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Why are Tenors so lucky ?

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ferg12

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So, you, sun, and owen were right I found a baritone named Ken Tamplin singing Bruno Mars, but it sounds like he's struggling. I want to know if a baritone can do that without the struggling ?

Hehe funny I was actually watching that clip yesterday thinking it didn't sound as good as Ken's usual work. Check out some of his other stuff like this:

Way chestier (IMO better sounding) than the Bruno Mars stuff, I don't think Ken's own style is like Brunos which would explain why he is better at the rockier style.

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So, you, sun, and owen were right I found a baritone named Ken Tamplin singing Bruno Mars, but it sounds like he's struggling. I want to know if a baritone can do that without the struggling ?

The only way to tell for sure if he is struggling is to ask him how it feels, or maybe asking him to do it again and see if he fails sometimes. Ken has been singing hard stuff for decades, I doubt he finds this amazingly difficult.

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Way chestier (IMO better sounding) than the Bruno Mars stuff, I don't think Ken's own style is like Brunos which would explain why he is better at the rockier style.

Sounds like more postprocessing on the voice to me, as well as possible double tracking. If that's the case I think it's a bit dishonest on a singing technique promotional video IMO.

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Hehe funny I was actually watching that clip yesterday thinking it didn't sound as good as Ken's usual work. Check out some of his other stuff like this:

Way chestier (IMO better sounding) than the Bruno Mars stuff, I don't think Ken's own style is like Brunos which would explain why he is better at the rockier style.

I'm impressed, so it can be done; ok I'll admit I was wrong. I'm going email my former teacher this video.

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Is this Ken Tamplin guy lightening his speaking voice?

Yes he is. Watch the video where he does "Ring of Fire", he mentions it in the end that he would probably be speaking lower if he hadn't trained so much with his bright resonance.

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To be honest I'm not sure what you mean, your definition of "speaking voice".

The short version, unless you are singing opera (and need to project over an orchestra) fach doesn't matter because we can use sounds that doesn't project in the same way (still very loud though) which gives us more flexibility.

Most professional singers seem to have a usable range of approx 3 octaves or more which can be learned by anyone.

What you need is a good vocal coach, some here Daniel Formica f.ex., Robert Lunte, Tony O'Hora, Felipe Carvalho.

There is a lot of knowledge on this forum if you search around a bit, but it can be extremley confusing especially since we on here tend to discuss vocal technique in a very overly detailed nerd-like manner. You're gonna need a teacher

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md....it's that phrase "thin out" that can mean so many things to so many people.

i don't personally feel like i thin out anything when i sing....i narrow without letting up....but narrowing to me is not thinning....it's a throat shaping maneuver for me....

if i want a powerful sound high up (g4 plus), the air pressure and support has to me maintained or the note falls apart on me. .

all of this......thinning out, going into, crossing over, transitioning to, switching to, lightening up, ....none of this works for me ...all it did was stress me..

now i just sing at the ng spot and support....

I am meaning the sound. I still would not know exactly how to thin the folds or narrow anything on purpose. But speaking for myself. I have always stayed away from the top because it sounded too thin. I can sing the notes. They didn't sound right when I would sing them.

When sung correctly the G4 will still sound a lot THINNER than the C3. Us self proclaimed baratones keep trying to make G4 sound sonically like C3 . We keep blocking ourselves thinking we need to somehow make it FULLER SOUNDING. NO... Just sing the thing the way that you can sing it. Get used to it. It is going to sound too thin for a while even when you sing it correctly. UNTIL you have things under control.

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I am meaning the sound. I still would not know exactly how to thin the folds or narrow anything on purpose. But speaking for myself. I have always stayed away from the top because it sounded too thin. I can sing the notes. They didn't sound right when I would sing them.

When sung correctly the G4 will still sound a lot THINNER than the C3. Us self proclaimed baratones keep trying to make G4 sound sonically like C3 . We keep blocking ourselves thinking we need to somehow make it FULLER SOUNDING. NO... Just sing the thing the way that you can sing it. Get used to it. It is going to sound too thin for a while even when you sing it correctly. UNTIL you have things under control.

Good thing you clarified the last part. Ideally, there's no reason your G4 should sound thinner than your C3. That is not the end goal at all. But as a means to an end, perhaps.

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Man, this thread has been active.

Owen, you were asking for a sample song to show off what you think is your baritone, whether high or light, or dramatico. So, I was trying to think of popular songs that you might know, considering our considerable age difference, which may mean nothing or everything.

First thought was:

"I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty.

If you want a real challenge in baritone:

"Ice Cream Man" by Van Halen (written and composed by David Lee Roth, yes, he plays guitar.)

Or, you could try the Johnny Cash version of "Hurt," since you already know that song, well. I don't care what you do it on. In fact, do the H1. I am an unrepentant fan of "live" recordings. If you have not figured that out, by now. :D

Ferg, I'm going to have get all "Jens" on you. Doesn't matter what you think your fach is. Make the sound, make it sound cool, do the song the way that you can do it. "I know, it's only rock and roll but I like it."

Tenors are not lucky. We deal with passaggio, just like anyone else. We just happen to be a smidge closer to the bridging area and must confront it sooner, rather than later.It's still there. According to Frisell, tenors bridge at F4. Not that much different than E4 for baritones and D4 for bassos. In fact, the interval between E4 and F4 is 1/2 step.

To quote an old r&b song, "it's your thang, do what you wanna do. I can't tell ya, who to sock it to."

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Okay I recorded a version of Hurt with the zoom H1, since I already know it. The H1 was positioned equal distance between the vocal and guitar, approximately. Second take. First one kind of served as a warm up. As this is my low range in less than optimal condition. I warmed up my chest voice really high this morning so my voice is more lifted than usual. Yet, after about 5 minutes warming up the coordination, I still managed to get Hurt to sound like this:

https://app.box.com/s/pvmhqcn7ds8laj937p1o

Pardon the poor pitch accuracy and lyrical interpretation. Artistry aside, as an off the cuff demonstration of my low range at about full power, without the help of morning voice or kissing a pop filter, I suppose this is plenty sufficient.

So yeah...I'm probably like a high baritone I guess. At least, today. As you know Ron, the voice is new every day.

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Do female singers get jealous of sopranos?

As with just about everything in life, things are a little more complicated for women. In choral and perhaps operatic settings, female singers get jealous of the sopranos.

In contemporary music, the sopranos get jealous of the lower voices. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that lower voices (for whatever reason) tend to have a larger connected range. Lots of sopranos think that they're physically incapable of singing their high notes in anything but falsetto (though they'd probably call it head voice), just the way lower voices think they're incapable of singing higher notes.

Tenors are "lucky" in classical music, because they're the only voice part that gets to sing the entirety of the 4th octave with fully adducted vocal folds. In contemporary music, everyone gets to sing those notes however they want to. Thus voice classification matters a lot less.

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So, you, sun, and owen were right I found a baritone named Ken Tamplin singing Bruno Mars, but it sounds like he's struggling. I want to know if a baritone can do that without the struggling ?

Ken Tamplin's facial expressions almost always make it look like he's struggling because that's his style. But there's absolutely no strain in his voice singing Grenade or any of the other demos he puts up on the web. Every note is on pitch and it's a great cover of the song.

It's also the case that his cover of Fortunate Son is (at least in my opinion) about 1000x better than his cover of Grenade. So, could Ken Tamplin make his living as a Bruno Mars tribute act? Maybe he could. But IMO it would be kind of a waste of Ken Tamplin's talent for him to do that, because Ken Tamplin is better at other things than he is at imitating Bruno Mars. Notice I said all of that without actually comparing him to Bruno Mars. It doesn't matter how he compares to Bruno Mars. What matters is how certain aspects of his voice perform compared to other aspects of his voice, not how he compares to Bruno Mars.

That said, aside from Tamplin's work as an artist that doesn't sound anything like Bruno Mars, he also makes his living by knowing how to imitate just about any singer out there and teaching other people to do so. Both versatility and knowing his biggest strengths are important to his success.

So regardless of your vocal fach, you can learn to do a damn good Bruno Mars cover and being able to do a damn good Bruno Mars cover is a great skill to have. But if you are indeed a low baritone, odds are that there are things that you will be able to sing even better than your damn good Bruno Mars cover. Figure out what those things are as well and sing those as well.

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Yes, in classical music one could argue that tenors are lucky and being a baritone (especially a lyric one or a baritenor) can be a curse. Why? Because in classical opera main roles are usually written either for tenors or for lower voiced guys (dramatic baritones, basses). And unlike contemporary singing it is a lot harder to mimic the timbre of another vocal fach because of the amount of projection and volume that is required.

The classifications of lyric baritone and baritenor are pretty much "unwanted" by singers in the classical world because especially in opera singing there are very few important roles that can be sung within these fachs. Thus, depending on tendencies those singers usually try to shoot for tenor or for lower baritone.

However, I recently read in some paper that singing head notes with full adduction (M1) in classical music is actually a "recent" development. There seems to be indication that in earlier times the notes above F#4 were actually sung in falsetto, even by tenors.

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That's true, tenors didn't use to pull m1 through the passaggio. Then one singer figured out how and performed like thet and then there was no turning back because of how heroic it sounded, he set the new standard. This was explained in the BBC what makes a great tenor series which you can find in youtube. You should watch that series benny its really cool

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That's true, tenors didn't use to pull m1 through the passaggio. Then one singer figured out how and performed like thet and then there was no turning back because of how heroic it sounded, he set the new standard. This was explained in the BBC what makes a great tenor series which you can find in youtube. You should watch that series benny its really cool

Yes. I think I have seen snippets of that series already, pretty nice stuff. I also read that it was percieved quite controversial at first when the "new sound" came to the public ear. But "pulling chest" definitely came out victorious ;)

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Doesn't it always :/

As great as it sounds, and I personally prefer chestier singing like most people do, I don't like how it creates a culture that is against falsetto and lighter ways of singing. There is beauty to both approaches.

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Doesn't it always :/

As great as it sounds, and I personally prefer chestier singing like most people do, I don't like how it creates a culture that is against falsetto and lighter ways of singing. There is beauty to both approaches.

Yes probably. As always, it's a matter of what sound you like. Personally, I prefer chesty singing, but at the same time I don't like a shouty/yell kind of tone. Also don't like the overly theatry classical approach (yes I am picky in terms of sound ;)).

But of course all of these techniques are valid. What is ridiculous however is, those "singing technique x is healthy and y is unhealthy" kind of crap that is often made up.

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Honestly there are alot of big voices(what you guys call baritone and bassos) in classical music that sings the tenor part... And guess what? Those guys are also called tenors...

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I'm left handed but I learned to write with my right hand. The body can do amazing things if you a) believe and B) practice like hell. Why would singing be different?

Five years ago I'd have said I was baritone with a few useful bass notes and a few useful tenor notes. Now I am pretty comfortable in the tenor range although still working on extreme highs.

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One more thing bob go watch any video on the vocal cords rising in pitch you will see them thin out. I'm not trying to make you believe me I'm just going by a fact that you can see in plain sight that's all.

dan, no argument here buddy. i agree with you totally about the folds physically thinning out. it's the sound itself that doesn't have to sound like it is...(thinning out).

i just know for me as a singer, when i sing high or onset high, i really have to support well to control the air pressure that i need to generate for those notes.

if i underpower the note or overpower the note i'm done.....

it's quite a balancing act.

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