Singer's Forum Part II

  • Thread starter Thread starter chessparov
  • Start date Start date
Elton cooked his voice recently, no?

When I heard that newish song
"I want love" I didn't realize it was Elton
singing, till the radio announcer said
so.
I was thinking it was someone trying to sound
like Elton!
Either he "put on a different voice" or
I was thinking he's really ruined his
vocal chords.
I read a biography, which told how
crazy his concert schedules used to be, and
that he's had vocal operations at least once.
The live in Australia recording really shows some serious damage - ouch.
Gord Wait
 
Chris, Caruso was a heavy cigar smoker, and that caused serious
health problems for him, along with his weight problem.
Unfortunately, the recordings that are left don't do justice to him
due to the primitive means of recording it. Pavoratti and Domingo would have gladly given their left nut just to be in his ballpark vocally. Caruso had the first million selling record, and was a huge
"pop" star to millions of people. Not that Pavoratti and Domingo aren't great tenors-it's just all relative. If you could have high notes remotely as good as Caruso's, all of the major opera houses would be beating a path to your door! Again, the recordings then of tenor and soprano "high notes" are going to sound shrill compared to modern-day classical recordings, so it's unfair to judge the singers based only on them.

Until you hit the time of Beniamino Gigli you don't really get a good
level of fidelity (he sounds fantastic BTW).
Even Gigli, however, confessed to his contemporaries that Caruso
was his superior. Gigli was the mentor of my voice coach and he
told me many (true!) stories of his old friend. They met when he
won a contest Gigli was sponsoring.

The other tenor "phenom" was the Wagnerian tenor Lauritz Melchior, who had a voice you must to listen to to believe!
(no other dramatic tenors have been able to touch him since)

All this talk of when vocal dinosaurs ruled the earth is going to make me break out my opera records that haven't been listened
to for years!

Chris
 
I have to confess that my knowledge of opera is decidedly limited. What I do know is from my university courses in music history (I have an Hons. Mus. in classical guitar), and from conversations with my vocal instructor, who is VERY knowledgeable - he was a tenor with the Met Opera (1940's, maybe?) for a number of years.

What he told me about Caruso kinda creeped me out. I think I was exaggerating a bit about the lyric baritone trying to be a tenor, because he was a true tenor. The quality of his voice was described by my instructor as (paraphrasing, not quoting...) sounding like he was reaching up at the notes, rather than grasping them fully. The smoking could certainly have been a factor in that too.

The fact that he had nodes to the point where he required ether before a performance was, to me, quite disconcerting. It seems he was probably great in his earlier years, before the smoking caught up with him, and before perhaps the shorcomings of his technique caught up with him, causing him to develop the nodes.

What you say about Pavarotti and Domingo giving their left nut to be as good as Caruso may well be true, though, as in my instructor's opinion, the quality of singers today doesn't hold a candle to those who were active in the "golden age of singing." The reason is essentially due, in his opinion, to a general lack of technique among most of today's singers.

As I say, you seem to have the advantage of being more knowledge about operatic history than me, so you are drawing from your own personal knowledge. I'm drawing from the knowledge of my teacher, so it's hard for me to discuss these things in any way other than "second hand."

I think I'll go crank on some Aerosmith, and continue to wonder how that man can crank out the performances he does after years of abusing his vocal cords....

Chris

:cool:
 
Re: Elton cooked his voice recently, no?

GordWait said:
When I heard that newish song
"I want love" I didn't realize it was Elton
singing, till the radio announcer said
so.
I was thinking it was someone trying to sound
like Elton!
Either he "put on a different voice" or
I was thinking he's really ruined his
vocal chords.
I read a biography, which told how
crazy his concert schedules used to be, and
that he's had vocal operations at least once.
The live in Australia recording really shows some serious damage - ouch.
Gord Wait
Click to expand...

I think he's been singing that way for a while now, but the recording on his last CD is different, very dry and upfront, where as usually his voice is farther back with a lot more reverb.

His doctor wanted him to cancel the Australian shows and have surgery straight away, but Elton decided the show must go on! :)
Pretty amazing, he does quite a job considering.

But ever since then, he apparently has learned to sing correctly, though it's not the same sound, unfortunately. Still pretty great though.
 
So, the bottomline, then, with these pop singers (McCartney, Elton, Tyler....) is, they are born with it, right?
 
Yes and no.... they are born with their tone. Training helps to develop tone. One's ability to sing in tune is largely a function of practice. Some are born with more skill than others, but most of us can learn.

Chris
 
Just made the personal commitment to self-train over the next 5 or so
years to take a shot at the International (World Championship) competition
in barbershop quartet singing. Right now I'm on an intermediate level in
terms of vocal technique relative to this genre. It's more challenging than
pop music because I sing "lead" (melody) which is keyed for second tenors,
and my most comfortable range presently is lyric baritone-about a half step
lower in key.

One of the first things to recognize is to have self-acceptance with how we
sound. One of the hardest things for me (as contained in "Set Your Voice Free"
is trusting that by allowing rather than "making" the voice sound a certain way,
ultimately that's the best path for continous improvement.

Assuming your speaking voice is in a healthy condition, and produced properly,
that goes a long way in determining what vocal classication you belong to.
It is quite common for a high baritone (like me) to sound similar to a true tenor,
and vice versa.
The point at which an untrained voice "breaks" further narrows down voice type.
Voice training "develops" tone in the sense that it allows it to happen due to
more effective coordination, rather than muscular development.

Chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top