Singing | Ann Downey | All Levels | Period 1 | Week 2 (July 14-19, 2024)
This course is for learning how to find and sing harmonies that are not based on a specific learned harmony line, i.e., seemingly out of thin air. The method will focus on the tonic note of a song, or passage, and use numbers to count up and down the scale from that foundation note to recognize harmonies, similar to what we did in Finest Kind. This will involve some deep listening to the intervals created, hearing yourself as part of the chord, hanging onto and changing your notes within the chords and passages that you hear around you. We’ll be working in a mostly a cappella approach to this, in order to hear the harmonies more clearly and pull the notes out of the air instead of off of an instrument. We’ll work out our harmonies, trading the melody role around if possible, by using a few group chorus songs, which we’ll sing all together.
About the Instructor
Ann Downey sings and plays upright bass, clawhammer banjo, and guitar and sits in comfortably with old time Appalachian, cowboy, country, swing (country and jazz), bluegrass, Celtic, and klezmer music. She enjoys wacky songs, yodeling and especially exploring and singing harmonies. She grew up listening to her parents sing in harmony in the car during their many moves, and upon arrival was promptly plugged into the local Methodist church choir before they even unpacked. Ann’s roots are in the southwestern U.S, and she has lived and played around Europe and North America, and is now well settled in Ottawa, Canada. She has sung, played, traveled and recorded with Finest Kind (now retired), Sneezy Waters, the Toasted Westerns, Tony Turner, and Shirt-Tearing Boys among many others. She’s also regularly on call to play bass and sing harmony vocals on folk related projects in the studio and on stage. Ann has taught cowboy songs, harmony vocals and yodeling at festivals and music camps (including Augusta), and currently teaches clawhammer banjo at Alcorn Music Studios in Ottawa.