Mentoring by Master - Teacher Allegro Teaching A Cappella
On December 1, 2014, we were very pleased to have HanGuang Vocal Band coming to Yu-Tsai elementary school for an exclusive musical feast. Besides Director Chu, Teacher Allegro also came to our school. We not only got to listen to the heavenly sounds from the band, but also received a personal a cappella lesson from Teacher Allegro, who is known as ‘father of a cappella’ in Taiwan.
| Source: the Beautiful Voices│
Introducing HanGuang Vocal Band
You guys are really good. Just by hearing our music, you know right away that an a cappella band uses human voice to play music. So, the sounds of instruments that you’ve just heard all came from our mouths. We can also do the sounds of drum and bass!
Creation of a song
While making a song, we need to first decide on the tempo. Is it going to be allegro or adagio? Therefore, we often let voice percussion and bass go first. In HanGuang Vocal Band, Jing-Teng and Jing Hua will decide on the tempo of the song and create the right ambience for our performance.
With tempo alone is insufficient for people to make out what the song is, so we need to add in melody. Different songs are performed by different leads, and every vocal part has a chance to be the lead! For example, in the song ‘With you in my mind,’ we got Jhih-Ting as the lead; and in ‘My Own Way,’ we got Jin-Ying as the lead. We even got two lead singers in ‘Full River Red!’
With tempo and melody ready, we only need to add chorus to make a song grander! Different vocal parts will harmonize according to the progression of the song. If we have more people available, we may add more choruses to broaden the vocal range and increase the depth of our voice. Take the song ‘With you in my mind’ for example, Ching-Yuan, Hsing-Lei, and Wei-Ju got together to sing the chorus.
Children learning percussion
Bass drum: try to say ‘boo’ without making the sound, with air coming out from the mouth
Snare drum: try to say ‘cut’ without making the sound, with air coming out from the mouth
Cymbals: try to say ‘ci’ (using Pinyin) without making the sound, with air coming out from the mouth
Once you have the three basic techniques down, you can start making some beats with your mouth! ‘boo-ci-cut-ci’, ‘boo-ci-cut-ci ’！Got it?
Yu-Tsai a cappella band is ready
After learning the three basic techniques in beatboxing from Teacher Allegro and Jing-Teng, everyone in school followed Teacher Allegro’s lead and started beatboxing. We went into a state of natural high with our own a cappella band, and a cappella bonded the whole school closer together.
Source: the Beautiful Voices ｜ Photos: the Beautiful Voices
