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Jessie J vocal tech question

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Slamzilla

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Hey guys,

Something that's been driving me nuts, on the song "who you are" performed by Jessie j, what is she doing on the last chorus that sounds like rapid switching between scream and belt? Is she doing fry in a really high range? Is that even a thing? It sounds awesome. Any help is appreciated

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is it the "ha-ha-hard" part where it gets squeaky in between the notes?

It's a type of cry. Phil Moufarrege has talked to me about it and he knows how to do a similar thing but I haven't learned it yet. It's a tool you can use when you are belting and the word begins with an H - between the H and the vowel you can make this audible switch that can come out kind of squeaky and intense sounding.

I guess Jessie J is just taking that cry effect and adding some fry or distortion to it too?

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The cry is not false folds. The cry / hold is like the vocal mode "curbing" which she uses a lot - so does Stevie Wonder and many other singers. It seems those H's, which you refer to as a scream, is like she's closing things up so that the consonant H is much more audible than normal. The false folds I'm sure plays a part in that.

Try phoning an "H" normally. Now close up the vocal track on the "H" and exaggerate it, like you were crying, so the air passed through a smaller place. You can make it sound almost like a scream. It's a cool effect.

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to my ears she is just squeaking into whistle voice for fractions of a second, of course it requires compression/cry to do this but notice that it's not just compression, notice the range of the sound, it's around the mid part of the 6th octave, for fractions of a second, whistle voice :)

geran there is a different between "whistle voice" as a stable register, and making high squeaks for a fraction of a second. In other words if you're trying to say she can only make that sound because she knows how to sing in whistle voice I think you'd be incorrect. To my ears those squeaks are only a byproduct of specific type of compression/cry/distortion

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yes of course you can.

I'm not sure I'd call it yodeling because do you understand she's not like thinking "I'm going to flip up to a d#6 here!" :lol: haha

It is the same physical action as yodeling sure but the mentality is different because she's not going for a specific pitch. Also because it's so quick you don't even have time to mentally will in a high pitch as if you were hitting a note so she has to get it indirectly somehow by letting go of some things (the weight) without letting go of others - the musculature she's maintaining I'm not sure but maybe the CT activity or something

Can't say for sure because I can't do the effect myself but I've got similar sounds by ACCIDENT I'll tell you that :lol: and in those cases it was not intentional so why would she make it any harder on herself here it's almost like she's just letting her voice crack a couple times stylistically

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Good tips Phil, that makes sense re: multiple techniques. I'm too early on my own development to really worry about mirroring that sound. Things are going well though, fastest development of my life in the last two months. I think I'm gonna scope out your stuff too :)

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I just did something similer to this last night working on my cover of "Faithfully". :o So I think Her technique could be considered a controlled screwup! Something she learned while trying somethind else. A happy mistake.

What happened with me was I was trying the line "Two strangers learn to Fall in love again" in that instance there was a jump from modal or chest voice to supposedly connected head voice. I missed. :P Lost connection in the middle of the note. I did not recover from the SLIP as she did. That is when I decided to lower the song by 3 halfsteps and try again. :D

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This "trick" or happy accident or whatever was used to great effect by the Rolling Stones in the song "Gimme Shelter". The moment is at approximately 3:06.

There is no question in my mind as to whether or not it was spontaneous. It happens on the word "murder" (and to a lesser degree on the word "shot" in the previous line)...........you can hear a male voice in the background say "yeah" or something like that in what I believe to be enthusiastic approval. Probably Keith...right?

Anyway the Stones did it ...it was awesome. Adele does a version of it and it's pretty cool too and still sounds soulful.

This Jessie J person does it and as far as I'm concerned completely dissolves any mystery surrounding it. I should count how many times it occurs in the song but my guess would be somewhere around eighty three.

The 3:28 mark is only notable because she does it rapid fire ....like 6 times in succession.....proving to every one (or at least me) that it has nothing to do with emotion. It's just a trick she knows how to do.

This could be a good time to bring up the concept of tasteful restraint.

I know it's annoying but I still don't know how to embed videos

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all i know is she is one seriously skilled vocalist, sometimes she overdoes things i.m.o., but great nevertheless.

here we go....you can see and hear the command she has on her support.

another great is joss stone, maybe not in the big spotlight anymore, but so beautiful and soulful....i actually like her more because she's not trilling and running all over the place.

2:41 to 3:46 is so damn great.

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