Chris Cornell a capella (sort of)

[RedOx]

I just stumbled upon this on the interwebs.

Seems to be the vocal tracks of a studio recording. It has obviously been processed a lot so it's propably not exactly his natural sound but I still find it baffling how anyone could ever do something like this:

Any ideas about what the heck this guy is doing there - besides something that shouldn't be tried at home? I mean from a vocal technique point of view?

[VideoHere]

these are distorted, strong, head tones specifically and intentionally positioned out of the throat.

dan formica is particularly good at this. when done correctly, it is safe for the vast majority of singers. but you have to work up to this and you need to know what you're doing.

[RedOx]

@VIDEOHERE

Funny that you would point me to Daniel's video, because the first time I found this Cornell clip, it popped up on youtube as well as a related video and of course I watched that one too.

I should say that Cornell has always been one one of my favourite singers, though I used to think that his technique on these high distorted screams was very risky. I liked his voice more in his lower chest notes. Especially since, for a rock singer he puts quite a lot of 'soul' into it.

I was a teenager during the nineties, so I listened to a lot of his music and I think I never heard him sing anything that high with a clean, sharp voice, like e.g. Daniel does in his video.

Now I'm wondering if Cornell could even do it the 'proper' way - meaning without the heavy distortion. Or if maybe his voice wouldn't even sound that good without it.

[joshual]

Don't ask yourself if Cornell can do it in a clean way.

Nobody on the forum is cornell. ^^.

If it's not your natural way to sing, just follow dan advice ;-).

If you sing with rasp naturally, don t even think about that and just sing ^^

[jonpall]

Note that Daniel sang live for many years while using distortion only here and there, but mostly clean. THAT was really how he learned how to sing distortion Cornell, Guns N Roses, etc. He said that he was singing AC/DC with a clean (non-distorted) voice for several years before learning how to add rasp on those high notes. Actually, I think that your audience and your throat will thank you for going that route, people.

F.ex. recently I sang Here I go again by Whitesnake, live, with a completely clean voice (except for the F#5 scream in the bridge and just an occasional raspy/edgy word/phrase a couple of times) and I got better response from the audience than ever before.

[VideoHere]

if you study cornell, you can't help but see all kinds of technique going on.

that song he sang "long gone" depending on which video you watch, is sung clean for the most part..

[RedOx]

@VIDEOHERE

I have to admit that I skipped his latest solo album. That was just too much musical freedom for my taste ;-). Maybe I am splitting hairs here, but "Long gone" is actually kind of proving my point.

It isn't that obvious in the studio version because, well, it's a timbaland production, but on this live video most of the clean parts sound really weak compared to his usual style. I would almost call that falsetto in some parts and I don't mean the intentional kind of falsetto. And that's despite there being a lot of pre-recorded and effects-heavy stuff going on in the background. It also sounds like he's really quiet for most of the song.

This feeling of 'weakness' goes away however, as soon as he goes into the stronger sections - especially in the chorus. But then his distortion also comes back.

Don't get me wrong. I am not asking anybody to tell me how to do this. That's way above my paygrade. I just think that Cornell can't really sing in a strong headvoice without distortion and I find that kind of interesting.

[VideoHere]

i know exactly what you mean......