Prague Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Ever notice the people that sing in public, while shopping, etc., are the ones that can't sing? My brother is guilty of this. Can't sing a note but is always humming a "tune". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTRBass Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Theblue1, Dude, I swear to God I know that chick! She tried to get me to do a mastering job for her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 phaeton Believe it or not, it actually took a couple visits to her house to get her set up. But the memory is just too much for me to face up to and, you know, in the interest of brevity... Prague Every now and then there's an exception. Back in the mid-90s, in the Carrol Park area of Long Beach, there used to be a youngish black woman who would sing opera as she jogged. And I don't mean singing-in-the-shower opera, she clearly had a trained voice, and the fact that she was delivering it at a sprightly jog was all the more impressive. Now I'm not usually that fond of folks who think they've got a right to make a whole lot of noisein the public space, even when they're blasting my favorite tunes, but sometimes you run across what would normally be a violation of the space that just transcends. (That said, not sure if I'd necessarily want to live next door to an aspiring opera diva; but maybe that's why she sang while she was running. Kind of spread the glorious pain around so no one person had to suffer the imposition of unwanted artistry for long.) bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Originally posted by GTRBass: Theblue1, Dude, I swear to God I know that chick! She tried to get me to do a mastering job for her. Could be. LA's not such a big town. And let me just hasten to say that the singer in my story seems to be a very sincere and nice person. And, you know, it's all subjective, of course. [More long story removed. Just in case.] __________________________ It just sunk in that the party you met, who is certainly a counterpart to my aquaintance if not, indeed, her, wanted to spend money on mastering her stuff. I mean, wow. Is there just that much loose money in the hands of rubes out there? Why do people with slapdash, amateurish tracks send them out for mastering? I would never pay to have my tracks mastered unless someone gave me a stinking budget and made me swear not to sprinkle fairy dust on them and pocket the money. There's no doubt that mastering can help fix some kinds of problems, compensate for less-than-perfect mix/monitoring conditions, etc. But why, oh, why do some folks -- who aren't going to have a commercial release of their music -- pour good many after bad work when they should be honing their performing and basic recording skills instead? bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EscapeRocks Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Their harmonies sound like somebody's hittin' a baby with a cat pretty much all the time, and while I look at him like he just sprouted antlers. damn you.. I have to clean the soda I just spit out all over my monitor and keyboard. Perhaps the funniest thing I've ever read here. Partly 'cuz I'v eben there/done that David Gig Rig:Roland Fantom 08 | Roland Jupiter 80 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeton Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 [i just made a note to myself to delete these anecdotes in a day or two.[/b] I could quote your post and it would live forever Dr. Seuss: The Original White Rapper . WWND? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTRBass Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 When it comes to mastering, "YOU CAN'T POLISH A TURD". Well... you can, but it's just a louder, shinier turd. I have made good money polishing turds for people. I'm the "Andy Gump" of mastering some times. I don't mind. For every 10 turds I get paid to polish, I get to polish one true diamond in the rough. Are the chick's initials WG? It sounds to close not to be the same person, although there are dozens of talentless, clueless folks here in LA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Originally posted by GTRBass: When it comes to mastering, "YOU CAN'T POLISH A TURD". Well... you can, but it's just a louder, shinier turd. I have made good money polishing turds for people. I'm the "Andy Gump" of mastering some times. I don't mind. For every 10 turds I get paid to polish, I get to polish one true diamond in the rough. Are the chick's initials WG? It sounds to close not to be the same person, although there are dozens of talentless, clueless folks here in LA.Nah. Looks like the tapestry of coincidence is woven a little looser than we might have imagined. Like you suggest, though, she may be legion, or however that works. Maybe folks like that are guided by a 'bizarro-muse' (you know like Superman and the Bizarro Superman). bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeT156 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Quoted by TRbass: --------------------------------------- Many times I've seen singers who desire to emulate Steve Perry, Rob Halford, Geoff Tate, or someone whose range is not quite like theirs. They can't hit those notes and they suck. If you hear them sing within their range, you can be quite surprised by how good they actually are. --------------------------------------- Bingo TR. I always related my degree of talent to the one line in a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie: "A man's got to know his limitations". Vocally, I'm a Baritone. Couldn't sing a Steve Perry tune if my life depended on it, so I don't. I have a "average" voice, and limit the songs I sing to a tunes that are in a comfortable range for me, and concentrate on songs that I can sing pretty well from the get go. I can sing Billy Joel and Jimmy Buffet tunes pretty well, and avoid songs by singers I don't sound like, and that are out of my voice range. I play the melody along with the chords when I'm learning the song to be sure I know I have it down, and concentrate on the melody when I sing it. I took voice training and it improved my pitch, breathing, and my ability to sing properly without losing my voice. Still, I know my limitations and avoid crossing the boundries of those limitations. I sing songs with spirit and confidence and have grown into a pretty decent entertainer over the years. Not everyone has a natural, fantastic voice. Recognizing that is half the battle. Mike T. Yamaha Motif ES8, Alesis Ion, Prophet 5 Rev 3.2, 1979 Rhodes Mark 1 Suitcase 73 Piano, Arp Odyssey Md III, Roland R-70 Drum Machine, Digitech Vocalist Live Pro. Roland Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Originally posted by MikeT156: Not everyone has a natural, fantastic voice. Recognizing that is half the battle.Truer words could not be spoken. Unfortunately, many of todays so clled talented stars are being sold a bill fo goods by PR and management, and don't know how to recognize that they are less tha star quality talent. (case in point Ashlee Simpson.) I feel sorry for these people, as eventually the dillusion will fade, and they will either come to the realization they are only a marketing plot, or suffer the emotional scaring of living the illusion until they eventually break down and lose it entirely, possibly turning to drugs, alcohol or other mood and spiritual altering substances to comfort them once their 15 minutes is over and they are left standing alone on the street corner to fend for themselves. With the amount of money poured into Ashlee, I shudder to think of what she owes her record label. 3 mil in sales doesn't go far when someone is fronting the $$$ for a reality show and major label production. this scenario goes on every day in the industry with what the public considers to be huge, multimillionaire superstars, who in reality are in debt way over their head because they are simply ignorant, and wanted to live the lifestyle, or got hooked on it by their management, label, and artist reps. It really is sad what music has become. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob4CU Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Originally posted by theblue1: There was a fellow there who'll go nameless. All his vocals were in a nasal, Neil Young-stamped falsetto, but with a pitch that varied sharp and flat with little predicatbility. Add to that that his guitar work was way beneath clumsy. His rhythm parts were stiff and often missed the rhythmic mark by near tennis-shoe-in-dryer measure. Sadly, he was also convinced that he could play lead guitar.I remember this fellow...keeping him nameless is probably a good idea as I believe it is considered bad luck to utter his name out loud in any online forum... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeton Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 Here's something to consider, and it may be in the defense of some of the "not so great" performers mentioned in this thread... I notice that the more i listen to some of my own recordings (4-track stuff, comfort of my own home) the less i "hear" the warts. A lot of these tracks are one-take "sketch tracks"- you know, getting an idea down before it's gone, or putting something down (like a twin lead) so that i can fiddle with the other half. Some of them are a little rough, but i usually don't re-record them until i'm ready to do a "serious" recording. If i listen to them enough times, i don't hear the mistakes at all, even some of the really bad ones. I think the "mind's ear" will, either due to fatigue or ambition, substitute what it wants to hear for what it is actually hearing. I would like to think that I would normally know the difference between sweet and sour notes, in-time and off-time. I'm confident that normally I do, but after i've heard something 100 times, maybe my ear is just complacent. In the case of the folks that sing in their shower every morning, they probably have no idea how really bad they are, regardless of how much exposure they've had to "real" talent to judge it upon. After all, everyone who likes to sing most likely got that way from listening to music in the first place, right? I realise that around here we all talk about the crop of popular but mostly talentless drivel that Sam Goody is full of, but there are some modern acts, even manufactured, where they can really, truly sing. Not a lot, but there are some. On top of that, there's confidence. I know that being "overconfident", or at least "confident beyond one's means" is disastrous. However, when i was younger and more confident, as a guitar player, i think that my strong confidence actually helped me play better in the long run. I took more chances, made more mistakes and learned a lot of stuff very quickly. Nowadays when I go to guitar stores or other public places, i don't even plug the guitar in, or if i do, i have the amp so low i get drowned out by everyone else. So confidence is good, i think. However, now that i've read all the responses and stories in this thread, I'm thinking back to performances and recordings in the past, and I'm getting a little self conscious I always wonder if I've just disillusioned myself and all my songs suck, i play like a hack, and the only reason people don't tell me it is because they're trying to be polite. Dr. Seuss: The Original White Rapper . WWND? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D_dup3 Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 First a side-track... Not having read entire thread yet I apologize if stepping into already handled territory but I had to respond to GTRBass's early comment listing singers with conviction but limited skills. Scuttlebutt is that he may've missed some takes of Beatle harmonies but IMO Lennon seems spot on as far as pitch in recordings I've heard. It's true that in later days he let his stylistic range lapse but in early Beatle days he was equal to & maybe better than McCartney. Take for example the "whispered balladeer" timbre that he & George Martin created on several tunes, where it sounds as though he's right outside your ear. Partly recording technique but also Lennon's skill at work. Back to the point...sorta... This doesn't apply directly to the "bad singer's psych" but there's an incredible amount of naivite in the world still despite our apparent cultural cosmopolitanism. I just heard a comment from one of the contenders on Donald "It's Huge (my combover, that is)" Trump's Apprentice para-reality show that she thought shows like that were meant to take people from "this level to that level, not just use them for ratings"...she said that with apparent sincerity. Many psychologists have theorized that the recent parental trends of unconditional support---that is not just tempered support but no critcism---whereby sports lack scoring & everybody gets a trophy are actually counterproductive. This is compounded by the "instantaneity" of the electronic world for a lot of young people & their perception that computeristics can create success. When they see "talent" like the Simpson sisters, Broccoli Spears & the like, who can blame them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpig Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Sing with your own accent. For Gawwwwd's sake sing with your own accent. If you're from Iceland don't try to sound like a Belgian. If you're from Mongolia stop trying to sound like a Scotsman. Learn Scottish songs or whatever but sing them your own way. Technical proffciency has nothing to do with it - hark back to posts regarding Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash or whatever. These people were all possessed of one quality and that is honesty. This transcended whatever deficiencies they may have had vocally - they were themselves and didn't give a flying fart what anyone else thought. The charts are awash with phoney accents. I myself have a voice that sounds like a whale farting in the fog and am proud of it. The most grating singers are ones that try to be something that they're not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackpig Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Sing with your own accent. For Gawwwwd's sake sing with your own accent. If you're from Iceland don't try to sound like a Belgian. If you're from Mongolia stop trying to sound like a Scotsman. Learn Scottish songs or whatever but sing them your own way. Technical proffciency has nothing to do with it - hark back to posts regarding Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash or whatever. These people were all possessed of one quality and that is honesty. This transcended whatever deficiencies they may have had vocally - they were themselves and didn't give a flying fart what anyone else thought. The charts are awash with phoney accents. I myself have a voice that sounds like a whale farting in the fog and am proud of it. The most grating singers are ones that try to be something that they're not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Originally posted by MikeT156: Quoted by TRbass: --------------------------------------- Many times I've seen singers who desire to emulate Steve Perry, Rob Halford, Geoff Tate, or someone whose range is not quite like theirs. They can't hit those notes and they suck. If you hear them sing within their range, you can be quite surprised by how good they actually are. --------------------------------------- Bingo TR. I always related my degree of talent to the one line in a Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movie: "A man's got to know his limitations". Vocally, I'm a Baritone. Couldn't sing a Steve Perry tune if my life depended on it, so I don't. I have a "average" voice, and limit the songs I sing to a tunes that are in a comfortable range for me, and concentrate on songs that I can sing pretty well from the get go. I can sing Billy Joel and Jimmy Buffet tunes pretty well, and avoid songs by singers I don't sound like, and that are out of my voice range. I play the melody along with the chords when I'm learning the song to be sure I know I have it down, and concentrate on the melody when I sing it. I took voice training and it improved my pitch, breathing, and my ability to sing properly without losing my voice. Still, I know my limitations and avoid crossing the boundries of those limitations. I sing songs with spirit and confidence and have grown into a pretty decent entertainer over the years. Not everyone has a natural, fantastic voice. Recognizing that is half the battle. Mike T.Mike, some of my favorite singers are baritones (and some of them don't fit that well, anywhere ). Everyone from Johnny Hartman to Nick Cave. No reason you can't sing any song you like.Why should a given song be done in any particular key, anyhow? That's why they invented capos -- and even temperament in general. I'd much rather hear someone recast a song to fit themselves, their voice and their personality (especially when the song means something to them, that always seems to shine through) than to hear some chameleonic cover band singer switching from his Steve Perry imitation to his Rob Halford imitation to his Bob Marley imitation... (although sometimes that can be sort of fascinating in a what hath God wrought kind of way). bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Originally posted by Rob4CU: Originally posted by theblue1: There was a fellow there who'll go nameless. All his vocals were in a nasal, Neil Young-stamped falsetto, but with a pitch that varied sharp and flat with little predicatbility. Add to that that his guitar work was way beneath clumsy. His rhythm parts were stiff and often missed the rhythmic mark by near tennis-shoe-in-dryer measure. Sadly, he was also convinced that he could play lead guitar.I remember this fellow...keeping him nameless is probably a good idea as I believe it is considered bad luck to utter his name out loud in any online forum... You are almost certainly correct. We must say no more for the good of the forum. bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hanshananigan Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Interesting topic- the psychology of Hung Divas! I was looking for some relevant research to post and stumbled across this off-topic but interesting article about Pete Seeger, folksinger and activist: Pete Seeger and the psychology of hope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeton Posted January 10, 2005 Share Posted January 10, 2005 quote:Originally posted by Rob4CU: quote:Originally posted by theblue1: There was a fellow there who'll go nameless. All his vocals were in a nasal, Neil Young-stamped falsetto, but with a pitch that varied sharp and flat with little predicatbility. Add to that that his guitar work was way beneath clumsy. His rhythm parts were stiff and often missed the rhythmic mark by near tennis-shoe-in-dryer measure. Sadly, he was also convinced that he could play lead guitar. I remember this fellow...keeping him nameless is probably a good idea as I believe it is considered bad luck to utter his name out loud in any online forum... [Wink] You are almost certainly correct. We must say no more for the good of the forum. I hope it's not me Dr. Seuss: The Original White Rapper . WWND? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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