Drone exercises for singers
Updated
A drone is one note held while something else moves. Instrumentalists practise against drones to tune; singers should practise against them to learn to stay put, because staying put against a moving line is exactly what a harmony part does. It also teaches you what every degree of the scale feels like against the tonic, which is what lets you find a harmony note from the key rather than from the tune.
One: be the drone
Hold the tonic while a tune moves over you. Your only job is to not move, and the tune will try to make you, especially where it lands on your note and leaves again. Solo the lower line first to hear what you are holding, then sing it under the tune.
The lower voice never moves. Everything you hear changing is the tune above it.
Two: hold against leaps
The same, with a tune that jumps. Leaps are where the ear lets go. If your note survives this, it will survive a third.
The upper voice never moves and never has to. The gap to the tune changes on every note, which is the only hard thing about it.
Three: sing over the drone
Swap roles. Play a tonic on anything and sing the scale over it, slowly, holding each degree until you can hear how it sits against the drone. The third and the sixth are sweet, the second and the seventh lean, the fourth is hollow, the fifth is open. Once you can hear those from the drone, you can find them from the key, in a song, with no drone at all. Blend's drone lessons are exercises one and two, graded bar by bar.