Being a soloist or singing lead is often much easier than singing backup. Why? Because you have to follow someone else's lead and blend your voice with theirs. When you lead, others have to find ways to blend with you.
With the simple techniques below, you can be a great backup singer and blend beautifully with the lead singer every time.
Listen to the Lead Singer Before you can blend properly, you should listen carefully to the lead part and to the music. Listening carefully will help you distinguish parts in the music. There are some parts that you might find easier to sing than others. One song can have several parts such as lead (melody) or harmonizing parts such as alto, tenor, baritone, soprano, and bass.
If you have trouble distinguishing parts, ask the instrumentalist if they can play certain parts for you. Single out a couple of parts on the instrument and follow along with your voice until you can recognize these parts when the entire song is being played.
Adjust Your Position when Singing Backup When you perform as a backup singer, position yourself where you can glance at the person singing lead at all times. You should be able to look at them to tell where they are going with a verse or chorus and to see when they are going to start and stop a verse or line.
This is important so your timing will blend with theirs. It can be very embarrassing as a backup singer to start before the lead singer or to stop singing after them. You'll want everything to be synchronized perfectly.
Blend Your Singing Level with the Lead When the lead singer starts singing, try to start your singing quietly and gradually get a little louder to blend with the lead part.
In doing so, your part won't come on too strong. Also, begin ending your singing by getting a little quieter before the lead singer reaches his/her ending. Doing both of these allows the lead singer to come in strong at the start and end strong at the last.
What about Singing Consonants? If you are singing words that start with consonants, try to sing the beginning consonant silently so there aren't multiple strong consonant sounds.
When more than one person sings a word that starts with a consonant, it can cause multiple sounds that can be unpleasant to the audience. For instance, singing the letter "p" can sound like 2 or more loud "puhs" to the audience.
Leave the first consonant off of words or say the beginning of a word quietly and then get louder toward the middle of the word.
Your Job as Backup is to Blend - Not to Stand Out
Always remember that being a backup singer enables you to bring your talents to a song in a unique and very important way. You are to blend, not stand out. You can make or break the song in how well you blend with the lead singer.
How do You Learn Backup Blending? Practice!!
Practice blending with songs you hear on CD at home so when the time comes to be a backup singer, you'll be ready to sing and maybe even check into a singing career! Now that you've learned to blend your backup singing, try it out on your very next song. The lead singer will thank you for it!
Thank you to Bob Pardue
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