What do you do between the verses?

Subject: What do you do between the verses?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 11:31 AM

With the encouragement of a lot of you mudcatters, I've been singing with a trad Irish band for about a year now. It's been a blast and it's been fascinating watching the group evolve in a kind of unpredictable way. One thing I'm still having trouble with is getting everyone to realize that songs are not just tunes with words. When the band does a set of reels, we just run through them full steam, repeat after repeat, A to B and on to the next tune. Doing songs that way doesn't work. I think we need to take a break between verses, to let the words sink in and let me ctach my breath. Since none of the music I have is written with breaks (except some arranged by the Clancy Brothers), we've had to improvise. We've had the guitar player strum a couple of bars before each new verse, we've had the whistle player repeat the last two measures of the chorus before each new verse. I'm curious what others do.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: MMario
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 11:34 AM

Both arrangements you mention are good possibilities...Depending on the song, sometimes having another singer echo the last line also works as a "break" allowing you to breathe. And sometimes just a beat or two of silence works as well.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Mbo
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 11:51 AM

Strumming a few bars is good...I always try to throw some little improvised stuff in, like suspended chord stuff, adding 9ths or major 7ths, descending or ascending bass notes to the chords. Most every song I play has some little minitune going on in the intro and breaks, also know as a "riff" (shock horror!). I make them up when I first play the tune, and they kinda stick in my head for whenever I play it again--therefor continuing the folk process!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,Ian HP
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:03 PM

As Mbo said, a lot of the best arrangements have a 'melody' - on guitar, harp, concertina, etc. - composed by the arranger that goes 'behind' the tune which can then continue between verses, or it may only appear between verses. Sorry I'm not that good at describing this. Listen to, say, the way Dick Gaughan used to play guitar on his earlier recordings (he is, to my mind, the best exponent, though he tends to go for a simpler style nowadays) for an idea of what I'm attempting to describe.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:15 PM

Ian - Sure, I'll take any excuse to listen to Dick Gaughan. Unfortunately, the printed music I'm working from isn't arranged (just melody and if I'm lucky, guitar chords), so I can't look at printed music to find the "minitune" or "background melody". When I find a recorded arrangement I like, it's usually a little too complex for our amature band, but I could try to distill it down, I guess, into a simpler melody. I'll try that, plus the other suggestions from MMario and Mbo.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: MMario
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:24 PM

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,Mbo_at_ECU
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:34 PM

Susan-Marie, see if you can get your guitarist to come up with something. Many songs I play I have NEVER heard played by anyone, and are usually just lyrics with chords written in a block off to the side. If your guitarist has good skills with chords, I'm sure he can come up with some small little thing based on the chords being played. Even just a small temporary change of rhythm or strumming style , or a picked arpeggio instead of a strum, can change it up just enough to keep it interesting.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: MMario
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:37 PM

and more inmportantly, give you a chance to inhale fully...*grin*

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,sophocleese at a friend's
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 12:48 PM

I start playing through some of the chords again to give myself a break between verses: sometimes repeat the last line or play around with the chords to find a sequence I like. If you're in a band and somebody else is playing a melody instrument, whistle, fiddle, lead guitar etc. you can get them to do a repeat of the last line to give yourself a rest. I also (horror of horrors) put extra bars in now and again to let myself catch a breath between lines. I figure as long as you keep the beat regular it doesn't matter and if you're doing it with a group practice where you're going to put them and then be consistent with your changes. When you're playing dance music you need to stick with a form but when you're singing you're allowed to be freer and more expressive as the mood dictates. Don't let the drummer or the guitar player boss the singer around.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: lloyd64
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 01:03 PM

I like to use a "Bridge". One time during the song, play or sing a different song for a break between the verses. This will get everyone's attention.

Words are the "Meat" of the song, Tunes are the dessert.

Good Luck

lloyd62

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 02:19 PM

As an audience member, not a performer, I kind of like it when an entire verse is done instrumentally every so often. On records when they do that I tend to sing along anyway, either repeating the last verse, anticipating the next, or (my favorite) sing a verse that isn't IN that version but that I know from another. So I'm not sure that's good advice for a live performance, as you probably would want your audience to shut up and listen...

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,emily b
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 02:51 PM

When my band arranges a song, we let each song dictate if/when there will be breaks. Sometimes the verses themselves indicate where a good break would be. Sometimes we just sing straight through to the end to give the song some drive.

Often our guitarist and flute will do melody, or they will play the chorus and we won't sing it. Occassionally we can come up with a complementary tune that fits the spirit of the song. Play the A part during one break and the B part at another break.

For goodness sake, give yourself time to breathe. Or if you're like me, time to remember the next verse.

Be creative and have fun with arrangements. Get silly and go over the top every once in a while. That'll keep your audience on their toes.

All the best,

Emily

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 06:39 PM

Vamp - until I can remember the next lyrics.

BTW, vamping is just sitting on one chord or repeating the same short progression of chords for a while.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Hardiman the Fiddler
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 06:42 PM

Rather than fiddle along with every verse, sometimes in the band I play with, what we do is have the fiddle player (me) play through the melody, while the rest of the band plays through the verse, or the chorus, and then after the "break" the singers resume.

Hardiman

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 00 - 08:15 PM

Have a drink? Or play the tune or the chorus through again. And then have a drink maybe. Or open my eyes and have a look around to see if anyone is listening, before I close them to sing the next verse.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,Ian HP
Date: 08 Jun 00 - 06:59 AM

Another way just occurred to me, though this is much easier to do solo or in a duo than with a band. Listen to the later albums of Martin Carthy. On some arrangements - his album 'Right of Passage' has some good examples - the rhythm is very free, with the guitar picking out the melody and passing notes or a counter melody. The idea is that the instruments do not drive the tune, the voice does, just as it would do in free unaccompanied singing. I used to play guitar for a singer and I often played for her in this style. You have to be on your toes and follow exactly what the singer does, but it creates a greater sense of artistic lisence, I think. And it means that between verses there need not be much, if anything, just as there wouldn't be anything with unaccompanied singing.

On the point of having things written down I can't help, as I play more or less entirely by ear. And anyhow I'd recommend avoiding other people's arrangements. The audience probably know how others do it: why sell yourself short by repeating what others do?

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 08 Jun 00 - 08:28 AM

Play an instrumental version, with a little bit of ad lib on the melody.

Then whilst the others are keeping up nows a chance to have a drink, a smoke, and wonder what on earth the next line is?

Or use it as time to point at a friend at the bar the internationally know hand gesture for I would like another drink please.

Ella

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,skarpi at work
Date: 08 Jun 00 - 08:42 AM

Hallo all, well in my band TAMÓRA we do what we call between verses play , that we sing the verse then one play the mandolin then the others verse come then the flute comes and in most song we do solo parts. It is so good to have the brake between verses becouse it rest the voice a little bit. I just got back in singin after two weeks of a voice problem after two gigs in a row, I lost my voice. Well I am gonna be in festival (folk) 23. of june here in Iceland, and I hope my voice will be good. Any advice for me about the voice problems??. all the best skarpi Iceland.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: sophocleese
Date: 08 Jun 00 - 09:23 AM

Skarpi, if you check out the teal thread at the top of the menu you'll find further down a link to a whole host of threads that Alice has collected on the voice. Help for your problem can be found there. Meanwhile, rest your voice, don't shout (yelling can really hurt an already tired voice) and get lots of sleep.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: Susan-Marie
Date: 08 Jun 00 - 09:39 AM

Thanks for everyone's suggestions, and good luck resting your voice skarpi.

Subject: RE: What do you do between the verses?
From: GUEST,Hamish
Date: 13 Jun 00 - 09:04 AM

It must be weird playing in a band. I play solo, and have pretty well structured arrangements which I try to stick to in performance; although they tend to mutate over the weeks/months/years I play them. However, as McGrath plus others noted, sometimes the words disappear. But I know when this is happening and know when I'm going to vamp, or play the fill again til the words (hopefully) return. But with a band, how do you know. I guess the telepathy of having played together for yonks and LISTENING to each other's the answer, but I feel better knowing that everything's down to me. Also it makes rehearsals easier to organise.

But, to answer the question: I do all of the previous answers, plus sometimes put in a different tune or snippet, (such as most extremely, a bit of a Grover Washington version of Mr Magic played on harmonica between verses of The Wife of Usher's Well. It works. Trust me...)