One of the trickiest things about Norwegian singing (for me) was the ornamentation. It is really quite virtuosic, especially in Telemark. For the first several years, I had no idea how kvedars made their voices move in such a flexible way...Now, I realize that it is not so much about "making your voice move" as about thinking the pitches in your brain and allowing them to come to you easily without excessive physical manipulation. The easier, the better...
I'm still trying to puzzle it out, but I'd be open to any suggestions or tips out there.
Here's my initial advice:
1. Listen like crazy to good singers and get the sound in your head. You'll learn to hear what sounds authentic and what doesn't simply by being "well listened".
2. If you have a program like "The Amazing Slow Downer", which allows you to slow down a sound file to over 200% of its original speed while keeping it at pitch, this will be a great tool. It helps you to hear exactly when the ornamet occurrs and what type of ornament it is. You can also practice slowly with it and work up speed gradually.
3. Many of the vocal ornaments are similar to the ornaments of the Hardanger fiddle, so listening to hardanger fiddle music or playing it will help. On the Hardanger fiddle, it is common to trill up to a note once or twice in quick succession. These trills often proceed the main melody note. If you read music, take a look at some transcriptions of fiddle tunes (can be found on Feleverkene
http://129.240.79.146/)
and try to sing them.
I have made a rough draft of an ornament practice guide (with written notes and a CD) and developed a crude method of notating ornaments when learning a song. If you want to know more about these, write back!
Attached is an audio example of an ornament exercise- it is the "Lower neighbor tone". This type of ornament begins on your main note, dips down a step (to its lower neighbor), and then comes back up quickly.
On the practice recording, you'll hear me play the ornament on the Hardanger fiddle, sing it on different Norwegian vowels both slowly and quickly, and then include it in a phrase. Space is left between each demonstration for you to try it yourself.
My e-mail is located in the "Bio" section of my website at
www.singingfiddler.com
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