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Other singer-type people: I have a question!
Background: my singing voice is pretty high. Often referred to as "freakishly high" or "my god, that's high" or any of a number of other things. And yet... I have trouble singing along with much of the stuff coming out of popular bands (including FOB, MCR, Panic, etc.) lately. Is it something in the water? I've checked pitches and it turns out these guys (I'm looking at Patrick and Gerard here, but Brendon too, to some extent) are wailing away on Bs and B-flats seemingly without any trouble at all. Now, most of the singing along I do is done in the car, where I know it's hard to have proper breath support, but I have seen video of these guys singing, and they do it in all sorts of weird positions -- Patrick appears to like singing *up* into the mic, Gerard will bend way over when singing, and Brendon's a spazz monkey -- so that can't be *all* of it. Based on the tone color these guys have, plus their speaking voices and what sounds like their natural tessitura, they're WAY out of their comfort zone on virtually every song.
So what gives? Are they just blowing out their voices while young? It doesn't *sound* that way. They can't be singing everything from their throats, or they'd have been shredded long ago. Do they really have voices that are that much higher than mine? I really, really doubt it. I'm guessing that there's some rock-y technique that my classical training is causing me to discount or ignore -- any thoughts? For live shows, I'm willing to buy that adrenaline does a lot of it -- I've been there; I know you get an extra whole step or minor third on top of your regular range when you've got an audience feeding energy back at you -- but to hang out in the high-F-to-high-C range all night is still pretty damn difficult. And what about when they're in the studio? Even though you can do it over and over and over again, if you don't have the notes, you don't have the notes.
Did my generation's voices just jump a third or a fifth or something? The only people I can think of who are comparable, range-wise, in prior years are Bryan Adams and Steve Perry.
Background: my singing voice is pretty high. Often referred to as "freakishly high" or "my god, that's high" or any of a number of other things. And yet... I have trouble singing along with much of the stuff coming out of popular bands (including FOB, MCR, Panic, etc.) lately. Is it something in the water? I've checked pitches and it turns out these guys (I'm looking at Patrick and Gerard here, but Brendon too, to some extent) are wailing away on Bs and B-flats seemingly without any trouble at all. Now, most of the singing along I do is done in the car, where I know it's hard to have proper breath support, but I have seen video of these guys singing, and they do it in all sorts of weird positions -- Patrick appears to like singing *up* into the mic, Gerard will bend way over when singing, and Brendon's a spazz monkey -- so that can't be *all* of it. Based on the tone color these guys have, plus their speaking voices and what sounds like their natural tessitura, they're WAY out of their comfort zone on virtually every song.
So what gives? Are they just blowing out their voices while young? It doesn't *sound* that way. They can't be singing everything from their throats, or they'd have been shredded long ago. Do they really have voices that are that much higher than mine? I really, really doubt it. I'm guessing that there's some rock-y technique that my classical training is causing me to discount or ignore -- any thoughts? For live shows, I'm willing to buy that adrenaline does a lot of it -- I've been there; I know you get an extra whole step or minor third on top of your regular range when you've got an audience feeding energy back at you -- but to hang out in the high-F-to-high-C range all night is still pretty damn difficult. And what about when they're in the studio? Even though you can do it over and over and over again, if you don't have the notes, you don't have the notes.
Did my generation's voices just jump a third or a fifth or something? The only people I can think of who are comparable, range-wise, in prior years are Bryan Adams and Steve Perry.
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