Is Singing Something People Are Born With?

[Felipe Carvalho]

Whatever it is with Daniel, the conclusion is "he be got it".  All I have ever said is evolution does give advantages and that is scientifically verifiable.  

Well moving from "it is physical" to "whatever it is" is already a improvement. Lets continue:

I am not aware of a scientifical demonstration that people sing better due to evolutional changes, or physical attributes for that matter, that's why I asked you before: What did you observe directly, besides the singing?

If its just the singing, all these statements have the same content:

- Some people sing good because of evolution.

- Some people sing good because they are talented.

- Some people sing good because of Odin's will.

- Some people sing good and I have no clue why.

 

I would just say that the last sentence has much more content than the others.

[KillerKu]

- Some people sing good and I have no clue why. - Felipe

Yes, genius in its simplicity. You will never be able to provide a thorough work up of other singers physiology to test all of the facets of their conditioning. Leading brain scientists still do not fully understand the brain. They don't get it, so why would we?

 

[Gneetapp]

Gneetapp/jens,  I am through posting on this subject. I think my arguments have stood the scrutiny. However,  I am always open to being proven wrong.  All I can say is deliver the goods and change my mind.

Sorry Lien, which of your arguments have stood what?

[Gneetapp]

- Some people sing good because of Odin's will.

 

Gosh Felipe! I believe you cracked the code! Jens is a living proof!

[Felipe Carvalho]

What are the limits of your physiology and how did you calculate that Lien?

[Gneetapp]

What are the limits of your physiology and how did you calculate that Lien?

Never mind that Felipe...

[Gneetapp]

My final words on this thread: ..."though my eyes could see I still was a blind man. Though my mind could think I still was a mad man..."

 

[Robert Lunte]

" Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself.... you gotta believe in foolish miracles... It's not how you play the game, its's if you win or lose... you can't choose.... Don't confuse.... Win or lose.... It's up to you..... !"

 

[Robert Lunte]

- Some people sing good and I have no clue why. - Felipe

It is because of the following variables:

1). Exposure to music at an early age.

2). Favorable vocal fold and vocal tract physiology.

3). Good neuro connections for hearing and matching frequency.

4). Good neuro connections for hearing and tuning formants (singing vowels).

5). Neurolinguistics, or the ability to articulate with dexterity and precision.

6). The person's native language, which influence what articulate movements the can do easily and which are more difficult. Also the vowels that are more intuitive VS. not, due to primary language advantages or disadvantages.

7). Work ethic... it requires someone that is willing to train and sing a lot and work on a craft, instead of expecting something to happen without actually doing the work.

8). Experience singing. The more you do it, the stronger you get, the more your passaggio and head voice respond for you, the better you are at tuning formants, or maintaining tricky singing vowels, the stronger and more stable your articulators become, respiration, confidence, all that...

9). Whether or not you trained with "The Four Pillars of Singing" or not... 

... ok, Just Kidding... although  that is helpful and relates to #7 & #8... that was a joke... couldn't help it.

 

[ronws]

Ronws, very good observation.  I have short, stocky fingers.  I have always gravitated toward Malmsteen or Steve Morse.  I love Vai,Gilbert, Van Halan, etc.  However, due to my hand structure I have never been good at hammer on's and pull off's.  I alternate pick almost everything I do because it comes easier to me.  If I play a song with big streches, I re do the song so I can alternate pick everything,I even do this for the tapping parts.  Therefore, I can play the song but it will not sound as good as someone who is very efficient at the techniques I discussed above.  

We live in a post modern society.  Anything goes,  structure is a bad thing (some even believing the hard sciences are just another structure and up for debate, too).  In this cognitive-relativistic, anti-binary, anti-privilege conundrum we are currently living in it is unfair to have people with any kind of evolutionary advantage. Even though we know evolution is true some of us still refuse to accept its reality. I am cool with the John Cowans and Steve Vais of the world.  Their superior talents are a blessing to me and not a curse.   Maybe a person can develop a higher range.  However, that by no means concludes it will sound good.  What if your high notes are thin, harsh, etc and you have to eq and reverb the hell out of it to get a reasonable(?) production. Maybe you would be more effective as a baritone.   Daniel is good example on this forum of a good tenor voice.  He sounds great and he does it very convincingly.  I'm not blowing smoke toward Daniel here only stating a fact.  Limitations are not a bad thing.  If we honestly evaluate our talents and work within our natural structures, we can probably produce something of lasting value.  

 

Push the envelope but be honest about your ability.  The only person we fool is ourselves.

 

I can do the two handed thing just fine. And when I play leads, I do a lot of the pull off thing where I might pick the first note and pull off the rest, similar to how Kirk Hammett did in his younger days.

I use more of my pinkie these days but in selected instances. 

So, as I hope you can see, I don't totally discount the individual structure of each person. I have certainly had thoughts along those lines. And recognize the limits of my own fingers. And work around that genetic difference. Then, again, having been influenced on guitar by the likes of Alvin Lee and BB King, I tend to play the box form. And I wrote a song once that I titled "Locrian Gigue in E" that you would play more like a bass with more hand movement than finger stretching. 

I also agree that a person can develope a higher range and the sound quality may not be advantageous. And I think I caught a bit of heat when I would point out that for years, growing up, I thought I would deepen to baritone, like a lot of guys I knew. Never happened. Once I accepted the "limitation" of being a light and high tenor, things were easier for me. I can still do a few low notes, even if it doesn't sound baritonic. In fact, one classical description pointed out that in the total range of sound emitted, a tenor can do an E2. I just could not spend all day there nor do I have an interest to do so, even as I admire the lush baritones I have known.

I used to say that it is okay to be a baritone that can sing some high notes, rather than trying to re-define as a tenor. But really, those descriptions are only good in opera.

So, since I am not singing opera in a cast for a production, I call my voice type "goosenfrabe." (I got that word from the movie "Anger Management.")

How did I get this voice? I struck a deal with Satan, of course.

[ronws]

Gneetapp

 

Dio, Russell Allen, etc. They just deliver the goods. U tell me, what else could it be if it weren't physical.  We have nothing else to look too (Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Gist, structuralism, etc. ) because the physical is reality.  

Look at Dio. A guy so small that even bassist Rudy Sarzo towered over him. Yet he had that "huge" voice. Where did he get it from? That is the other side of the phsyiogical debate that I also give credence to. I have read three books on Caruso. One was by a physician who had a chance to study him. His vocal mechanism was not extraordinairy and he, by his own admission, was often prone to congestion, what we modernly call allergies. Yet he produced a wonderous sound and is still the tenor to which others are compared. To make matters more confusing, he also enjoyed the occasional cigar and drink.

I agree that individual structure can create sonic differences. But I don't think that one voice is better than another. And I get some of that insight from Dr Fillebrown, a surgeon who specialized in facial and sinusoidal reconstruction, having been knuckle-deep on a person's vocal mechanism.

[MDEW]

Gosh Felipe! I believe you cracked the code! Jens is a living proof!

       I really think the physical thing has little to do with it........as far as "Natural" or otherwise good singing............. A tall man can have a thin or high voice........Or a big and brassy voice........ Some little people have voices that really do sound the way that they sounded in "Wizard of Oz" but there have also been Little people that would give Pavoroti a run for his money. Over all body type cannot be part of the equation. Dedication and good sense.........a sense of rhythm ,tone, and emotional projection. Finding the qualities that sound good in your own voice and sticking to that(at least in public). Good choices of songs to sing. A soundman and mixer who knows what he is doing............................................... 

 

Edit........Somehow the wrong quote was embedded..................Jens is living proof of alot of things..............

[MDEW]

Ronws,

 

Ha oh Lucifer.  He is at the cross roads waiting for us all.  Our souls for a great voice.  Lol

   I think I wil Train for my voice............... Lucifer cannot have my soul. It is worth more than a good voice.

[Sexy Beast]

2). Favorable vocal fold and vocal tract physiology.

Robert, can you elaborate?

[Felipe Carvalho]

I see, so guitar playing, how fast you learn, production of original material and not being part of a singing forum. These are the aspects that matter then (still nothing physical was mentioned, this is just skill, is it physical or not?).

What happened to the other criteria that you set a few pages ago? The pitch, coordination, precision and power stuff. And, since the guy you linked (John Cowan) sings mostly around a medium intensity level, how come he gets away with medium power?

[KillerKu]

I see, so guitar playing, how fast you learn, production of original material and not being part of a singing forum. These are the aspects that matter then (still nothing physical was mentioned, this is just skill, is it physical or not?).

What happened to the other criteria that you set a few pages ago? The pitch, coordination, precision and power stuff. And, since the guy you linked (John Cowan) sings mostly around a medium intensity level, how come he gets away with medium power?

It seems like goalposts did get moved. If you measure by the original power, precision, and all that, I think you, Dan, and Jens give these guys a run for their money.

I might put on some Neil Young an listen to him warble an hoot out of tune and perceive him as just as talented as anyone here for innovating a vocal style and being a unique songwriter. I don't know if it was possible for someone to teach Neil Young how to do what he does. I'm not aware of anyone who sung like that or wrote songs like that prior, but those are different goal posts. 

If high, big, and precise are the goal posts. We've already got competitors here. Martin H is quite precise as well. Maybe Lien just hasn't heard all the singers here.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Yes, you used a lot of comparisions and references, nothing physical was ever mentioned. You just keep repeating that "memory is physical", what physical aspect impairs your memory?

Do you even have such limitation to begin with???

[KillerKu]

Everything I talked about is  part of our physiology. Brain (memory, processing speed, etc)  Skill level is physical.  Lol  You specifically ask me  about me , how I decide or know my limits.  That was ur question.  U ask me how I knew my physical limitations so I tried to explain that by comparing myself personally to people who are good in the context of time.  That is how I came to a conclusion about my level of talent.  That may not be applicable to u.    Keeping ur question in its context I think answered it. 

 

You kind of extended it. You were like, 'no one here would be talented enough physiologically otherwise they wouldn't be here and would be out and about living uber talented lives.' I'm ill, so no amount of talent will fix my problems, regardless, I'm far from the most skilled singer here and never aspired to be uber precise fat high noted super larynx guy.

But people come in a lot of varieties. Some guys like Nick Drake weren't even really discovered until after they died. Doesn't mean they weren't talented, just didn't have the lifestyle or extroversion to really get their presence out there. Meanwhile, Milli Vanilli is more famous than anyone here and were living it up for quite awhile there, they didn't even sing on their records.  No one was the wiser until the tape jammed.

The world is filled with illusions. You might be able to get a loose knowledge of limitations with some careful objectivity and experience, but tend to try to relate this beyond yourself. People are mostly too multifaceted to really judge that way. The main thing I suspect is some people are innovators. Like, if there was no known X prior to Y date, then someone had to be a weirdo (talented) to do 'some innovative' thing. If there is a known X, then someone could copy X. That's a bit different.

Of course with my perceptions, they could be faulty too. There could have been always been some unknown inspiration, some guy that sounded similar, wrote similar songs, and had similar guitar styling, and Neil Young nicked it all from a random hobo. But well... Most likely he just turned out to be a weird guy that hadn't been heard before. It's not about doing X faster, more precise, and with more power, or whatever. Those can be trained through imitation. It's more like, 'this guy is weird, who the hell would have taught him to do those things?' So then I really do have no idea where that comes from.

That's the kind of talent that intrigues me. Nature/nurture some people don't just do the same thing faster or with more force, or whatever in art. They do things 'differently.' Someone could keep playing and singing the same song faster with their fingers and higher with their voice, and more precisely for the rest of their lives. They could sing it the highest biggest notes, fastest, and most precise in the entire world and no one else could replicate it cause it was too physiologically challenging. It wouldn't really be the kind of talent I'd relate to in the arts. That's like a sport.

[MDEW]

    It is all a matter of perception and what you already believe. This matter of some people having a natural advantage for singing ......... It is not a physical thing. Regardless. There are people either born with no hands or lost them in some fashion or another who play virtuoso guitar with their feet and some who use prosthetics.

   It is not physical limitations ........... same with singing.    You work with what you have in a way that expresses your own talents ......... Not to say that you cannot improve or that you are doing things right to begin with............... I read the books tried the same programs that many others here tried....... Different teachers also........ When you are told one thing and percieve it as another it will not help you. ......... I was constatly told from people here that my larynx was too high and I lacked support.........Everything that I read and each program that I tried convinced me that I was doing things correct.............. Out of wanting to prove them wrong or just being fed up I used the most choked up, squeezed up, &^%$ up sound that I could find ......... Everything totally backward from the free resonant, projected sound that I thought I was supposed to be using........... You know that wheezy oldman barely breathing voice that is used in some cartoons? ............ No way could that be what was expected to sing well .................. I just posted the song without telling anyone what I was doing to produce it ............... I got the most positive responce from that song with that coordination than any of my other songs to that date............... ^&*(% ed up isn't it?   

    Point being even if you are training and singing and thinking that you are doing things the way your supposed to and your voice just sounds like that...You could be wrong.......... The same happened with Jens, Daniel and a few others .......... I mention Jens and Daniel because they have related their own story before........ It is not just about pounding it out and you will find what works ........... Sometimes we just missed on a key point( A correct way to train...."Proper Guidence").     Singing in church and sing out in public with others who want you to sound good IS FORMAL TRAINING............... My case was the opposite .......... Let your guitar do the singing ........Let me sing that instead MDEW..........Not constructive critique that is meant to guide .......... BUT with the proper PEERS that want to help you sing better it can happen ..................

[KillerKu]

Like Marlon Brando in Godfather? I can get that with a variation of a curbing kind of sound in the lower range. If you really exaggerate that thing it can sound really ridiculous and funny, but elements of that appear in my singing.  

[ronws]

I have a confession to make. I did not know of Cowan until this thread. I have heard of Mick Jagger, who is arguably not as precise or pretty a singer, in both sound and appearance. And Mick has way too much money.

The difference between a pro and amateur is that one is getting paid for it and the other is not.

So, who cares about total number of songs output? Do some songs, record them, release for distribution.

I have sang in front of people, before. In various locations from campfires to club. Never got paid for it. So, I am still an "amateur." It doesn't hurt my feelings.

I think a lot of successful singers just sing from the heart. I was reading about some of the recording tricks of the Beatles. John Lennon did not like the sound of his own voice and asked for effects on it. In fact, he once said, "I don't care! Put some ketchup on it!"

And he was quite successful.

I knew a guy name Bugs Henderson. Excellent singer and guitar player. And unless you are a blues hound or from Texas, you probably have not heard of him. But you might have heard of Johnny Lang, from the same area of north Texas. So celebrity is not a mark and neither is a bank account. Steven Tyler went broke at least once. So did Glenn Hughes.

Michael Sweet went to work for his in-laws.

Bobby Blotzer has a carpet-cleaning business. Bruce Dickinson flies jets. David Lee Roth is a certified New York City paramedic. Rikki Rocket makes drum kits.

Brett Michael has a line of Snapple Tea and a line of products for dogs.

Gene Simmons owns everything else. 

George Lynch, having been in Dokken and his own band, Lynch Mob, is also a guitar teacher with a home study course.

Corey Taylor writes books.

Henry Rollins is an author, tv host, and actor, aside from his musical endeavors.

Butch Vig, the drummer and founder of Garbage, also has a recording label and even his own vocal plug-in.

[MDEW]

Like Marlon Brando in Godfather? I can get that with a variation of a curbing kind of sound in the lower range. If you really exaggerate that thing it can sound really ridiculous and funny, but elements of that appear in my singing.

    More like Grandpa Simpson.........."What the digits?"......... "Evil.....EEEEEEVIL....." .........Had to be there.

 

Edit: You know how people may tell you to retract the false folds? This is more like pushing air through closed false folds. The throat feels tight instead of open..... At least to me it does..........Opposite of everthing I had read or heard through programs.

 

[MDEW]

   Sure start a new thread.     I am over 50 and that is also why the thing about having a natural physical advantage is BS. I am now making progress in that area.......... We all have that Wobbly uncontrollable area.......... That is why it is necessary to train correctly........ Someone like john may have held on to this area during puberty........Him singing in church and all........... There are videos of Pavoroti giving a master class and during one that I watched He cracked at G4 also ...... There are proper things to navigate that area.

[KillerKu]

Killerku,I didn't say there wasn't talent here on the site.  I am confident it is.  However our discussion is about the super talented.  The reason they aren't here is because they are busy actualizing to the world, and if I could do it at their level, I would too.

I'm pretty confident I'll never hear most of of the greatest singing talents.

1. They might not be conventionally attractive enough to market.

2. They might not be extroverted enough to push to be heard.

3. They might be holding down families and traditional jobs

4. They might suffer debiliating illness

5. They might live in a country where music is not as economically viable

Singing talent and the ability to actualize it are two different things. Someone could be the best singer and a prisoner of war until they die. It seems really narrow minded to assume all people will be actualizing their voice into a commercial avenue. Most voices simply aren't heard in the first place.

I've heard maybe .00001 percent of singers. To rule out the vast majority of the human population based on whether they've made an account at a website is kind of absurd. A guy claiming to be Steve Perry made one. If I was Steve I'd get the popcorn too and laugh.

[Danielformica]

Killerku,I didn't say there wasn't talent here on the site.  I am confident it is.  However our discussion is about the super talented.  The reason they aren't here is because they are busy actualizing to the world, and if I could do it at their level, I would too.

thats a strange statement. i know there are a few of us on here actualizing it to the world i for one have driven  500 miles just this week played 4 shows and made $$$ doing it.  I only go on here to offer advice to help others get better and understand the voice more.  i know Felipe is the same..  

 

in the end if you dont help others understand the art the art gets lost and watered down.  If your buddy John could help people understand i am sure he would. Some singers just do and thats great.  Some people do and help others do. its all good…