Singing classic rock, feeling vs. notes? Rockin Robby - 13 years old

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Again, having the emotion is not the same as conveying the emotion. you need to have the chops to convey the emotion. If you have the chops, you are capable of doing it all the time. If you don't have the chops, you will be the only one who the performance works for. (because you are remembering the feeling you had while performing it, no one else has that experience to draw on)
 
I don't discount or dispute the fact that you, and many others here know what you're talking about. In fact, I'm sure there are people, "brilliant people here." And many of them are much more knowledgeable than me :-)

I'm working on a new one that's "from the heart." When it's done I'll post it in the vocal forum as an example of what I'm talking about (maybe 2 weeks or so). It's a simple song, a country tune. I just wrote it, but "I was feeling it when I wrote it..." It's called "Soft truths." I didn't set out to write it. I just picked up the guitar, and the song reached out to me. It happened? I was there... But I can't say I wrote it? It's difficult to describe, but I know there are others out there who experience music as do I.

Another philosophy of mine, that the writer/singer (i.e., singer songwriter like me) is really just "channeling the music?" That the music comes to us, and then through us? I may really be full of crap, and sometimes, it's really not called in to question because I know I am full of it?

But I work in a technical field (internet network engineering) and as I am fond of saying, when a problem rises to a sufficient level of complexity, there are multiple good ways, and multiple bad ways of approaching and resolving it. It doesn't necessarily mean that one is better than another, as long as they both fix the problem.
 
This doesn't negate the emotion that inspires the song. But you need both the emotion and the ability to convey it through your voice/instrument/song writing.

But the 'emotion' that you put into the performance is just a series of musical tools, like timing, pitch bend, interval stretching, and note choice that any good performer will be able to cop and get the same audience response. That is obviously true because the audience can respond to a recorded version of the song. The CD isn't having the emotion, the person who sang it could have been dead for 50 years, but the listener is still moved by the confluence of sounds that made up the performance.
 
Which ties in to something else I've said for a long time. "What we do is primal..." Music was around when we were in the caves in Lascaux in France, over 17,000 years ago. We were already well on our way to domesticating dogs from wolves? But still, think about it? 17 "thousand" years ago... We were cave men? But we had music, we had songs, "we had singers." This is why music can make us cry, because it touches something deep within us. 17,000 years ago, the earth was just coming out of an ice age people... Think about it. And while we may have learned to fake it? It still touches something deep within, that was originally "singing with feeling and emotion." Cave men weren't faking it 17,000 years ago (although maybe their wives were...)
 
Australia's indigenous people have been on site for 40K years. They've had a visual art for that time frame so, based on your Lascuax analogy, it would be likely they expressed things musically as well.
I'm sure some people faked some of the emotion when performing ritual music back in the dim dark past.
Don't forget that the cave art to which you refer is quite developed; it is the product of significant skills including production of the paint media, fine motor & observational. It certainly wasn't the beginning of art - rather a very large sign post along the way.
 
It's not a matter of faking anything. And just because the performer isn't having that emotion while he is singing, doesn't make the emotion that his performance evoked in his listener any less valid. It's not fake, the performance is quite real.

You couldn't possibly think that every time someone performs a song, they have to go through the same emotional turmoil that inspired it or the performance is not valid. How would you get through a concert tour where you have to perform 10 or 12 songs with different emotional centers and do that 4 times a week for 6 months without your head exploding?

There are certain things that are done musically that will tend to evoke certain emotions in the listener. If you do those things well, it works. If you don't, it doesn't. The reason/inspiration behind doing those things is irrelevant to the listeners experience.
 
Farview said:
You couldn't possibly think that every time someone performs a song, they have to go through the same emotional turmoil that inspired it or the performance is not valid. How would you get through a concert tour where you have to perform 10 or 12 songs with different emotional centers and do that 4 times a week for 6 months without your head exploding?
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I agree with you. The idea is silly.
 
OK, I surrender, I won't argue w/city hall. I guess I just have those skills? But I do write songs that touch emotions within me, and I hear music by others that also touches emotion within me. So I guess I'm just an emotional guy. Still though, please listen to the upcoming original "Soft truths..." As I believe it captures what I'm trying to say better than I can say it. guitars, piano done. Working on drums. Another week or so and I'll have a draft.
 
I tried to go and listen to some of your awesomely emotional tuneage but I can't get the player to work on your Reverbnation page Robby...

Tried, failed.... sorry dude.

FWIW, and we may have clashed on this point before, I'm in the "it's chops" camp - I learnt how, exactly, to perform a couple of Leonard Cohen covers many, many years ago to make it seem like my heart was breaking and I was a tender young soul that needed saving and loving... Worked a treat! I'm such a cad. But it was chops, a skill I learnt....

I don't really have a brother who lives in the desert and who has a blue raincoat, or an ex-wife called Jane who carries a lock of said brother's hair around, but jeez I could make it sound like I did... :D
 
RockinRobby said:
OK, I surrender, I won't argue w/city hall. I guess I just have those skills? But I do write songs that touch emotions within me, and I hear music by others that also touches emotion within me.
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That songs are written and performed in such a way as to stir emotions within people was never being disputed. Anyone disputing that would have to be deliberately looking for an argument. It's like saying there isn't a moon.
The point up for discussion was whether or not hitting all the correct notes in a song is more important than "singing with feeling".
Of course any writer or at least most writers and artists, want to stir the listener in some way. That's what makes someone buy a record or keep listening and checking out more.
Some people aren't that concerned whether a singer is out of tune. It goes with some genres. In a punk song or some death metal or some rap that breaks out into a bit of melody now and then, it may not be that crucial. But for most genres, it does.

Armistice said:
FWIW, and we may have clashed on this point before, I'm in the "it's chops" camp
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Moi aussi. Good singers can both convey all the 'feeling' and emotion necessary as well as hitting the right notes and they can do it wildly, gruffly, softly, sexilly or however it's needed.
 
"I tried to go and listen to some of your awesomely emotional tuneage but I can't get the player to work on your Reverbnation page Robby...

Tried, failed.... sorry dude."

RN is a fickle and crewel lover, it’s never there when you need it to be. Unlike me? I always wait for my partner to finish first? Unfortunately, these days, that’s always me, so it’s simultaneous :-(
 
As a quick aside, a thought struck me yesterday while at the paralympics. It's something I've thought about almost subconsciously for a number of years now ~ by not hitting the notes of a melody, you may actually be robbing a performance of the very feeling necessary to touch someone's being. I've heard many truly emotive, sincere but off key or out of tune performances and speaking personally, all I want to do is forget them ! If they've been recorded, they are painful to listen to. I feel embarrasment for the singer. I'm not talking about the odd note out of hundreds here. Usually in those cases, it's barely noticeable. People say that Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen were often out of tune. As they got old, live, maybe, but in their heyday, I beg to differ. Dylan certainly knew how to convey emotion in a song, be it sarcasm, anger, humour, lust, love or laconic dead pan~ness.
Singing is where all the ingredients come together.
 
Dylan, "excellent" example... The Lord says "make a joyful noise." And there is a chemistry that is undeniable which comes from the reaction of the performer with the music, which creates "the performance." It can be effusive, or benign, but I believe it is "there." It's something you can put your finger on. I just completed a new original that I'm trying to get some pros to add some fills and lead to. It's one about relationships. Relationships can be good or bad, but they are always "powerful..." And therefore, as subject matter for a song writer? They are compelling. And if the song writer is also the performer? Then there's the opportunity for that chemistry to occur. I believe it will be a prime example of what I speak.

Soft truths
========
All the soft truths, disolve in to lies, all the warm hellos, in to cold goodbyes...
She'd do anything, just to be alright. In a deep disguise, till the morning light.
 
RockinRobby said:
OK, I surrender, I won't argue w/city hall. I guess I just have those skills? But I do write songs that touch emotions within me, and I hear music by others that also touches emotion within me. So I guess I'm just an emotional guy. Still though, please listen to the upcoming original "Soft truths..." As I believe it captures what I'm trying to say better than I can say it. guitars, piano done. Working on drums. Another week or so and I'll have a draft.
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Of course you have those skills. If you didn't, your performance would suck, which it doesn't.

I think you might be misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying that the emotions are not real, valid or necessary. I'm saying that simply having the emotion while performing isn't going to get it done without the technical ability to associate the emotions you are having with the performance techniques that evoke that same emotion in a listener.

3 year olds have a lot of emotions, but they generally can't give a compelling vocal performance.

A seasoned pro singer can perform a song and convey the appropriate feeling in the listener without having to actually have the feeling he is conveying.

Having a feeling is not a skill, conveying the feeling through song is. However you manage to get that done is valid.
 
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