Full access students: watch our riffs + runs tutorial ( ) and any tutorials labelled “advanced” or “pro” for more exercises to train your agility.Īll students: we have another great riff & run lesson right on YouTube for you, with exercises to increase your agility. If you’re a 30 Day Singer student: look for exercises titled “9-tone” and “long line agility” within the beginner courses. Voice teacher tip: challenge yourself to sing just a little faster than you’re currently comfortable with. Learn your first easy, 5-note run in this short lesson, using song examples from Carrie Underwood, Beyoncé and Boyz II Men:Īnything fast and/or wide-range will help train you to sing smoother, cleaner riffs and runs.
This will take you from a somewhat “boring” string of notes to an exciting run with dynamic variety and phrasing. This can be tricky, so you may want to start on a narrow vowel like OO or EE (those are easier than wide open vowels like AH or EY at first).ĭo your best to match the dynamic and inflection of the original artist. Return to the vowel or lyric within the song. Use that app or custom speed function on YouTube! Once you can sing the run at. Riffs and runs require speed AND specificity it’s not a “clean” run if the pitches just blend and slide into one another with no distinction. The consonant gives some separation to the pitches so they don’t “bleed together”. Singing on DOO or DAH will be much easier than singing on a vowel. Practice each section alone before putting it together. This is usually 2-3 sections - sometimes more if it’s a very long run. Those can easily trip you up! Also take note of which pitch is stressed (or held longer): that will help you with timing and inflection later on. Make a note of repeated pitches or directional changes (turns) It’s a somewhat tedious process, but it gets faster the more you do it. For very complex runs, I’ll stop and start every 1-2 seconds while I listen and repeat, just working on a few pitches at a time. You don’t need to notate the pitches (by pitch letter name), but you do need to match pitch slowly before you can speed it up. On a laptop or desktop (not the app), click the Settings gear > Playback speed > Custom. 75 speed on Youtube is a good place to start if it goes by too quickly, but you can also use the “custom speed” function.
To address both of these issues, here’s my step-by-step guide for learning and practicing any run. The speed requires a higher level of vocal agility than most beginning singers have developed The pitches go by too quickly for many beginning singers to follow, andĢ. Riffs and runs are difficult for 2 main reasons:ġ. We might define a run as “one lyric or syllable sung with many fast-moving pitches in succession”, while a riff is often more improvisational and can be vocal or instrumental (ie: guitar riffs). Riffs and runs, though they originated in gospel music, have made their way into almost every contemporary music genre, including r&b, pop, and even country.
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