Character of voice overcomes actual vocal talent?

Greg_L said:
Yngwie is a great example of being very talented and very terrible at the same time. :laughings:
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Exactly - OK, so you need to be able to sing/play to a reasonable standard, but once you can actually play character is far more important.

EDIT: While enjoying taking a piss just now I was thinking - I've listened to some Yngwie, and all I remember about it is, that it was technically impressive. I can't remember what a single song goes like. I can't remember a single Yngwie melody.
 
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JDOD said:
On the subject of Character/Talent...
1. I'm not sure I'm that convinced talent is a thing - I think its more a product of practice and the will to learn.
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Talent is absolutely a thing. Yes, everyone has to practice and learn, but talent is what makes some people learn much quicker than others. Talent may also be related to physiological traits - such as Stevie Nicks's unique sounding voice.
 
JDOD said:
EDIT: While enjoying taking a piss just now I was thinking - I've listened to some Yngwie, and all I remember about it is, that it was technically impressive. I can't remember what a single song goes like. I can't remember a single Yngwie melody.
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That's why it is cool to hear Yngwei play Paganini. Paganini was a very good writer. For classical music, you generally don't have to listen to virtuosos play their own wanker music, because there is plenty of repertoire for them to select from that satisfies their wanking needs while also being excellent compositions (such as the Paganini Caprices).

Yngwei should be employing great writers. It is a missed opportunity IMO.
 
Yeah talent is real. Not in here, but in real life it's real.

You can practice golf every day of your life and you'll never be as good as Jack Nicklaus.
Practice boxing and you'll never beat Floyd Mayweather.
Train and train and train and never outrun Usain Bolt.


Stuff like that. They practice for sure, but they excel because they have a talent for what they do.
 
Greg_L said:
Yeah talent is real. Not in here, but in real life it's real.

You can practice golf every day of your life and you'll never be as good as Jack Nicklaus.
Practice boxing and you'll never beat Floyd Mayweather.
Train and train and train and never outrun Usain Bolt.


Stuff like that. They practice for sure, but they excel because they have a talent for what they do.
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Taking Floyd as an example - he's got the athletic tools - but fuck me did that guy train! He grew up training and grew up in the sport. Even he constantly repeats that its just a product of hardwork and dedication.
 
JDOD said:
Taking Floyd as an example - he's got the athletic tools - but fuck me did that guy train! He grew up training and grew up in the sport. Even he constantly repeats that its just a product of hardwork and dedication.
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No doubt, but he has the aptitude for boxing. That's why he is who he is. They all train and practice, but their natural talent takes them to that next level that makes them better than others.

All golfers practice and train. Why was Tiger Woods so dominant? He had a natural ability that was recognized and cultivated from an early age. It was Tiger Woods, and then everyone else. They all train and practice, Tiger had that little bit more talent that made him dominant.

It's not *just* hard work and dedication.
 
If we're going to make the sports analogy (which I don't think applies to music 100%), it's not any one thing. It's hard work, practice, natural talent, how young you started which is important because I think the earlier something gets programmed into your brain or even your complete being, the better it is.

But there are other things that are hard to measure. Desire...some athletes are happy making a living and would rather play for a team in a small market, collect their paycheck and be almost anonymous. Other crave the spotlight and want to be the star. It's also grace under pressure. I'm sure there are potentially great athletes that have the talent, but lose it when they see more than 20,000 watching what they do.

It's hard to compare sports with entertainment because sports is performance oriented. If you're not good at your job, someone else will take it. In music, you don't have to be "good". You can be "cute", you can be "quirky", you can be a lot of things that help you be successful that have nothing to do with having an actual talent for singing, or playing guitar, etc....
 
Greg_L said:
It's not *just* hard work and dedication.
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Oh, you're right there. It will be the small athletic gifts (combined with very hard training) that separate the very good from the greats at the highest level. I still think the will to train is by far the dominant factor though...

If you're talking about the ability to come up with a good tune though... now that's talent.

EDIT: I agree with RAMI that the sports analogy isn't necessarily a good one in this case.
 
JDOD said:
If you're talking about the ability to come up with a good tune though... now that's talent.
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See, I don't think that's talent at all. What's a "good tune"? Who decides? Some people will say that sales and popularity makes something a good song. I think that's absolute nonsense.
 
Greg_L said:
See, I don't think that's talent at all. What's a "good tune"? Who decides? Some people will say that sales and popularity makes something a good song. I think that's absolute nonsense.
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Its also really subjective of course. That's the thing isn't it - we're discussing art.

Take Yngwies scale lessons - that's just Maths and combinations of scales, its pure logic. You can stick someone without ears in a room for 10,000 hours and make them learn it. There's no talent there.

To be fair to him though, Yngwie was the first person to come up with a few techniques, that's talent.
 
As far as Stevie, she has/had a unigue voice. Like it or not, it was instantly recognizable. That quality by itself is an asset to the music. Rather than being a generic voice that people have no idea who is singing, right away one knows that's Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac.

Personally I liked the band much better when they were a dedicated blues band prior to the girls "ruining" Fleetwood Mac. But at the same time the girls are what propelled the band into the mainstreem and made them recognizable to a huge part of the music listener population. This was in part to Stevie's voice. Just like Mick Jagger, you hear just a bit, and right away, you know it's the Stones.
Given reasonable technical skill, the character of the voice IS it's personality, and the thing that sets it out from the crowd and gets it noticed

However, I still reserve the right to like or dislike the music, and make jokes about stuff if I feel like it.

:D
 
RFR said:
I still reserve the right to like or dislike the music, and make jokes about stuff if I feel like it.:D
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Just don't start auto-tuning your jokes. I like them slightly flawed. :D
 
I remember seeing Fleetwood Hack on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert way before the commercial days. I just have a vague memory of them playing a blues tune that lasted about 3 and a half weeks.

EDIT: Holy shit. I Googled "Fleetwood Mac Don Kirshner's rock concert" and found it. Looks like Christine VcVee was already in the band. At about 4:50 in, it sounds like they're trying to do "Black Magic Woman" and "Smoke on the Water" at the same time. :D

 
Haha. Yeah. That was the good stuff.:D the Peter Greene era. By the time they hit Don Kirshner, they were already sliding downhill though.

Btw, glad you liked the autotune joke. If i made just one person chuckle, my job is done. Critics be damned. (And I'll bet even some if them thought it was funny in secret)
:D
 
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