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[Mumei]

A few days ago these absolutely amazing videos of Mariah's more showboat-y vocal runs appeared in my subscription feed. Her agility (and ability to maintain tonal quality and intonation at those speeds) is incredible.

Ordinarily in vocal showcase videos, if a great deal of notes are sung at once, the uploader will pick the note that is sustained the most or simply the peak note and use that. In these videos, though, he attempts to point out all the notes. He seems to be doing more, too:

Lead The Way
Butterfly
Can't Take That Away
Emotions

I kept watching trying to see how many of the pitch changes I could notice in the Butterfly clip. They go by so quickly. Haha.

Yeah, I was in the same boat as you, Pizza Luigi. When I first started taking voice lessons, I had NO vibrato. Which is bad for a classical singer. But after a while, my technique improved to the point where I have to consciously think about not using vibrato, which is harder than just freely letting my voice do what it naturally wants to do. While I can't tell you the mechanics of the thing, so long as your placement is correct, it should just happen on its own.

And you are right, Mumei. Throwing your voice out there in the manner that you have to when you belt just doesn't allow for the voice to vibrate in the same manner. The way I see it is that if your voice is calm and free, the vibrato should come naturally. Don't try to force it (actually, don't try to force ANYTHING with singing; the less tension the better, and if you feel any pain at all, stop what you are doing as you are doing it wrong!) but let it happen on its own. But with belting, you are using a whole lot more pressure. Your voice certainly isn't calm or free, at least not in the same way.

I am having a hard time trying to take what I do naturally and automatically and put it into words. One reason I have yet to try my hand at teaching or private lessons. But I would suggest that you keep at it. It wasn't an automatic thing at first for me. It took a two to three years of private lessons at college before the vibrato was totally natural. But before college I used to sing more from the throat than from the diaphragm. Not a good thing.

If you are interested in the mechanics, you might find Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy by James Stark very interesting. He uses Garcia as his guidepost, as Garcia was one of the first teachers in bel canto tradition to attempt to use the laryngoscope to check his ideas about the voice and how it works. It is pretty amazing how close he got on a lot of aspects and the educated guesses he made based on limited information. There's entire chapters on vibrato, appoggio, register breaks and types, issues of idiom and expression (articulation, floridity, trills, tempo rubato, categories of expressive song), chiaroscuro, coup de la glotte and so forth, with historical perspectives going back to the 1600s through the early 1900s, as well as modern views of these issues and then conclusions that sort of sum it up.

I actually quoted an excerpt from the book earlier that talks about belting; it talks about some of what you're saying. I know that it is possible to get the vibrato on belted notes (or at least, more of the note with vibrato than not, instead of the 'vibrato crescendo' only occurring at the tail end as Stark mentions), but I'm not sure how it is done. I have noticed that vocalists with a lot of control will be able to belt notes using vibrato in a variety of ways - eschewing it completely, having vibrato the entire time, using vibrato crescendo, varying the speed and intensity, and so forth. Actually, on the subject of speed it is mentioned that the conventional standards of vibrato speed in classical singing have changed and today we expect somewhat faster vibrato than we did before.

And you are entirely right that you shouldn't feel pain and shouldn't force anything to achieve something in singing, of course. I'm glad you mentioned supporting notes in the throat, as well, as it seems to be a rather common mistake in vernacular singing. I think that characterize proper belting as "free" is still accurate, because it seems to me that many of the problems relating to belting (placement, improper mixes (particularly too much chest), high larynx, squeezing the throat, tensing the jaw, and so forth all result in a lack of freedom. I think of the opposite of freedom in this situation as unnecessary tension, rather than intensity. Belting is a very intense way of vocalizing, but it still needs to be done so the voice is free to ring. I hope I'm making sense.

I didn't even post one of my favorite vocals of hers, because the only live performances on YouTube are low quality. But it's such a healthy placement on the final belted E that I've got to post it, and Seth Rudetsky's brilliant deconstruction of a workshop version of it wouldn't make much sense unless I posted it.

--

And I might as well copy and paste a post I made about Audra McDonald not so very long ago. She was influenced by Babs, too, but more in style and less in technique.

I liked the Writing on the Wall performance, though I agree with you that the audio quality is terrible. I also am noticing now that I've been listening to a lot of it today that musical theater singing isn't as much my cup of tea as a general - I'm impressed by a lot of the singing but sometimes it has this overly affected quality that bothers me. I had the same issues with operatic singing - feeling that it seemed overly affected and artificial as opposed to the apparently more naturalistic (?) sound of singing in popular music - when I first started listening to it more 'seriously', so I assume I'll get used to it eventually.

I loved those clips of Audra McDonald, particularly that My Man's Gone Now, though. She can stay stanning for Miss Price. And I loved that medley performance. Unfortunately I wasn't able to listen to Suppertime or Song for a Dark Girl on my computer; I think that something about the speaker balance on that video is probably the issue.

Oh, and a friend of mine (excelforward on GAF, actually) introduced me to her last year with a hilarious clip of her singing I Can't Stop Talking About Him. I don't know if that's the clip he played for me anymore, but I love it.

 

[botty]

A few days ago these absolutely amazing videos of Mariah's more showboat-y vocal runs appeared in my subscription feed. Her agility (and ability to maintain tonal quality and intonation at those speeds) is incredible.

Ordinarily in vocal showcase videos, if a great deal of notes are sung at once, the uploader will pick the note that is sustained the most or simply the peak note and use that. In these videos, though, he attempts to point out all the notes. He seems to be doing more, too:

Lead The Way
Butterfly
Can't Take That Away
Emotions

I kept watching trying to see how many of the pitch changes I could notice in the Butterfly clip. They go by so quickly. Haha.

These types of videos are great examples of why Mariah is simply the queen. The detail in her singing is breathtaking.

 

[lenovox1]

I liked the Writing on the Wall performance, though I agree with you that the audio quality is terrible. I also am noticing now that I've been listening to a lot of it today that musical theater singing isn't as much my cup of tea as a general - I'm impressed by a lot of the singing but sometimes it has this overly affected quality that bothers me. I had the same issues with operatic singing - feeling that it seemed overly affected and artificial as opposed to the apparently more naturalistic (?) sound of singing in popular music - when I first started listening to it more 'seriously', so I assume I'll get used to it eventually.

*GASP* Blasphemous!

Spoiler

No, not really.

Yeah, that stems from the era when the theatre wasn't amplified. In order to communicate the story to those way back in the cheap seats, you had to SELL!SELL!SELL! your song. Patti and Betty would have grown up listening to artist that pushed it even harder than they do, like Janeane Aubert or Ethel German.

For many shows written today, that requirement has eased. Diction in the theatre is still important. I mean, one of the first classes you're required to take in any reputable theatre program is a voice class where they teach you projection, enunciation, and diction. As theatre artist start singing straight up pop music with mics nowadays, you don't have to sound like Carol Channing to sell a song.

And I'm going to use this as a good excuse to post a little more theatre by putting pop voices against trained theatre voices with some audio examples (feat. Glen Hansard and Whitney Houston).

First up, the differences between Glen Hansard and actor Steve Kazee on the song Leave from the movie Once and the musical of the same name.

Glen Hansard ¦ Steve Kazee

There are a lot of really interesting contrasts that we can make between these vocals, including: the positions of their larenges, especially during the back third of that song when the B-flats come up and what their different approaches and intents with the song. But I'll try to keep it down to diction.

Glen here completely disregards proper vowel, ending his consonants correctly, forming his words properly, etc. for a greater purpose. Steve doesn't have that luxury. He's got people paying $200 to hear him sing the song and to hear what his character is saying or feeling. And not only are the words clearer, the pitch is more consistent. On a personal note, I love both a lot. They take different directions to get to the same destination, but they both land in the same spot.

And now the incomparable Whitney Houston and the incomparable Heather Headley singing I Have Nothing. This one will have to be more about intent, because Whitney's diction was fantastic for most of her career.

Whitney Houston ¦ Heather Headley

That's a pretty good example of the difference between an artist performing her work in front of thousands and an actor communicating message to another character on stage. The bluesy theatrics get toned down a bit, and the phrasing changes.

ETA: I forgot to explain why this is actually important beyond just basic audience comprehension. If you don't sing the proper vowel sound, you may be comprising technique and compromising the health of your voice.

These types of videos are great examples of why Mariah is simply the queen. The detail in her singing is breathtaking.

This post reminded me of a little educational web series the dazzling Natalie Weiss created called Breaking Down the Riffs. She explains, demonstrates, and teaches you everything you need to know about doing stuff like that. She actually broke down Mariah's big Lead the Way riff, and I'm going to post a couple other favorites. They happen to be in order.

Mariah Carey's Lead the Way
Jasmine Sullivan's Home (from the Wiz)
Boyz II Men's Water Runs Dry

 

[Leona Lewis]

This post reminded me of a little educational web series the dazzling Natalie Weiss created called Breaking Down the Riffs. She explains, demonstrates, and teaches you everything you need to know about doing stuff like that. She actually broke down Mariah's big Lead the Way riff, and I'm going to post a couple other favorites. They happen to be in order.

Mariah Carey's Lead the Way
Jasmine Sullivan's Home (from the Wiz)
Boyz II Men's Water Runs Dry

Wow, this is an amazing series. Thanks!

I've been in love with this Xtina run lately. It's not particularly difficult, but she glides down the scale so smoothly and effortlessly. With Beyonce, sometimes the riffs are just too sharply pronounced, so to speak.

 

[SonofdonCD]

Yes, that's what I hear as well. When I strike gold somewhere in the near future, I might be able to afford singing lessons. I will definitely do that then.

So, would it be cool to share some video of GAFfers singing? Maybe we can learn from eachother?

I have a few videos online, but not too much, unfortunately. And not everything is me solo either. But here it goes anyway!

This is me in a former band, called Heavy Weather. I wrote this song, called Love's the Hardest Word. It was on our second and last album/EP called "Fire". This is a more low-key, acoustic Live version of it. You can find it on iTunes or Spotify if you want to hear the full version. Btw, I'm the one singing and playing percussion: Love's the Hardest Word - http://youtu.be/oji5U9oBl3I

Just for kicks, this is the same group's music video of the title track off our first album, "Miles of Mud". This was a lot of fun to shoot. I am the bartender in the video (but I don't sing): Miles of Mud music Video - http://youtu.be/-4nXQN0PXeE

These two videos are of me performing with my Jazz group, The Mode Collective. One was with the full band, the other with just the pianist and bass player. Both were live recordings; one was for an audience, the other was for a recording session. If you like this stuff, I can let you listen to MP3's of the rest of the recording session.
Sweet Georgia Brown - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcY9Y3LfL3I&feature=share&list=PL73ABB7880CDD9C7D

Lush Life - http://youtu.be/seR4KsAeq-4

This last video is of a capella group I sing with from time to time, called The Salvatones. They are all professional singers within the NYC area. We perform all styles and genres, but this song is based on the Miles Davis arrangement of "My Ship" by Kurt Weill. I sing Tenor here (though I'd consider myself a Baritone naturally) and am the one with the hat and snapping midway through the song.
Salvatones My Ship - http://youtu.be/HqUdzLAfvHY

I've done a lot more singing than that over the past ten years, but that's all I have in video, unfortunately.

 

[Hana-Bi]

Nobody mentioned Imogen Heap?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_axyIya-I0

Such an incredible talented artist. Creating a song with just her voice, her hands and a looper. Probably the best live performance I've ever seen.

 

[Pizza Luigi]

I have a few videos online, but not too much, unfortunately. And not everything is me solo either. But here it goes anyway!

This is me in a former band, called Heavy Weather. I wrote this song, called Love's the Hardest Word. It was on our second and last album/EP called "Fire". This is a more low-key, acoustic Live version of it. You can find it on iTunes or Spotify if you want to hear the full version. Btw, I'm the one singing and playing percussion: Love's the Hardest Word - http://youtu.be/oji5U9oBl3I

Just for kicks, this is the same group's music video of the title track off our first album, "Miles of Mud". This was a lot of fun to shoot. I am the bartender in the video (but I don't sing): Miles of Mud music Video - http://youtu.be/-4nXQN0PXeE

These two videos are of me performing with my Jazz group, The Mode Collective. One was with the full band, the other with just the pianist and bass player. Both were live recordings; one was for an audience, the other was for a recording session. If you like this stuff, I can let you listen to MP3's of the rest of the recording session.
Sweet Georgia Brown - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcY9Y3LfL3I&feature=share&list=PL73ABB7880CDD9C7D

Lush Life - http://youtu.be/seR4KsAeq-4

This last video is of a capella group I sing with from time to time, called The Salvatones. They are all professional singers within the NYC area. We perform all styles and genres, but this song is based on the Miles Davis arrangement of "My Ship" by Kurt Weill. I sing Tenor here (though I'd consider myself a Baritone naturally) and am the one with the hat and snapping midway through the song.
Salvatones My Ship - http://youtu.be/HqUdzLAfvHY

I've done a lot more singing than that over the past ten years, but that's all I have in video, unfortunately.

Woah, son, that is some great work there! I really love the first song, it is great by itself, very good!

I am trying to find some stuff that I did, but there is not much on the internet apart from karaoke performances. A friend of mine did put a YouTube channel online last summer with recordings he made from a set I did at the end of 2011 with two guys that organise the jam nights that I used to go to. It was great fun to do. It is really cool to hear how much I have improved in just over a year already, I wasn't very good there.
And I excuse my friend for the really bad quality. My voice sounds very strange and off-key in the higher parts because of his shitty camera phone, which is a shame because an other recording with my iPhone sounded fine but wasn't saved.

This is me doing Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely with feminine hand gestures to boot


And Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers, royally cocking up the solo by one of the two guitarists and then deciding to end the song.

I am going to record some stuff with a friend of mine fairly soon so I guess I'll post that here then as well. In the end, I like to sing jazz a lot, so I'll make sure to do some of that then.


Once again, Sonofdon, you're amazing.

 

[Vazra]

Emeli Sande - Studio Vocal Range
I tried finding something live but I got no luck. I like the phrasing and somehow I get this vibes from another artists that I can't quite point them out. It's a beautiful voice and certainly does great things with it.

Erykah Badu -Live Belting
I can't really say much besides the fact I love her. She is a bit underrated when talking about range but she has a pretty damn good range. I love how she can get at it and bring it. She sometimes goes a bit too high for herself and mess it a bit but overall pretty good vocals.

Sia - Blank Page
Sia Furler simply has this unique voice with a good range, pretty beautiful phrasing and overall seems to do everything good to be liked. It's good to see her gaining more popularity now and may we see more work from her not actually going to other artists. She basically made the Christina version of Blank Page be bland and Rihanna Diamonds while I might not be a fan of the song itself she does it better.

 

[genjiZERO]

Great thread! I need to get back to singing. Unlike playing an instrument it's one of those things you lose if you don't use it. Back when I was singing a lot I could move up octaves and sing with a falsetto without a problem. I was never great, by any stretch of the imagination, but I could sing Fake Plastic Trees in the same range as Thom Yorke whilst playing it on guitar. Now, not so much. It's amazing how quickly it goes away too.

 

[Mumei]

SonofdonCD, when I saw your post said "Georgia Brown" for a second I thought you were talking about this banshee.

Yeah, that stems from the era when the theatre wasn't amplified. In order to communicate the story to those way back in the cheap seats, you had to SELL!SELL!SELL! your song. Patti and Betty would have grown up listening to artist that pushed it even harder than they do, like Janeane Aubert or Ethel German.

Ah, yes.

I had forgotten about the time when this was the case. So to a certain extent this is essentially a stylistic holdover from a time when you had to sing this way to achieve more optimal projection and volume - more optimal than most pop vernacular production, anyway?

Interestingly, on the two examples you gave I wasn't bothered by the "theater diction", and I think perhaps this has something to do with the requirements of diction being eased in those particular examples. I don't mind production that is obsessive about pure vowels, optimal projection, resonance, and so forth (I listen to opera, after all); I think part of it might be that it is in English. I don't mind the loss of intelligibility of the language when I'm listening to a soprano singing D'amor sull'ali rosee because for me the appeal is less about the character or the story and what the character is saying, and more about the sound itself. With musical theater I can understand it, so I pay more attention to the words and the weirdness of the diction is harder to ignore. I have the same issue when I hear operatic production in English (e.g. I'm really not a big fan of Porgy and Bess, even Leontyne's, because of this).

Oh, and I preferred Steve Kazee on Once and Whitney on I Have Nothing. I'm not really familiar with Glen Hansard, and even though listening to him I think he has a pleasant voice, when I hear them back-to-back like that I prefer the better supported singer. I first learned about Heather Headley on In My Mind, and I love her there. I also later heard her in this performance of The Gods Love Nubia, from a Broadway production of Aida. I think Whitney has a bigger sound and after hearing Whitney sing it, when I hear a someone singing it with a less "grand" voice I just feel like something is missing.

Oh, and speaking of musical theater, this 1994 performance of Whitney at the American Music Awards features a medley of I Loves You Porgy, And I Am Telling You, and I Have Nothing; and this 1991 Billboard Awards performance features Lover Man, My Man, and All The Man That I Need. I think if you contrast her with Streisand on those songs (particularly My Man and I Loves You Porgy), she doesn't do as well when it comes to communicating the song, though I think that is mostly the way the songs were arranged. For instance Streisand's My Man is a piano driven piece while Whitney is singing over a band and roaring over brass (1:55!) and because of the almost invulnerable sense of her singing over the band I feel like the essential vulnerability of the song is lost. And I think something similar goes on with I Loves You Porgy.

I suppose that comes off rather anti-Whitney; I actually like the two performances about equally, but for different reasons.

I forgot to explain why this is actually important beyond just basic audience comprehension. If you don't sing the proper vowel sound, you may be comprising technique and compromising the health of your voice.

Mmm.

One the interesting things about the Bel Canto: Principles and Practices is that the author's central thesis is that it was possible to teach people to sing well before we knew any of this silliness about larynxes and glottal onsets and closed quotients and harmonics and formants and we don't have any direct physical sensation of control of these things (in the same way that if I say "Flex your arm" you can do so directly and feel the tension in your bicep), so they aren't even useful. Instead, all we need to do is focus on the production of pure vowel quality and proper tone. If you are doing these things correctly, your larynx, glottal onset, "placement" and everything else must be in place, and these are things we can teach and imitate and demonstrate.

It's particularly interesting that he uses Garcia as an argument, as the other book I read (Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy) found that he was actually quite correct in much of what he said:

[...]Garcia conducted numerous experiments with the purpose of gaining a direct control over the vocal organs uppermost in mind. Thus, it was he who in a lifetime of teaching introduced many theories widely at variance with the practices of the early masters. Many of the ideas of tone production initiated by him are still in vogue today, and the complete disappearance of the old system of training is to a very great extent his responsibility. These errors of commission he partially rectified in a retraction published in the London Musical Herald, August 1894. In this statement, Garcia refutes many of the principles he once supported and which, despite his refutation, have through association with his name since gained an almost world-wide acceptance. This is his advice:

'Avoid all these modern theories and stick closely to Nature. I do not believe in teaching by means of sensations of tone. The actual things to do in producing tone is to breathe, to use the vocal chords, and to form the tone in the mouth. The singer has to do with nothing else. I began with other things; I used to direct the tone in the head, and do peculiar things with the breathing, and so on, but as the years passed by I discarded them as useless, and now speak only of actual things and not mere appearances. I condemn that which is spoken of nowadays, viz., the direction of the voice forward, or back and up. Vibrations come from puffs of air. All control of the breath is lost the moment it is turned into vibrations, and the idea is absurd that a current of air can be thrown against the hard palate for one kind of tone, the soft palate for another, and reflected hither and thither. With regard to the position of the larynx, higher or lower, the singer need only follow natural emotional effects, and larynx, palate, and the rest will take care of themselves. As to breathing, do not complicate it with theories, but take an inspiration and notice Nature's laws.'​

Of course, many of Garcia's theories were quite correct and I don't think he's to blame for misapplication of what he said, or the fact that many people disagreed with him and came up with ideas that were frankly a bit ridiculous (e.g. the no-effort school). But I do think it is interesting that people with completely different perspectives on Garcia and his attempts to introduce objective scientific information to the world of classical vocal pedagogy can both find different points in his life when he seems to be supporting their views.

This post reminded me of a little educational web series the dazzling Natalie Weiss created called Breaking Down the Riffs. She explains, demonstrates, and teaches you everything you need to know about doing stuff like that. She actually broke down Mariah's big Lead the Way riff, and I'm going to post a couple other favorites. They happen to be in order.

Mariah Carey's Lead the Way
Jasmine Sullivan's Home (from the Wiz)
Boyz II Men's Water Runs Dry

I've only watched the Lead The Way one so far, but her reaction when she played it the first three times was hilarious. And I want to see them do the Butterfly riffs!

 

[GotEmRunnin]

I avoided popGaf for fear of the fanatics dislike for this type of music, now I can finally place this here. Check the range. The power, the stability in vocals. All with minimal effort. The king of R&B. Jeffrey Osborne!!!

Live version:

 

[Leona Lewis]

I avoided popGaf for fear of the fanatics dislike for this type of music, now I can finally place this here. Check the range. The power, the stability in vocals. All with minimal effort. The king of R&B. Jeffrey Osborne!!!

Live version:

Love it.

By the way, PopGAF loves R&B. In truth, we're full of old souls who desperately pine for the return of the 90s.

My (recent) R&B vocal icons:

Ledisi (powerful but restrained vocals, flawless diction, tonal quality that effectively oscillates between velvety and anguish-filled)

Sade (irresistible laid-back vibes, effortlessly sensual delivery)

Musiq Soulchild (creative phrasing, pretty wide vocal range, especially among the Ushers and Chris Browns of the world)

Of course, if it's "minimal effort" that most strikes your fancy, look no further than sexy personified, Luther Vandross.

 

[Affeinvasion]

Just stumbled across this thread for the first time. I am a classically trained singer but decided to pursue musicology instead of performance in grad school.

My biggest tip for anyone wanting to get into singing is to go take a lesson or ten. Most instruments that you can "self" teach like piano are easier to break bad habits on when you eventually take lessons. The voice can be a bit trickier in that way.

Tips for voice lessons:
1) Not everyone works well with everyone else: find someone you are comfortable with. Get someone who actually knows what they're doing. Some house-wives teach piano. Fine. Your voice is your body. You wouldn't go to a doctor who practiced on the side out of their home. Treat your voice the same way.
2) Find someone who will be honest with you and demand that they do so. You want to get better, not have your ego stroked or your feelings saved.
3) Don't attach your self-worth to your ability to sing. Try to get better. DO take pride in that your vocal timbre is unique to only you.
3a) Don't try to sound like somebody else.
4) If you stick with it, you WILL get better.
5) Don't be afraid to sing things that you hate or don't know. Don't be afraid to sing opera, or jazz or whatever.
6) Work on your diction. If you have great diction you will automatically be better than 90% of singers.

 

[Mumei]

Just stumbled across this thread for the first time. I am a classically trained singer but decided to pursue musicology instead of performance in grad school.

I hope you like it!

I've recently been trying to go through a beginner's introductory text (Berklee Music Theory Book 1). I don't think I want to learn to sight-read (... yet), but I do want a better understanding of music theory. I think that a lecture series (preferably audiovisual, but just audio would be nice) might be a better introduction for me, at least to supplement the book (which is partially a workbook).

My last introduction to any sort of music theory was a General Music optional course I took for a semester about thirteen years ago and I'm more than a bit clueless right now. Do you have recommendations for beginner reading material?

 

[SonofdonCD]

Just stumbled across this thread for the first time. I am a classically trained singer but decided to pursue musicology instead of performance in grad school.

My biggest tip for anyone wanting to get into singing is to go take a lesson or ten. Most instruments that you can "self" teach like piano are easier to break bad habits on when you eventually take lessons. The voice can be a bit trickier in that way.

Tips for voice lessons:
1) Not everyone works well with everyone else: find someone you are comfortable with. Get someone who actually knows what they're doing. Some house-wives teach piano. Fine. Your voice is your body. You wouldn't go to a doctor who practiced on the side out of their home. Treat your voice the same way.
2) Find someone who will be honest with you and demand that they do so. You want to get better, not have your ego stroked or your feelings saved.
3) Don't attach your self-worth to your ability to sing. Try to get better. DO take pride in that your vocal timbre is unique to only you.
3a) Don't try to sound like somebody else.
4) If you stick with it, you WILL get better.
5) Don't be afraid to sing things that you hate or don't know. Don't be afraid to sing opera, or jazz or whatever.
6) Work on your diction. If you have great diction you will automatically be better than 90% of singers.

Yeah, great post. I agree with everything, in particular 3, 5 and 6.

If there is one thing I value the most in any musician/singer/instrumentalist is versatility. Being able to perform in various genres or venues and what have you. Doing this will only help you grow into a more productive, well rounded performer. Pigeonholing yourself during your formative years doesn't do you any favors. Once you have the building blocks you need, you can veer off into any direction you want. But for instance, you never know when that classical training and repertoire will come in handy out there on a gig. It might be the difference between getting the job or not, or even being able to handle the job or not.

Diction is so very important. So few popular singers have great or even good diction. It used to be more common to be able to understand every word clearly, but now I need to look up the words for almost every song. Clear enunciation will help you stand out from the pack instantly. Also, if you want to be able to sing in other languages, diction is essential.

 

[Mumei]

I started reading Jerome Hines' Great Singers on Great Singing. He has a rather amusing warning ("This book may be injurious to your vocal health" - Cornell MacNeil) and prefatory statement about what the book is not meant to be (an insta-guide to vocal success or a replacement for an experienced teacher to serve as a guide and navigator for what can be seemingly contradictory beliefs and advice about the singing voice).

I'm reading Franco Corelli's interview, and it is interesting in light of the earlier little discussion about vibrato to learn that Corelli actually had trouble with his vibrato once upon a time:

Hines: Franco, when I first sang with you at La Scala, you had a noticeably fast vibrato.
Corelli: That's true.
Hines: How is it called in Italian?
Corelli: Caprino [little goat].
Hines: You mentioned to me several years ago that you didn't like this vibrato, so you got rid of it. In fact, ever since your Met debut, I've never detected a trace of it. That's remarkable. How did you accomplish this?
Corelli: I believe this caprino is caused by breath that has not found its proper point [of placement]. I was not using this breath well, it was somewhat dispersed. When the breath was taught to go to the right place, the voice became steady. It was a vibrato. that came from a certain physical force. It's not that you think of the breath itself. When I sang in the beginning, I never thought of where to place a note; I opened my mouth and I sang. That is not singing with technique; that is natural singing. Singing with technique is when you think where to place the voice. All the notes must go toward the same point . . . [He sang ee, eh, awe, oh, ooh, oo, then he repeated this incorrectly with each vowel done with different openings and closings, different types of placements, some bright and some dark.] All vowels must be directed to the same point. As my voice found an easier path, it grew steady. However, what changed was only the use of the breath, since the color of my breath remained unchanged.​

I really enjoy reading about the singers who don't think about what they do in terms of words but instead, as Hines puts it, "the non-verbal world of kinesthetic sensation." It's interesting reading how they attempt to explain the physiological sensations they try to reproduce to in order to produce the correct tonal quality and open vowels.

Anyway, recommended reading for anyone interested.

 

[royalan]

MrOogieBoogie, it's pretty cool. Bowie has a great voice.

... Roy, couldn't it just be that the cold affected your vocal chords by causing them to swell, thus lowering your voice for the time being? I mean, you're basically describing various issues that particularly effect the vocal chords.


Edit: Oh, Roy. Go to your library and get this book:

It is very educational, and would probably be more useful to you than it was to me.

Sounds you might still have some leftover congestion. I don't see how your range would be suddenly affected unless you're going through puberty. Are you still coughing or having some minimal congestion? I usually sleep on my stomach with my body tilted downward toward my head slightly when I'm sick to prevent any of that congestion from getting stuck in my throat. Otherwise, it collects while I'm sleeping and I get a massive throat/lung infection when I wake up.

I agree.

I didn't have time to expound while I was at work, but he actually reminded me of the book I mentioned when he said he had been drinking a lot of honey tea; the author mentioned at one point that because no drinks actually come into contact with the vocal chords themselves, the effects of any drinks will be necessarily secondary. It is sort of part and parcel of the whole issue with determining problems in the throat from sensations; it feels nice in the throat, but the honey tea is really only directly affecting (if at all) the esophagus.

And I have that same issue when I have a cold. I had that earlier this week - I walk up and the phlegm in the back of my throat made it physically painful to talk before it cleared up.

Yeah, days later and I'm still a bit more congested than I'd like to admit. My roommate says he can still hear it in my voice. Ho-hum...:-/

I've just never had a cold mess with my voice like this. I've had to sing with colds before, and while my voice wouldn't be as strong or as supported and usual, I at least had access. Never experienced being completely shut out before. Although, I do have my F back.

I'm going to check that book out, because the voice can be such a finicky thing. Sometimes when you're having vocal issues the solution is vocal rest. Other times the solution is more singing to prime the vocal chords. Right now I don't know if I should be singing more to get my voice back into working condition, or not singing at all...hell, not even talking.

FelixOrion" There's nothing wrong with being a bass. I was just was being a whiny twat about being sick, and being moved to the bass section. I was also furthering the misguided belief that bass singers aren't as accomplished vocalists because they don't sing "Teh High Notes." In truth, a true bass is one of the rarest voice types, and it takes considerable skill to be able to sing the lower reaches of the bass clef with ease and resonance like they do. And my chorus director did tell me that one of the reasons he moved me, besides our Bass section having shrunk this last season, was because I have more facility in my lower register than a lot of the other baritones in the chorus. So there's a compliment...

The vibrato brings me to one of my main issues; I just can't do it properly. I have some really quick vibrations sometimes when singing jazz songs, but when doing other genres, I guess I start to use my voice differently and the vibrato disappears. Long story short, I just can't control it.

Sounds like me when I was younger. I grew up mimicking a lot of popular R&B in the early 90s and, unless you were listening to the big divas, there wasn't a whole lot of vibrato used in R&B singing back then. I grew up doing a lot of straight tone singing because of this. I remember actually thinking that vibrato sounded ugly (and, in some cases, I still do) and trying to cut it out whenever I heard it creep into my own voice (I mean, why sing in a way that oscillates between two pitches when you can just sing the note? Silly younger me...). It wasn't until I started singing in church that I realized that vibrato was a healthier, more natural way humans produced sustained sound, and a desirable trait, to boot.

I don't know if this will help you, but when I started cultivating vibrato in my own voice, I first started by finding the place in my voice where it occurred most naturally. For me, this was in mid to high range belting. I realized this in church choir rehearsal when, whenever we got to big notes, I would start to mimic the positioning and placement of the older/more experienced singers around me in order to keep up. Luckily there were some good singers in my choir, because it really forced me to shed some of the bad habits I'd picked up just from mimicking people on the radio. (Mind you, this isn't the same as mimicking someone's tone. That's not good. I just started picking up more on where I could hear the more experienced people resonating.)

Sing the purest note that you can, somewhere in your mid-range that's high enough to require some focus but not too high, and sustain it. When you're resonating properly, the throat is relaxed and open, placement is good, and all these magical things are aligned, you should start noticing vibrato creeping into your voice. From that point, it's really just a matter of paying attention to how your body/muscles feel while vibrato is being produced. Soon it becomes muscle memory, and now I can pretty much sing with vibrato at any volume or pitch that's in my range. Some of the more knowledgeable in this thread may clock me or know of a more effective method, but that's how teenage Royalan learned to do it.

Also, whatever you do, avoid falling into the trap of manually pulsing your diaphragm and thinking the resulting "earthquake voice" is proper vibrato. LOL

This post reminded me of a little educational web series the dazzling Natalie Weiss created called Breaking Down the Riffs. She explains, demonstrates, and teaches you everything you need to know about doing stuff like that. She actually broke down Mariah's big Lead the Way riff, and I'm going to post a couple other favorites. They happen to be in order.

Mariah Carey's Lead the Way
Jasmine Sullivan's Home (from the Wiz)
Boyz II Men's Water Runs Dry

What a marvelous web series. Can't believe I've never heard of this. I particularly liked the Mariah episode. I love that riff, and seeing them plot it out like that really drives home what an amazing vocalist Mariah is. That riff is way more complex that you can tell just from listening to it, and Mimi probably didn't pull out a pencil and staff paper and plot that riff out note-for-note. She likely improvised it. Of course, she probably also refined it over several takes in the studio, but still...the high degree of musicality it takes to even start...

I'm enjoying your posts, Lenovox! I love Broadway divas, but don't know much about the big names in the theatre community outside of the names that got big enough to transcend it. The Audra McDonald performance of Your Daddy's Son gave me chills. And I was impressed by Betty Buckley's crystal clear vibrato. I'm curious about what you think of Miss Elaine Paige? Your link to Buckley's version of "As If We Never Said Goodbye" got me thinking about her version, which I absolutely adore. Especially this performance.

Spoiler

Miss your PMs too, by the by...

This last video is of a capella group I sing with from time to time, called The Salvatones. They are all professional singers within the NYC area. We perform all styles and genres, but this song is based on the Miles Davis arrangement of "My Ship" by Kurt Weill. I sing Tenor here (though I'd consider myself a Baritone naturally) and am the one with the hat and snapping midway through the song.
Salvatones My Ship - http://youtu.be/HqUdzLAfvHY

I've done a lot more singing than that over the past ten years, but that's all I have in video, unfortunately.

That was damn succulent.

 

[SonofdonCD]

I have to admit, Mumei, you impress me, and yet also baffle me. You display such knowledge about the mechanics and technical aspects of singing, yet you say you can't sing nor read music? If that is the case, why this rather intense interest in singing?

 

[Leona Lewis]

I have to admit, Mumei, you impress me, and yet also baffle me. You display such knowledge about the mechanics and technical aspects of singing, yet you say you can't sing nor read music? If that is the case, why this rather intense interest in singing?

Have you seen Roger Ebert's lone screenplay credit? Disaster.

Yet few question his power of observation as a film critic.

 

[SonofdonCD]

Have you seen Roger Ebert's lone screenplay credit? Disaster.

Yet few question his power of observation as a film critic.

But I have never seen anyone talk vocal technique with such fluency, yet have no real backgroung in performance at all. Any Joe Schmoe can say this person "sings good" (I'm not talking about criticism in my question anyway), but I find that the only people really interested in vocal pedogogy are people who will benefit from it. Namely performers, or teachers who used to be performers. Musicians of some form. Yet Mumei doesn't appear to be. It is..... interesting.

Plus, in your example, at least Ebert has tried his hand at the field in which he critiques, for good or bad. To my knowledge, Mumei hasn't released as much as a mix tape, much less performed at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center.

I just want to know the inspiration behind the interest, so to speak.

 

[GotEmRunnin]

Love it.

By the way, PopGAF loves R&B. In truth, we're full of old souls who desperately pine for the return of the 90s.

My (recent) R&B vocal icons:

Ledisi (powerful but restrained vocals, flawless diction, tonal quality that effectively oscillates between velvety and anguish-filled)

Sade (irresistible laid-back vibes, effortlessly sensual delivery)

Musiq Soulchild (creative phrasing, pretty wide vocal range, especially among the Ushers and Chris Browns of the world)

Of course, if it's "minimal effort" that most strikes your fancy, look no further than sexy personified, Luther Vandross.

No one can question the vocals of Luther. The way he could run through octaves was truly a gift. Not many can come close but this guy does

 

[3phemeral]

Yeah, days later and I'm still a bit more congested than I'd like to admit. My roommate says he can still hear it in my voice. Ho-hum...:-/

I've just never had a cold mess with my voice like this. I've had to sing with colds before, and while my voice wouldn't be as strong or as supported and usual, I at least had access. Never experienced being completely shut out before. Although, I do have my F back.

I'm going to check that book out, because the voice can be such a finicky thing. Sometimes when you're having vocal issues the solution is vocal rest. Other times the solution is more singing to prime the vocal chords. Right now I don't know if I should be singing more to get my voice back into working condition, or not singing at all...hell, not even talking.

In my experience, singing while even slightly congested only causes more damage and longer recovery time. Best bet is just to keep yourself hydrated and eat immuno-supportive foods so you thin out the mucous and fight the leftover infection.

What I do hate about "barely there" congestion is that it gives the impression that the vocal cords are thicker which, for me, means they feel like they can take more abuse, are more controllable, and just generally easier to manipulate, oddly enough. I even find it's easier to sing higher falsetto notes, which I normally have difficulty with. It also comes with this really nice resonating sensation for lower-register notes. But that never ends well if I take advantage as once it actuallyclears up, there's longer recovery period if I've pushed them too far in that condition.

 

[waypoetic]

This thread makes my webbrowser on my phone crash .

Anywho, subscribed! I'm a singer also.

 

[malfcn]

Corey Taylor

Maynard

Both have great range and delivery. Everybody knows about Maynard, but Taylor tends to get glossed over because of Slipknot. Stone Sour has been his outlet for melody while Slipknot lets out his rage.

On the topic of singing and metal, Melissa Cross gained popularity with her techniques to "save" your voice and sing more safely.

 

[Mumei]

I'm going to check that book out, because the voice can be such a finicky thing. Sometimes when you're having vocal issues the solution is vocal rest. Other times the solution is more singing to prime the vocal chords. Right now I don't know if I should be singing more to get my voice back into working condition, or not singing at all...hell, not even talking.

I don't want to make you paranoid, but the Morton Cooper, Ph.D chapter in the Great Singers on Great Singing book is fascinating to me because it's not about problems with singing at all, but about problems with speaking that (obviously) end up affecting the singing voice.

I wonder if I have some of the "wrong vocal" issues that he's talking about or if just reading it is giving me a mild cause of speaker's Münchausen syndrome. Haha.

FelixOrion" There's nothing wrong with being a bass. I was just was being a whiny twat about being sick, and being moved to the bass section. I was also furthering the misguided belief that bass singers aren't as accomplished vocalists because they don't sing "Teh High Notes." In truth, a true bass is one of the rarest voice types, and it takes considerable skill to be able to sing the lower reaches of the bass clef with ease and resonance like they do.

Oh, another funny thing:

When he was twenty years of age, the football team on which he played lost an important game. That evening, seated in an inn with his defeated and melancholy colleagues, he decided to dispel the gloom by doing an imitation of a Russian bass he had heard on the radio that morning.

Everyone was surprised by his extraordinary voice, including a friend who sang in the local opera chorus. He subsequently took Bonaldo to the lady choral director, who not only inducted him into the company but began to give him private voice lessons.

The day of his first lesson he returned home with the news that he was a tenor and hoped to soon be singing everything from Rodolfo to Radames. The day of his second lesson he was told that he was a baritone instead. He and his family quickly adjusted to that with the thought of his becoming a great Iago or Rigoletto. The day of his third lesson he was told he was a bass!

"I cried," he said. Being a bass, I understood perfectly.​

Spoiler

I'm so sorry, FelixOrion

Also, whatever you do, avoid falling into the trap of manually pulsing your diaphragm and thinking the resulting "earthquake voice" is proper vibrato. LOL

Pfft, everyone knows the real time tested way to create fake vibrato is to shake your head and jaw up and down.

What a marvelous web series. Can't believe I've never heard of this. I particularly liked the Mariah episode. I love that riff, and seeing them plot it out like that really drives home what an amazing vocalist Mariah is. That riff is way more complex that you can tell just from listening to it, and Mimi probably didn't pull out a pencil and staff paper and plot that riff out note-for-note. She likely improvised it. Of course, she probably also refined it over several takes in the studio, but still...the high degree of musicality it takes to even start...

Did you watch the clips that reminded him of it?

I have to admit, Mumei, you impress me, and yet also baffle me. You display such knowledge about the mechanics and technical aspects of singing, yet you say you can't sing nor read music? If that is the case, why this rather intense interest in singing?

... But seriously, I can't really say. It's just something that has grown over the last four or five years. This might sound weird, but I know that starting to watch American Idol around Season 8 and contrasting the performances - sometimes even very good performances - of the contestants with the best performances of the people they were covering was the start of it. I have participated in a forum about singing before, but I didn't really know anything then - I mostly just asked questions. What did they mean by "pulling chest?" Why do you not consider female head voice a part of a woman's modal range, but do consider male head voice (turns out it was out of convenience because he knew how to differentiate between male falsetto and head voice but couldn't differentiate between female falsetto and female head voice)? How can you tell that note is not in key? How can you tell that note is flat? How do you determine "power" in an objective sense?

And so forth. I certainly couldn't carry on a conversation about it, but I could tell from reading people who knew a bit more talk about it that there was a whole lot to it than I had previously considered. I had a bit of a second inspiration when I was on Youtube and I found the videos in the OP about belting, sharp and flat notes, and larynx position - it was sort of an mini-Rosetta Stone moment for me, I guess, and made clearer some ideas I'd heard over the years but didn't really have firm examples of to say, "Okay, this is what you need to be listening for." Now I'm finding (for better or worse!) that I'm starting to hear strain, bad placement, throatiness, flat notes (still terrible at noticing sharp notes), and so forth when I wouldn't have noticed it before. And at the same time, I'm finding that my aesthetic enjoyment of quality singing is ... I don't know, maybe more enriched than it was before? I certainly feel like learning more has increased my level of appreciation, anyway.

My interest has always been as a listener, though, and I guess if you want to get down to it that's my primary motivation. And thanks for the compliment; it's only in the last couple of months that I've started to feel confident enough to make a topic about it and I'm always worried about saying something dumb even though I know I know enough that even if I say something dumb it probably won't be completely off in La-La Land.

No one can question the vocals of Luther. The way he could run through octaves was truly a gift. Not many can come close but this guy does

In the spirit of this vocal showcase videos for Mariah yesterday, this is my favorite performance of A House Is Not A Home, by Luther Vandross at the 1988 NAACP Image Awards. It is also a great example of a baritone in popular music singing in a baritonal range instead of trying to act like he's a damned alto.

And yes, that expression on Dionne's face is probably the same expression you have watching it.

What I do hate about "barely there" congestion is that it gives the impression that the vocal cords are thicker which, for me, means they feel like they can take more abuse, are more controllable, and just generally easier to manipulate, oddly enough. I even find it's easier to sing higher falsetto notes, which I normally have difficulty with. It also comes with this really nice resonating sensation for lower-register notes. But that never ends well if I take advantage as once it actuallyclears up, there's longer recovery period if I've pushed them too far in that condition.

Ah, yes.

The author of that Everyday Voice Care book actually has an example of a singer who sang in a rock band, he said that when he started singing, at first he'd feel sort of sore and strained but as time went on in the night he would suddenly notice that his voice would become a lot warmer and more full and he felt like his voice was "warmed up" by that point, only to find the next day that he was having issues. And she said that probably what was occurring in his case was that he would basically bang the folds together, cause them to swell up and thicken (and create this artificially fuller sound temporarily), but that he'd actually be suffering the consequences of it later in terms of eventual vocal damage and reduced range.

 

[Rayis]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOOOOOOOOOOOOVEEEEEEEEEEE THIS TOPIC!

singing is one of my passions and I love doing it, while I'm not a very good singer, I feel like I've been improving a lot lately!, I can finally do a few runs and I can belt slighty higher than I was able to, I'd love to post examples but too shy, only one person has done it so far

I mostly like to sing Japanese songs, (I know what you're all thinking, I just like the music ok ) more specifically Vocaloid songs, if you know what that is, some of them are pretty good songs I'd say and require having a very wide range to sing them since they're made to sing in super high tessituras, but I also like various western songs and singers, however, My favorite singers are amateurs who I've met through the singing community I'm in, I think some of them are very skilled singers so much more so than a lot of pop stars.

Anyway, I'm another one of the bass/baritones, Not too sure which one of the two I am, when I sang in choir I was put in the bass 2 section, but I think I'm more of a low baritone than a bass, My low notes are nowhere near as booming or resonant than a true bass, but regardless, since I like to sing high notes, I'd prefer being a higher voice type because is boring singing low all the time

Spoiler

I have a voice program than turns my voice into a female, I sometimes sing as a woman for fun, turning into a beautiful mezzo soprano hahahahaha

SUBSCRIBED

 

[ForTheFallenDreams]

Jeremy McKinnon from 'A day to remember' has got to be my favorite vocalist.
The way he can switch between 'hars' and 'clean' vocals really amazes me

This is one of their 'softer' (cover) songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lai31dx0qgs

But most of their older songs are more hardcore with some pop influences like 'Mr. Highway's Thinking About The End '

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQmpjFmB9yg

I've been to 2 of their shows now, and both times they/he delivered

 

[Mumei]

Jeremy McKinnon from 'A day to remember' has got to be my favorite vocalist.
The way he can switch between 'hars' and 'clean' vocals really amazes me

This is one of their 'softer' (cover) songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lai31dx0qgs

But most of their older songs are more hardcore with some pop influences like 'Mr. Highway's Thinking About The End '

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQmpjFmB9yg

I've been to 2 of their shows now, and both times they/he delivered

There's some rather amusing about listening to the second song first, and then listening to the Kelly Clarkson cover.

More favorites:

Aretha Franklin

I have always had trouble trying to place Aretha's voice. She has a rather dark voice, and resonant lows all the way down to G#2 (and unlike Mariah, who always seems a bit... anemic in the second octave, she actually resonates down there), and a strong middle, but at the same time she's got mixed belts all the way up to D6 - above Soprano High C - and a head voice extension up to E6. It's as if she has the primary voice of a heavier voiced mezzo-soprano with the upper extension of a soprano, and I've never really been able to place her.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I think the suggestion I've seen that makes the most sense is placing her as a Falcon, a hybrid vocal type that shares qualities of both the mezzo soprano and soprano voice, named for a famous operatic soprano whose voice had these qualities.

While Aretha is probably best known for her high octave mixed belting - and some of the songs I'm about to mention actually do have a bit of that - some of my favorite songs of hers at the moment happen to be her more laid-back and relaxed vocals. I just love Skylark, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Try A Little Tenderness, and Walk On By. Her timbre is just gorgeous on this material. I still love other material she's done - Think ("It doesn't take much IQ! To see what you're trying to do to me"), Dr. Feelgood, A Change Is Gonna Come, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, I Never Loved A Man, Natural Woman, I'm Losing You (that G5 at the end is everything), Don't Play That Song (You Lied), and so forth are all amazing and fun songs - but right now those slow and soft songs are my favorites.

I love the way she phrases things - that sudden move into head voice for "IQ" in Think, that velvety melisma on "cry" about 36 seconds into Walk On By and the gorgeous and subtle dynamics on "by" 50 seconds in, that almost moaning "good" at the end of Dr Feelgood, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, of course, and on and on. There is actually a great video about her greatest runs (or riffs) in studio, where you can really see how influential she was on so many singers. There are a few moments where her timbre sounds exactly like an early to mid-90s Mariah Carey and you can really hear how much she's one of her - and Whitney's - biggest influences.

I'm not as really well-versed in it, obviously, but I also reading about her musicality interesting - her ability to improvise with a band is fascinating, even if I don't entirely understand it. I remember that one of the things Dusty Springfield struggled with when she went to Memphis and recorded her album with Atlantic was that they wanted her to essentially record the way Aretha would - just sort of do it impromptu with the band and have it happen. And she knew her limitations as a musician; she wasn't someone who could just "throw down", but had to be more deliberate in her approach - and she was afraid of comparisons with Aretha.

Oh, and as a sidenote: If you have listened to Aretha in the last two or three decades and didn't really like the sound of her voice and haven't taken the time to listen to her material from the 1960s and 1970s, do yourself a favor and do that immediately. The timbre of her voice was so much more vibrant and beautiful back then and it has sort of been on the downslide ever since. I didn't think I liked Aretha until I started listening to her material from that period, actually, and perhaps because of that I've now started to appreciate some of her latter-day material as well.

Listen to: Ac-cen-tchu-ate the Positive, Today I Sing The Blues, Lover Come Back to Me, Spirit in the Dark, Respect, I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)

Ingeborg Hallstein

I'll be perfectly honest: I only learned who Ingeborg was about two months ago. Around that time, BZBlaner came out with a new video series that was essentially an attempt of categorizing female vocalists by the fach system, and then comparing them with an actual operatic voice. For instance, Patti was said to be a dramatic soprano and her operatic equivalent was Birgit Nilsson. Or my favorite comparison, between Whitney Houston and Leontyne Price as spinto sopranos (and the only one I guessed both the pop singer and the operatic singer). And for Mariah, he put her as a lyric coloratura soprano, which is really no surprise if you've paid any attention to how agile she is in chest voice alone, but I had never heard of her supposed operatic equivalent, Ingeborg Hallstein.

Well, she's amazing. I mean, I suppose the first thing is her freakishly huge range. Ordinarily a soprano needs to have just as a bare minimum a solid C4 - C6. Ingeborg not only is a sopranos acuto sfogato with sustained notes up to A6 (and apparently staccati half a step or a step higher), but actually has a lower register that extends down to A3. Ordinarily you would expect a singer with such an incredible upper extension to struggle a bit on the lower end, and while she's not going to make you think she's a spinto down there, she definitely has the projectable notes down there.

She always sounds clear as a bell, completely effortless, and completely on point - listen to the staccati in her performance of The Bell Song, my favorite version of that song. She also manages to sing these tremendously high notes without ever sounding screechy - she maintains a sense of roundness and openness on those notes. She never sounds slurred - I just can't get over how perfect she always seems to sound. She certainly doesn't have a big voice, but she's amazing at what she does. I was just listening to her performance of Caro Nome, a personal favorite ever since I heard Leontyne's version of it, and at 2:51 - 2:54 there's this gorgeous crescendo that I didn't pay attention to before. She doesn't quite have Leontyne's velvety fullness, but her tone is even more crystalline.

I haven't had the chance yet, but getting the Ingeborg Hallstein - The Song of the Nightingale collection is high on my list of operatic music collections to acquire.

Listen to: Frühlingstimmen-Walzer, Il Bacio, Air et Variations, Liebwerte Freunde, gegrüßt (listen to that barely audible pianissimo at 7:24!), Lied der Nachtigall, O zittre nicht, Vorrei spiegarvi, Oh Dio!

Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews, no doubt expressing utter exasperation with singers who fail to maintain proper support

The Shady Dame from Seville is absolutely amazing - and contrary to popular belief, didn't actually have vocal surgery due to vocal nodules at all. She actually had "a certain kind of muscular striation happens on the vocal cords." As Wikipedia says, this was due to her role as Victor/Victoria; left unspoken is the explanation that this likely occurred due to her adding excessive weight to her voice for the part of Victor. I still don't understand why these striations would have necessitated vocal surgery in the first place - even after touring while singing with excessive weight and causing some sort of muscular strain on the folds, wouldn't rest be ideal?

But back to happier times! I know that everyone knows Julie from The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins - My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Mi, A Spoonful of Sugar, Feed the Birds, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and others - but she obviously has other material besides this. One of the things that amazes me about her is just how naturally talented she was. When she was just twelve, she sang this jaw-droppingly amazing performance of Je suis Titania. When she begins to sing the staccati is perhaps my favorite part of the performance; it comes across as so completely effortless. She was truly gifted to be able sing like that any age, let alone at the age of twelve.

She also has wonderfully entertaining performances on live television shows. For instance, she sang an amusing version of the Lonely Goatherd on The Muppets Show, and several songs while playing The Tapping Game ("Right, Rule Britannia; it's a lovely song.") with Gene Kelly (and Just In Time, as well). And yes, she is apparently a fairly talented tap dancer. I particularly adore her performances with Andy Williams - his rich baritone and her light soprano contrast so beautifully.

There is actually one performance of hers that I don't like - her performance of Somewhere. I just love Streisand's powerful rendition and that incredible climactic finish; Julie's rendition by contrast has a great deal sung in head voice - I don't really think she developed her belting chest voice much - and something about it comes across as a bit... whiny, almost. I normally don't feel that way about her tone, but there's just something about that particular performance where her tone seems off. But it's okay; I'm sure she'll suffer no loss ofconfidence on my account.

Listen to: The Lusty Month of May, If I Loved You, Auld Lang Syne, This Is My Beloved, I Could Have Danced All Night, Someone To Watch Over Me

 

[lenovox1]

I'm enjoying your posts, Lenovox! I love Broadway divas, but don't know much about the big names in the theatre community outside of the names that got big enough to transcend it. The Audra McDonald performance of Your Daddy's Son gave me chills. And I was impressed by Betty Buckley's crystal clear vibrato. I'm curious about what you think of Miss Elaine Paige? Your link to Buckley's version of "As If We Never Said Goodbye" got me thinking about her version, which I absolutely adore. Especially this performance.

Spoiler

Miss your PMs too, by the by...

Elaine Paige? The originator. Nobody had belted all night, every night before her. The score for Evita is crazy demanding if you belt it like Lloyd Webber likes, and she had to be the first.

As far as her voice goes, she has this really sweet sound with a lot of edge and power that I love. And I love singers that can maintain an even amount of volume, power, and control throughout like she can.

She'll always be rightfully associated with songs like “Nobody's Side” from Chess and “Memory“ from Cats, but my favorite song in her voice is a version of “I Dreamed a Dream” she did at concerts. I couldn't really tell you why I like it so much, but it seems to hit all the right spots.

And; aw, snuck. Thanks, I needed that little pick me up.

In my experience, singing while even slightly congested only causes more damage and longer recovery time. Best bet is just to keep yourself hydrated and eat immuno-supportive foods so you thin out the mucous and fight the leftover infection.

What I do hate about "barely there" congestion is that it gives the impression that the vocal cords are thicker which, for me, means they feel like they can take more abuse, are more controllable, and just generally easier to manipulate, oddly enough. I even find it's easier to sing higher falsetto notes, which I normally have difficulty with. It also comes with this really nice resonating sensation for lower-register notes. But that never ends well if I take advantage as once it actuallyclears up, there's longer recovery period if I've pushed them too far in that condition.

Singing full out while recovering is a bad idea (that I've done anyways), but I've alwaya found light vocal drills to be helpful.

Stuff like pentatonics (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-3-5-3-1) on a lip trill and a (personally badly executed) tongue drill. Only modulating up a few times from the starting scale, and a few times down. Then a short scale on a few vowel sounds that really pull the vocal folds apart (like ahh or uh), and consonants that relax your tongue and jaw. Something like ya-ga or la-guh or anything on a comfortable scale. They always make me feel better after a long day or with during a time when my voice is healing.

Other than anti-inflammatory herbal teas, coffee, honey (no sugar), salt water gargle, plain ol' water, lots of rest, and the advice of y'all, there's not much else you can do without seeing an ENT.

 

[jb1234]

My biggest tip for anyone wanting to get into singing is to go take a lesson or ten. Most instruments that you can "self" teach like piano are easier to break bad habits on when you eventually take lessons. The voice can be a bit trickier in that way.

Yes. There is nothing that will kill a singer faster than a bad teacher and it can be heartbreaking. I've seen singers come into the studio with a horrendous wobble and no matter how long a great teacher works at it, it can never be fixed. It's extremely difficult to break years of bad habits.

 

[3phemeral]

Singing full out while recovering is a bad idea (that I've done anyways), but I've alwaya found light vocal drills to be helpful.

Stuff like pentatonics (1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-3-5-3-1) on a lip trill and a (personally badly executed) tongue drill. Only modulating up a few times from the starting scale, and a few times down. Then a short scale on a few vowel sounds that really pull the vocal folds apart (like ahh or uh), and consonants that relax your tongue and jaw. Something like ya-ga or la-guh or anything on a comfortable scale. They always make me feel better after a long day or with during a time when my voice is healing.

Other than anti-inflammatory herbal teas, coffee, honey (no sugar), salt water gargle, plain ol' water, lots of rest, and the advice of y'all, there's not much else you can do without seeing an ENT.

Ah yes, I forgot that doing some minor vocalizations can actually help get some congestion out. It' slightly risky depending on the thickness of the mucous, so I'd only recommend it if it's coming out easily. But if you're like me and always get congested enough to lose your voice, one of the preventative measures I take is gargling warm water (seems to loosen the mucous up) and running scales while gargling.

I'll run up the scale until I feel/hear the transition isn't smooth and skips (often times into falsetto) and keep the vocalization just below the point where it flips - that usually causes it to loosen up and induces a productive cough.

Spoiler

It's disgusting, but necessary

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

Just curious to hear what you guys think of Jay Munly's voice.

He's relatively unknown, but he's got a fantastically unique voice in my opinion, so I'd like to hear some of your thoughts (as I know nothing about the technical aspects of singing).

 

[Mumei]

Just curious to hear what you guys think of Jay Munly's voice.

He's relatively unknown, but he's got a fantastically unique voice in my opinion, so I'd like to hear some of your thoughts (as I know nothing about the technical aspects of singing).

I am terrible at making judgements about this sort of stuff. I really enjoyed the parts when he was singing low and slowly; the first 2:36. When he started singing with a bit more rasp, I didn't like it as much.

I thought it sounded like he might have been using a bit of vocal fry, on the beginning of the words to get that extremely low and slightly creaky sound. Aside from that, when I was listening to it (... the third or fourth time), I remembered Silent Lucidity by Queensrÿche and I thought that Tate's timbre sounded a bit similar in the intro. They both have something of a warm, baritonal tone, I think, though Jay sounds lower.

 

[FelixOrion]

FelixOrion" There's nothing wrong with being a bass. I was just was being a whiny twat about being sick, and being moved to the bass section. I was also furthering the misguided belief that bass singers aren't as accomplished vocalists because they don't sing "Teh High Notes." In truth, a true bass is one of the rarest voice types, and it takes considerable skill to be able to sing the lower reaches of the bass clef with ease and resonance like they do. And my chorus director did tell me that one of the reasons he moved me, besides our Bass section having shrunk this last season, was because I have more facility in my lower register than a lot of the other baritones in the chorus. So there's a compliment...

I know I was being facetious, a little. I'm not a great singer or bass but my low is only a few white keys from the end of the piano (around F1 I think, I'm not sure, lol).

Oh, another funny thing:

When he was twenty years of age, the football team on which he played lost an important game. That evening, seated in an inn with his defeated and melancholy colleagues, he decided to dispel the gloom by doing an imitation of a Russian bass he had heard on the radio that morning.

Everyone was surprised by his extraordinary voice, including a friend who sang in the local opera chorus. He subsequently took Bonaldo to the lady choral director, who not only inducted him into the company but began to give him private voice lessons.

The day of his first lesson he returned home with the news that he was a tenor and hoped to soon be singing everything from Rodolfo to Radames. The day of his second lesson he was told that he was a baritone instead. He and his family quickly adjusted to that with the thought of his becoming a great Iago or Rigoletto. The day of his third lesson he was told he was a bass!

"I cried," he said. Being a bass, I understood perfectly.​

Spoiler

I'm so sorry, FelixOrion

"Connection after a long period of silence, your cold eyes spoke to me without words. Agony was present. I understood it all along."

 

[FelixOrion]

Harsh Vocals - Female Edition

There aren't a lot of harsh female singers out there (I'm ignoring pop-rock girls like Hayley Williams from Paramore and the like cause they aren't really "harsh" singers and, well.... frankly, they are just bad), but there are a few of them out there. Here is a short highlight on some of them.

Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy, Mistress, Asmodina)

All hail the Queen. Harsh, fast and unforgiving, Angela is widely considered to be the female harsh vocalist and for good reason. IMO, her vocals have somewhat softened over the years, but she is still light years ahead of anyone else out there.

Arch Enemy - "Nemesis"
Arch Enemey - "Yesterday is Dead and Gone"

Laura Nichol (Light this City, Heartsounds)

I'm still amazed at how low and animalistic she can go with her voice without losing her personality or becoming cookiecutter or losing any of the femininity of her voice. Her diction is great and the raw, unfiltered emotion is not lost in her voice one iota.

Light this City - "The Unwelcome Savior"
Light this City - "Facing the Thousand"

Veronica Solje (Venia)

One of my lesser known favorites, Veronica is able not only to hit the raspy, bone-chilling vocals expected of extreme metal signers, but she is still able to hit the operatic clean vocals ala Nightwish with ease and not sound like some misplaced pop-metal/pop-punk reject. Plus she plays the violin for the band too, so, bonus.

Venia - "A Sigh of Redemption"
Venia - "In Our Weakness"

 

[ForTheFallenDreams]

Harsh Vocals - Female Edition

There aren't a lot of harsh female singers out there (I'm ignoring pop-rock girls like Hayley Williams from Paramore and the like cause they aren't really "harsh" singers and, well.... frankly, they are just bad), but there are a few of them out there

Don't forget Candace Kucsulain!
Can't think of a better frontwoman in metal!

Walls of Jericho - A Trigger Full of Promises

 

[Mumei]

Harsh Vocals - Female Edition

... Okay, what? That's actually fascinating. I have to wonder how damaging that might be to their voices; that seems so rough, and they seem to have a lot of weight (or the roughness is so intense it sounds masculine; I thought a man was singing when I listened to those two Angela Gossow songs the first time). I mean I suppose vocal damage will just translate into greater roughness which would be taken as a good thing so I suppose they wouldn't mind too much but Jesus. I need a lozenge.

I don't know what you're talking about with femininity, though; I thought that the most striking thing about it was how similar they sounded to male vocalists. I mean, they sounded tenorish to me (even if they might have been singing higher; I am terrible at hearing pitch when vocals are distorted).

 

[FelixOrion]

Don't forget Candace Kucsulain!
Can't think of a better frontwoman in metal!

Walls of Jericho - A Trigger Full of Promises

Ah, I knew I forgot someone. I was also trying to keep it succinct .

... Okay, what? That's actually fascinating. I have to wonder how damaging that might be to their voices; that seems so rough, and they seem to have a lot of weight (or the roughness is so intense it sounds masculine; I thought a man was singing when I listened to those two Angela Gossow songs the first time). I mean I suppose vocal damage will just translate into greater roughness which would be taken as a good thing so I suppose they wouldn't mind too much but Jesus. I need a lozenge.

I don't know what you're talking about with femininity, though; I thought that the most striking thing about it was how similar they sounded to male vocalists. I mean, they sounded tenorish to me (even if they might have been singing higher; I am terrible at hearing pitch when vocals are distorted).

Ha well, they're the pros. You might be right on the damage helping but Angela has been at it since 1991, so it's not like it's taking that big of a tole on her. Though when she joined Arch Enemy in the early 2000 as a replacement for the old lead singer, Gossow was diagnosed with nodules, which almost stopped her from growling and did stop her from touring; she began to take vocal therapy and growling training from Melissa Cross. It might be interesting to see what effect it has on Veronica in the long run, though, to her clean voice.

In respect to the femininity I mean something like this: The voices still sound like female voices, especially in the highs of their screams. Female screams sound different than male screams, at least to my ears. Down low it may be harder to tell, but I (and this is probably just me, idk) still hear the subtle female qualities to their voices, I guess. I'm not sure how to explain it well. I mean, if a male singer and a female singer hit the exact same note, could you tell which was which?

 

[Mumei]

Ha well, they're the pros. You might be right on the damage helping but Angela has been at it since 1991, so it's not like it's taking that big of a tole on her. It might be interesting to see what effect it has on Veronica in the long run, though, to her clean voice.

Mmhm. Well, I think it is interesting because presumably any negative effect it would have on their voice would actually strangely be in service of the sound they are going for. I would think that it is bad for their pure singing voice, but not necessarily for that sound.

In respect to the femininity I mean something like this: The voices still sound like female voices, especially in the highs of their screams. Female screams sound different than male screams, at least to my ears. Down low it may be harder to tell, but I (and this is probably just me, idk) still hear the subtle female qualities to their voices, I guess. I'm not sure how to explain it well. I mean, if a male singer and a female singer hit the exact same note, could you tell which was which?

Yeah, I just don't hear it. Maybe higher, but I was mostly struck by the similarity.

Oh, and yes. I could.

Female B4
Male B4 (Vin-ce(B4)-ro(A4)) (your faves could ne'er)

I think that the roughness makes it harder to distinguish between the tonalities of a male or female voice is all.

 

[FelixOrion]

Mmhm. Well, I think it is interesting because presumably any negative effect it would have on their voice would actually strangely be in service of the sound they are going for. I would think that it is bad for their pure singing voice, but not necessarily for that sound.



Yeah, I just don't hear it. Maybe higher, but I was mostly struck by the similarity.

Oh, and yes. I could.

Female B4
Male B4 (Vin-ce(B4)-ro(A4)) (your faves could ne'er)

I think that the roughness makes it harder to distinguish between the tonalities of a male or female voice is all.

You might enjoy this interview with Angela; she actually classifies her voice as mezzo-soprano.

Well, I hear it fairly well, so it may just be me being more accustomed to the style, though I think you are right about the roughness masking it some. I think there might also be a bit of a sound association. In my mind, growling and the aggression are mostly an expression of emotions (anger, sorrow, rage, frustration) and not masculinity/femininity, though I can see why there might be that association too, which, in turn, increases my appreciation of woman like Laura who (to my ears) can express themselves in such a way and not compromise that aspect of themselves.

 

[royalan]

Mmhm. Well, I think it is interesting because presumably any negative effect it would have on their voice would actually strangely be in service of the sound they are going for. I would think that it is bad for their pure singing voice, but not necessarily for that sound.



Yeah, I just don't hear it. Maybe higher, but I was mostly struck by the similarity.

Oh, and yes. I could.

Female B4
Male B4 (Vin-ce(B4)-ro(A4)) (your faves could ne'er)

I think that the roughness makes it harder to distinguish between the tonalities of a male or female voice is all.

Sigh...so silky...

This B4 comparison reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately. In those two clips Whitney and Jussi are nailing the B4 - both are supported, resonant, chesty, powerful and sustained for an impressive length of time. But Jussi's B4 was more impressive to me (and not just because his opera house pedigree means it was a little bit more of the aforementioned descriptors). Being male, Jussi's B4 was a lot closer to his ceiling than a B4 was to Whitney's (where you can even hear in her voice that she still had plenty of room to ascend). So I wonder if I'm impressed more by an actual difference in power, or just a perceived difference in power...just knowing that Jussi's going for a note that's a lot more impressive for the male voice and having to put more into it.

This reminds me of a series of posts I've read at a forum I can't remember when I was looking up natural baritones who have trained up into the tenor fach. I couldn't tell if it was just baritone whining at all the attention tenors get, but the general impression I got from that forum was that a baritone should stick to being a baritone, because a true baritone going for the high G would sound just as powerful and impressive to the average listener as a tenor going for their coveted high C, since hitting that G4 would require a lot more power and control for a weightier baritone voice, whereas a tenor would have to go higher to get that same effect. I wonder if there's any merit to that...

 

[Mumei]

Sigh...so silky...

This B4 comparison reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately. In those two clips Whitney and Jussi are nailing the B4 - both are supported, resonant, chesty, powerful and sustained for an impressive length of time. But Jussi's B4 was more impressive to me (and not just because his opera house pedigree means it was a little bit more of the aforementioned descriptors). Being male, Jussi's B4 was a lot closer to his ceiling than a B4 was to Whitney's (where you can even hear in her voice that she still had plenty of room to ascend). So I wonder if I'm impressed more by an actual difference in power, or just a perceived difference in power...just knowing that Jussi's going for a note that's a lot more impressive for the male voice and having to put more into it.

You may actually be surprised; according to his wife he got up to a "G above High C" in recitals, or G5. And there is actually precedent for male operatic singers getting as high as F5 - and higher - in performance. Bjorling's recorded range was only as high as C#5, though.

This reminds me of a series of posts I've read at a forum I can't remember when I was looking up natural baritones who have trained up into the tenor fach. I couldn't tell if it was just baritone whining at all the attention tenors get, but the general impression I got from that forum was that a baritone should stick to being a baritone, because a true baritone going for the high G would sound just as powerful and impressive to the average listener as a tenor going for their coveted high C, since hitting that G4 would require a lot more power and control for a weightier baritone voice, whereas a tenor would have to go higher to get that same effect. I wonder if there's any merit to that...

For me the aesthetics of what makes a note sound impressively powerful to me are:

• Size of the voice
• Weight of the voice
• Resonance
• Intensity
• Brightness
• Clarity
• Vibrato
• Volume
• Pitch (higher = better, usually)

In those two clips, for instance, Bjorling has a larger voice (at least, in chest voice and given his operatic support and Whitney's pop placement), a heavier voice, greater intensity, brightness, clarity, and vibrato. Whitney sustains the B4 longer, but it's not enough for me. So Bjorling sounds more impressive to me.

But listen to Joseph Shore, an operatic baritone, singing the climax of Nessun Dorma. He doesn't quite have Bjorling's brightness or clarity, but his voice quite evidently much larger and much heavier and he's hitting the note with a lot more intensity. He is actually singing it in the tenor key (something I somehow doubt he would have felt comfortable actually singing the role for, as opposed to making a one-off recording for his students), but I'm sure you can see why if he were hitting a note closer to his comfortable range how he could get an even more impressively powerful sound on it.

Interestingly, even in the tenor voice the volume - as in decibels - actually decreases past the passaggio, possibly due to the acoustical change accompanied by the covering technique (e.g. the larynx is lowered to a position at or below the position of rest which essentially effects a physiological change allowing the chest register to be extended above its natural limits. Gilbert Duprez pioneered the use of covering to hit the top notes; before him, tenors would make use of mixed voice or falsetto.

I do think there is something special about the acoustics of a tenor High C that makes it sound extraordinarily impressive, though - there's a certain "ping" and brightness to it. Listen to Bjorling hit it on Salut demeure chaste et pure (the crescendo into it *swoon*), Che gelida manina, or in Ah jour de deuil (and projecting through the din!). Brilliant.

 

[tsurugi no mai]

To Mumei and other posters in here, I'd like to know what you guys think about The Weeknd.

He's my idol. I'd love to be able to sing like him. You can listen to his songs here.

 

[royalan]

You may actually be surprised; according to his wife he got up to a "G above High C" in recitals, or G5. And there is actually precedent for male operatic singers getting as high as F5 - and higher - in performance. Bjorling's recorded range was only as high as C#5, though.

Good Lord, that wasn't all chest, was it?

But listen to Joseph Shore, an operatic baritone, singing the climax of Nessun Dorma. He doesn't quite have Bjorling's brightness or clarity, but his voice quite evidently much larger and much heavier and he's hitting the note with a lot more intensity. He is actually singing it in the tenor key (something I somehow doubt he would have felt comfortable actually singing the role for, as opposed to making a one-off recording for his students), but I'm sure you can see why if he were hitting a note closer to his comfortable range how he could get an even more impressively powerful sound on it.

I think I prefer Shore *.*. Not as clear as Bjorling, but definitely more powerful. And I imagine it might be equally as impressive to the average person. I guess I've been searching around because lately, thanks to discussions with you and clocking my fave in the Pop thread, I've been wanting to extend my healthy range. I can already hit a C5 now...but let's just say you wouldn't like it. I'd like to get up there while maintaining the resonance, stability and vibrato I can maintain until around Ab. I'd like to believe that if I'm capable of reaching the note, I'm also capable of learning to do it properly; but then sometimes I wonder if I should just leave well enough alone and be thankful for the range I've got.

 

[Mumei]

Good Lord, that wasn't all chest, was it?

Oh, heavens no. I mean, no one is singing pure chest - in a physiological sense - even if it might sound that way acoustically (which is the goal of blending your registers; creating the illusion of uniformity) past the middle of the fourth octave - around Eb4 / E4. You then have the passaggio, which is basically the range of the voice between one "register" and into the next. And operatic tenors use covering above the passaggio which basically affects a physiological change that allows singing with the quality of chest voice to be carried up to C5. This was first done by Duprez in 1837, which is - as it were - after Donizetti wrote that aria for his friend Giovanni Rubini that required the F above High C.

So covering wasn't even known at that time, and yet singers were still expected to sing notes that high (e.g. above E4); it is most likely that they were either doing it using mixed voice (or the French, voix mixte) or simply falsetto (which was still discouraged even then, but preferred over notes that sound like "shrieking from excessive pain, internal or external" (Vincenzo Galilei in 1581)).

I think I prefer Shore *.*. Not as clear as Bjorling, but definitely more powerful. And I imagine it might be equally as impressive to the average person.

I agree that it is more impressive in terms of power, but I still think Bjorling's performance is better overall. And for my personal taste, while his voice isn't as big, his squillo is amazing. I find squillo a bit hard to properly explain, so there's a Wiki link if you don't know.

I think a great example of the effect it has can be heard in the Ah! jour de deuil High C I linked to. Bjorling doesn't have a large voice or heavy voice as a lyric tenor, but he's able to project right through the din and create that coasting effect that is mentioned in the Wiki. I like the acoustic effect of relying on the squillo to project through the orchestra and choir in lieu of using sheer volume and vocal weight, like this example of Birgit Nilsson from BZBlaner's soprano fach video, where she seems to be almost covering the orchestra on the sustained note.

And interestingly, in the biography Jussi's wife wrote about him, there's a part about Bjorling and Nilsson performing Aida, as Radamès and Aida, and one of the people Anna-Lisa Bjorling quoted said that at the end of the second act when they sing in unison, Nilsson's voice was so enormous that it was covering Bjorling's sound.

And there's this:

We followed the rehearsals from the control room, but when it was time for "In questa reggia," Jussi asked Ann-Charlotte to sit in a box farthest back in the auditorium. "Listen. Now you're going to hear something!" he said. Birgit Nilsson's mighty sound came over the system so loudly it almost frightened her - she had never heard anything like it! Jussi joined her in the line "Gli enigmi sono tre" with the high C in unison. It was something to behold, Ann-Charlotte remembers: "Papa took a stance that went down to the tips of his toes. His face turned completely red, but singing in the same microphone, he matched Birgit's volume note for note."

Birgit wrote, "Jussi sang a marvelous Calaf. It is a pity that the engineer manipulated the controls to enlarge his voice. It is quite obvious, and it was realy not needed." I don't think the engineers had artificially enlarged Jussi's voice, but I know he had to give full throttle to hold his own against the ladies.​

To be honest, I suspect that Birgit was right from what I've heard of both of them, but it's a great story either way.

I guess I've been searching around because lately, thanks to discussions with you and clocking my fave in the Pop thread, I've been wanting to extend my healthy range. I can already hit a C5 now...but let's just say you wouldn't like it. I'd like to get up there while maintaining the resonance, stability and vibrato I can maintain until around Ab. I'd like to believe that if I'm capable of reaching the note, I'm also capable of learning to do it properly; but then sometimes I wonder if I should just leave well enough alone and be thankful for the range I've got.

I'm personally of the opinion that if you've got the note in your throat, it's probably something you can learn to control. But at the same time, I don't think you need to be too obsessed with it either - you aren't the only baritone whose notes above G#4 aren't as impressive in terms of resonance or vibrato.

Of course, that is while maintaining a very chesty - one might say almost covered, though isn't actually there - tone. If you figure out mixing or take up lessons, perhaps you'll go higher; I think it depends on what sort of sound you want.

To Mumei and other posters in here, I'd like to know what you guys think about The Weeknd.

He's my idol. I'd love to be able to sing like him. You can listen to his songs here.

It's hard to tell. I think I like his voice but at least on the song I listened to, The Fall, there seemed to be a lot of production on the quality of his voice and I'd be interested in hearing what he sounds like in a live setting or a more acoustic studio setting.

 

[tsurugi no mai]

It's hard to tell. I think I like his voice but at least on the song I listened to, The Fall, there seemed to be a lot of production on the quality of his voice and I'd be interested in hearing what he sounds like in a live setting or a more acoustic studio setting.

Here are some live videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPZELly8__4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpHQQkmaWD0

And here are some studio tracks sang for Zane Lowe's radio show:

http://www.theweeknd.com/blog/2012/11/29/1132/

 

[Affeinvasion]

Responding to Mumei's thing waaaay back: learning to sight-read is one of the most rewarding experiences as a singer but takes practice like anything. There are a lot of really good sight reading books out there, but you don't even need them. Learn solfege (do re me fa sol la ti (or si) do) and start to do arpeggio exercises. I'll link you guys to a site that my sightreading TA made. It's really great. If you follow the assignments page by day, you will be in good shape. Just don't move on to the next day until you are comfortable with the one you are on.

aural-skills.blogspot.com

Once you learn to hear intervals it is pretty easy to learn to see them in sheet music.

 

[royalan]

So, I think Mumei might get a kick out of this (if he doesn't already know about it), because I sure did.

So, while perusing vocal videos on Youtube, I came across some clips of this show that aired in Britain called "Popstar to Operastar". The show didn't last long, but apparently the premise was taking "pop stars" (term used LOOSELY) and putting them in competition with each other over who could become the best "opera singer" (again, LOOSELY).

I think my favorite of the clips I have watched has to be Melody Thornton. Melody was considered the "vocalist" of The Pussycat Dolls, doing all the vocal acrobatics in the background while Nicole Scherzinger carried lead vocals.

To put it bluntly, she's a MESS on this show. I'm a CRYING at how awful she is.

Really, drives home the completely different worlds within the realm of singing. A shame the show didn't last long; would have loved to see some acclaimed Pop/R&B vocalists put through the ringer. Also, the awesome panel of judges. My ears perked up when one started talking about improper placement.

 

[Mumei]

Responding to Mumei's thing waaaay back: learning to sight-read is one of the most rewarding experiences as a singer but takes practice like anything. There are a lot of really good sight reading books out there, but you don't even need them. Learn solfege (do re me fa sol la ti (or si) do) and start to do arpeggio exercises. I'll link you guys to a site that my sightreading TA made. It's really great. If you follow the assignments page by day, you will be in good shape. Just don't move on to the next day until you are comfortable with the one you are on.

aural-skills.blogspot.com

Once you learn to hear intervals it is pretty easy to learn to see them in sheet music.

Thanks. I find that if I have the sheet music in front of me while a (studio) version of a song is singing, I can basically know what's going to happen; it's thinking it out mathematically and actually filling in the bars myself where I have to first translate the symbols into numbers and then figure out the math.

So, I think Mumei might get a kick out of this (if he doesn't already know about it), because I sure did.

So, while perusing vocal videos on Youtube, I came across some clips of this show that aired in Britain called "Popstar to Operastar". The show didn't last long, but apparently the premise was taking "pop stars" (term used LOOSELY) and putting them in competition with each other over who could become the best "opera singer" (again, LOOSELY).

I think my favorite of the clips I have watched has to be Melody Thornton. Melody was considered the "vocalist" of The Pussycat Dolls, doing all the vocal acrobatics in the background while Nicole Scherzinger carried lead vocals.

To put it bluntly, she's a MESS on this show. I'm a CRYING at how awful she is.

Really, drives home the completely different worlds within the realm of singing. A shame the show didn't last long; would have loved to see some acclaimed Pop/R&B vocalists put through the ringer. Also, the awesome panel of judges. My ears perked up when one started talking about improper placement.

That's absolutely hilarious. Speaking of placement, I enjoyed this little moment from Mariah in Australia. It's so completely different from the sort of placement she usually uses.

Anyway! I have been procrastinating on this post:

Roy Orbison

Orbison experienced a lot of tragedy - the death of his wife and eldest sons in separate car accidents, and his own death at the age of 52 - and I think you could hear that in his singing. I was just looking at the Wiki for a reminder of who died and the circumstances, and I saw his singing described as conveying "a quiet, desperate vulnerability", and I don't think it could be better described by me. He reminds me of someone like Dusty Springfield in his emotional expressiveness and ability to convey melancholy, sadness, or longing. Elvis Presley - who has a truly phenomenal voice in his own right - had said that if he could have anyone's voice, he would want to have Orbison's.

He never had the most impressive range - only three octaves including falsetto and around two-and-a-half without it - but he had a way of placing his voice that made his notes ring and sound brighter than they were. I think one of the best examples is the climactic note in The Crowd - where he is singing a Bb4 on "me" at 2:08 or the A4 on "believe" (in "make-believe") at 1:48 - has this gorgeous and bright ringing quality to it. Ordinarily it seems to me that high fourth octave belting doesn't quite have that sheen to it, at least in vernacular music, and I think it's one of the most wonderful qualities about his voice.

I also love the quality of his falsetto - there are lots of great examples I could use, but one of my favorites is Blue Rain and the melisma he uses on the falsetto "blue". And while he generally sings in a softer falsetto, he still manages to have some body on it.

Listen to: Indian Wedding, Crying, I Drove All Night, Oh Pretty Woman - and another with Johnny Cash!, You Got It, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Sweet Caroline

Luther Vandross

Luther is actually someone for whom I have actually listened to relatively little of his studio output - rather, most of what I have heard of him has come from live performances. He has a rich baritone and despite some falsetto ability, he seems to know, as did Karen Carpenter, "the money is in the basement." I think everyone knows that baritones tend to naturally resonate best lower in their range, and I think one of the best examples of the sort of resonance and volume a baritone can get on lower notes is in some of Luther Vandross' performance. For instance, one wonderful performance of That's What Friends Are For with Dionne, Whitney, and Stevie has this awesome moment, which was something of a go-to vocal feat for Luther when he wanted to thrill a crowd.

I don't really think he has a very big voice, at least by the standards of baritones - listen to that Joseph Shore clip again - but I do think he has a fairly good-sized voice nonetheless and his power seems to come very easily. Even though on some songs, like his duet of If Only For One Night with Patti Labelle or Endless Love with Mariah, I have noticed that his sound sometimes seems a bit covered by the woman he's singing with such as 2:32 in Endless Love, I also think it's apparent that he's also not pushing for a bigger sound nearly as much.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention that he also possesses the remarkable ability to make PD go weak in the knees.

Listen to: Never Too Much, Here And Now, If This World Were Mine, Love Won't Let Me Wait

Dame Shirley Bassey

I have something of a confession to make. While I knew who Shirley Bassey was, until royalan started talking about her I really hadn't listened to anything Shirley sang besides her James Bond songs. I do appreciate my education, however.

Shirley is one of those singers who gives lie to the claims that robust, belting singing has anything to do with a lack of vocal longevity. There can be issues with bad singing technique, bad speaking habits, bad lifestyle habits - but belting in and of itself does not lead to vocal decline. Shirley is an example of how your voice can last if you treat it right. When she was sixty-nine years old she recorded this hilarious rendition of P!nk's Get The Party Started. She still had her incredible size and resonance, even at that age. And if we're lucky she'll continue to take care of her voice and sound like Leontyne Price did when she was eighty-one, more than twenty years after her retirement from the stage. Oh, and at a tiny five-foot-three she also gives lie to the notion that the size of your body bears any relation to the size of your voice. The fat lady doesn't have half the voice that Shirley does.

Shirley's range wasn't the most exceptional - no doubt as a dramatic mezzo-soprano she might have had the ability at one point in her life to develop the sort of incredibly powerful top notes you can hear in other dramatic mezzos in vernacular music like Anastacia, but Shirley always seemed to focus on belting in the G4 to C5 - maybe D5 - range. She did this to an extent even beyond that of Whitney Houston, who also focused on her low and mid belting (though she actually carried her sound up to her top notes as well). I think one of the more interesting theories I've heard about Whitney's voice is that the reason she had gained some slight tension or pinching in her top belted notes (e.g. the F#5s and G5s in I'm Every Woman in 1991 compared with those from her first two albums or during those eras live) was due to the fact that she consistently sang with a very heavy tone and a strong emphasis on low mid belting, and over time her voice settled lower because she didn't really make an effort at keeping her voice light and limber. And there's a great performance of Shirley singing Burn My Candle (At Both Ends) when she was younger, and her tone was rather lighter and brighter than it was later in her career. So I wonder if the same thing happened with Shirley, where her emphasis on that part of her voice essentially effected a change in her vocal quality.

In any event, I think it is clear that rather than necessarily lacking any aptitude in developing her head voice or her upper belting register, Shirley always chose to focus on the lower and middle parts of her belting, though certainly not to the exclusion of her ability to sing straight up. One of the most irritating things about a lot of the "belters" on talent singing shows is that they don't have big voices; they have loud voices. I posted a comparison between a "big" tone and a "loud" tone earlier in the thread, and Shirley is one of those singers who exemplifies the quality of a truly big and resonant tone. In the last season of American Idol, for instance, there were a couple singers who exemplified the issues of a loud tone - a completely uneven scale, with a lower register that was completely air and unsupported notes when the singer is not belting out the notes at max capacity. Even though her greatest quality is probably that sheer size when belting, she got it the honest way - by properly resonating.

One other thing I particularly love about Shirley's singing - after the way her voice just fills the room and pours out of her in this cavernous, colossal manner without the least appearance of effort and her rich tone, of course - is her diction. I can't explain it but there's just something almost... charmingly quaint about it. There's just something about it that seems almost quintessentially "diva" about it - and it's true in both her speaking voice and her singing voice. It is not like Mariah's "I'm just doing this to be silly" diva talk, either, it seems to just be normal for her. You can hear this in almost anything she sings. She's able to bring this quality to any song - she takes an already rather epic song in Queen's Who Wants To Live Forever and somehow manages to ratchet up the drama in the song even more. She's also one of the few singers out there with a chest register strong enough to do justice to Freddie Mercury's performance. (I should probably note here that Wembley 1986 is actually one of those concerts when Freddie was not in tip-top vocal condition.)

While Shirley is something of a one-note singer from what I've heard - you don't listen to her for subtle emotions, quiet moments, intricate coloratura, register changes, subtle dynamics, or creamy legato lines - instead you listen to Shirley when you want the sort of huge, bombastic - yet technically superb - sort of performance that only a singer with Shirley's voice and personality can properly deliver. Even if that song is Ave Maria.

Listen to: If You Go Away, Light My Fire, Memory, Goldfinger, I Who Have Nothing, Till, Medley with Andy Williams, This Is My Life, My Way, Without You / Goldfinger, Don't Cry Out Loud / All By Myself, Diamonds Are Forever, Dio Come Te Amo

 

[FelixOrion]

To Mumei and others: thoughts/opinions on Allison Krauss?

She's one of my grandmother's favorite singers and so picked her up that way (but my grandpa thinks she sounds like a chipmunk, lol). I really like the honest and almost frail and fragile texture to her voice, its at time haunting with how airy and vibrato-less it sound. Her voice is great as a soloist and meld perfectly with her band leander/backing vocalist, Dan Tyminski, and she somewhat recently did a duet album with Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin called Raising Sand.

Plus she plays the fiddle like a boss, but that's beside the point.

But I wanted to hear other thoughts.

"Borderline"
"Daylight/Sinking Stone" [Live]
"Let Me Touch You For A While"
"Never Got Off the Ground"
"Please Read the Letter" (w/ Robert Plant)
"When The Levee Breaks" (w/ Robert Plant) [Live]"