this song its sort of its distinctive sound is that Ralph's starting on
that note that's in the chord, the four, [MUSIC]
and then he raises up a step which takes
it out of the chord just kind of suspension, so
there's a little bit of textural difference to the chord,
then it's resolved when you lost you, three two one.
That's taking you right back into the one chord, right on the nose.
So, true that I've lost you.
And then the second line am I not the only one.
Very typical Ralph move, five five, then five down to two then back up to three.
Only one [MUSIC]
and then always pain and sorrow, so
basically the same sort of thing in the third line, except for
he's hanging on the four note which is the chord tone and
when he goes up to the five he's on a new lower word.
So it's not like true, he doesn't do the slide like he does in the first line.
It's just all pain and sorrow and then [MUSIC]
think what you've done.
[MUSIC] Bass is the same as the second one.
Here's the tenor part, one, two.
[MUSIC] True that I've lost you,
not the only one,
all pain and sorrow,
think of what you've done.
Beautiful. [MUSIC]
[MUSIC] All right, so now we have
this baritone part to learn.
[SOUND] To start on the sixth note which is again part of the four chord,
one, two, three, four, five, six.
So, true, true that I've lost you,
bottoming out on a three, as part of
the one chord, true that I've lost you.
Now, that's the seven, it's part of the five chord.
[MUSIC] Pretty
straightforward.
Here we go, by itself with the chords.
[MUSIC]
And
there
you have
it.
So, start obviously, by learning the melody of the song.
Carter Stanley's part through the verse and the chorus.
You should get comfortable performing the song like
that even without the harmony parts.
As that starts to get sunk in, sunken in your mind,
then try the tenor part or the baritone part.
Practice along with your recordings in various combination.
And when you're ready, submit a video, and let me know how it's going.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC] All right, so this is a great
Stanley Brothers number.
And of course the Stanley Brothers are part of the brother duet tradition that
we've been studying.
But you can't really talk about trio singing without also mentioning them,
because they often would add a third or sometimes a fourth singer and
do these great harmony stacks.
And just some of the classic bluegrass harmony singing is
from the Stanley brothers, or just gorgeous stuff.
So here's a good sort of accessible,
I wanted to get started with Think of What You Done.
I think the first version I ever heard of this was actually by Hot Rise.
And then, of course, I found my way back to the original Stanley Brothers and,
anyway, it's a good song for jams.
It's pretty straightforward, a lot of people know the harmony parts, or
can kind of jump in on something like it.
So let me start by taking you through the lead.
This is sung by Carter Stanley, and Ralph Stanley sings the tenor parts.
Now as I mentioned, that when your listening to any of these recordings,
really any harmony singing, I find it really useful
when I'm studying a group to not to just listen to the notes their singing.
I mean, that's obviously important, but
to really try to tune into the particular sound of each singers voices.
Now the Stanley Brothers, it's pretty easy because Ralph and
Carter have really different sounding voices.
Carter Stanley has this very sort of mellow croon that's very distinctive.
And Ralph has this very kind of wide open sort of
reedy tenor sound that's kind of Appalachian.
Sort of spooky high voice and
it's pretty much as easy as it gets to tell them apart.
So that can be a really good way of listening to this.
I want you to go back to the original recording and listen to that,
especially once you've studied the parts individually with what I'm showing you.
Go back to that original recording and see if you can hear it.
Not just the notes, but tune into the sound of their voices.
That's can be generally very helpful.
All right so, key of E.
[MUSIC] I'm gonna start by just singing through
the verse, even though the original recording does start with the chorus.
Don't need to go through it twice here.
So, starting on the three.
One, two, three, heart to heart.
Dear, how I need you.
Like the flowers need the dew,
loving you has been my life blood.
I can't believe we're really though.
Actually I'm gonna talk about the end of here.
This is an interesting ornament that Carter does that's sort of unusual.
He goes, we were really, so it's flat three first then three to two.
Really through, and then that typical bluegrass
ending that we've been encountering before.
We just land on the root and then quickly dip down half step and back up.
So it's much more common to go, really through.
We've seen that move a lot at the end of phrases in various performers.
3, flat, 3, 2, 1, but this is hitting the flat 3 first and then natural 3 then 2.
So it's just one of those little quirks that it's great to try
to sing it because for one, it's probably not what you'd naturally do.
And so when you try to sing something that's a little bit unfamiliar,
you really learn something about how you use your voice.
And again, you sort of expand your toolkit,
the range of ways that you can sing a song.
But also it
can help really kinda get into the world of whatever singer you're studying.
So anyways, and there's plenty of that in the world of Carter Stanley and
of Ralph Stanley.
So anyhow, let's go on to the the chorus.
So is it true that I've
lost you?
Am I not the only one?
After all this pain and sorrow,
6, 5, 5, darling, seven, one.
Darling think of what you've done.
[MUSIC] So here's it together, verse then chorus.
[MUSIC] 1, 2, hear to heart,
dear how I need you,
like the flowers need the dew.
Loving you has been my lifeblood.
I can't believe we're really through.
Is it true that I've lost you?
Am I not the only one?
After all this pain and sorrow,
darling think of what you've done.
[MUSIC] All right, well it's not the ideal key for
me to sing it in, but it'll hopefully give you an idea.
And once again, use these recordings I've provided.
And you can download them and
then again if you can put them in a pitch shifting app of some sort.
You can get them in whatever key is ideal for you.
And that's an important part of learning to sing is finding out where the sweet
spot is in your range and adjusting a song accordingly.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC] All right, so now we're
gonna move onto the tenor part.
This is sung by Ralph and this is definitely gonna be too high for
me in this key.
And that's Jen Larson singing it for you on the audio recording, so
I'm going to sing it down an octave.
[MUSIC] Now, that's real
Ralph right there,
the five then the swoop down to two and
then back up into three,
he does that all the time.
[MUSIC] Here
it is with
chords.
One,
two
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC] All right and finally that baritone part,
is typical as a baritone part, it doesn't have quite as much detail and
as much movement as Louie and the tenor.
So therefore our harmonic support,
I'm going to go back up into our original octave for this version.
Two, so starting on the six.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
So two, then I've lost you.
Not, seven on the five chord, of course, not the only one.
All this pain and sorrow,
think of what you've done.
End with the cords one, two.
Two then I've lost you,
not the only one.
All this pain and sorrow of course,
think of what you've done.
All right, so of course, as you're starting to learn this song,
definitely start with the lead.
And then you can perform this song all the way through, just the lead
on the verse and the chorus without the tenor part and the baritone part in there.
But that's the core of the song, so you definitely start there.
And then, probably I would add the tenor part next and
then the baritone part third.
And as usual, as you've gotten a chance to sort of wrap your mind around these parts
and practice singing along with the various recording options I've given you.
Where you're basically replacing the missing part then submit a video here and
let me know how it's going, and I'll be happy to help you through this.
[MUSIC]