How to Master 16th Note Runs

16th note runs are one of the biggest struggles we will face as musicians. Handel was known for writing some beautiful works that tend to be one bar too long. A fair example would be the pieces I am working on, Presti O'mai from Giulio Cesare. Knowing that I'm on a dead line, these musical runs should be the last of my worries, yet considering half the piece is 16th note runs....I have no choice. 

While I felt like I was facing impending doom, I decided to resort to the internet for help.

1. PRACTICE. It takes a lot of practice to sing vocal runs. It's ideal to sing the notes slowly at a comfortable pace where you can get each individual note, just to become familiar with each note.
2. If you are singing a baroque piece, take a moment to ignore the hiccup effect that traditional baroque "running" has and try to learn these notes by singing them legato or with a slight aspirate "h" to separate each 16th note. 
3. Another trick would be to find beats 1,2,3,4 (or whatever the main beats are) and sing only those notes, thinking that the other three 16th notes as ornamentation. Then once you are comfortable, try to sing the 1 + , 2 +, etc, skipping the e & a for the time being, just narrowing it down as if they were 8th notes. Once you are comfortable, move on to trying the whole thing at a slower tempo then increase the tempo. 

I hope these small tips could help! I'm sorry if my posts are slow, it's a crazy time coming up with school (exam season, summatives, tests, you name it!) plus University Auditions... ah!

Feel free to ask questions!

Until next time,

Tessa