Glides on Repeating Notes
Sometimes, music will have two (or more) consecutive notes of the same pitch. One of the basic rules of good singing seems to be that they should not have the same glide.
Of course, if the notes are very short, this might not be possible. This advice is clearly true when both notes have emphasis. I don't know what good singers do when the notes get too short.
Not having a glide counts as something different. In other words, if one note has a glide and the other doesn't, that works. This is often used when there are three (or more) consecutive notes of the same pitch.
Examples
A most excellent example is the "one, two, three" in Take Me Out to the Ballgame. If you sing these without glides, this part of the song -- essentially the climax -- will sound trite. If you add a glide to each note, but it is the same glide all three times, it is slightly better but will still sound trite.
Instead, the three notes need different glides. It is not obvious what those different glides are and I am pretty sure musicians make different choices. One choice is, probably, gliding from A to C on the first note, from B to C on the second note, and not putting a glide on the third note.
A good song to practice on is My Country Tis of Thee (which I believe is God Save the Queen in England). It has multiple repeating notes and as far as I know, they always must have different glies for this song to sound good.
Knock Three Times is another song with three repeating emphasized notes. My memory from the last time I heard it as that these are not sung with different glides in the hit version, and the result is a singsong triteness.
"Hey hey you you" in Girlfriend, by Avril Lavigne, is four repeating notes. It is almost impossible to sing without sounding trite (unless you have a very good ear and can mimic exactly what Avril Lavigne does). Avril Lavigne does not sound trite, and I do not know how she detrivializes this song.
I would guess that the harmony is different for the last two notes, so she gives one glide to the first two notes and a different glide to the last two notes. Then I suspect she differentiates these pairs of notes by giving them different drops. But listen to it yourself and form your own opinion.
NEXT: Exceptions -- not gliding
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