Singers: voice, techniq, melodies, lyrics, passion

ExittheLemming wrote: I suspect that most of my favourite singers would rank very low on the technical 'chops' front (John Cale, Syd Barrett,  John Lydon, Mark E Smith, Robert Smith, Malcolm Mooney, John Wetton, David Byrne, Lou Reed, Robert Forster, Ray Davies, Stan Ridgway - the list goes on) but all have a unique timbre that even if not ostentatiously passionate, certainly emotes. ...

I like this.

As you well know, I come from a literary background. I had heard, BEFORE all the rock music bruhaha, a lot of the literatii read some of their stuff at home ... so hearing Jorge Amado, GM Marquez and many others read something was not news to out family, and in fact, it was one of the ways that these "literatii" inspired each other. So hearing things like Syd Barrett, for me, was highly poetic and satirical. Lou Reed, for me, was more of a very typical big city guy, that was more street wise, than anything else, and in some ways, it comes off as a satire of "meaningful cats" like Bob Dylan and so many others getting credit for their words and no one else paid attention to others in NY. London had the same thing, and even a David Bowie would have been a part of it, for example.

But, this reminds me of the first time, I heard Allen Ginsburg! Mind you I was already used to "heaging" folks read their material ... which most of us AREN'T, and will NEVER HAVE that experience! I had alreayd read many of his works and all that and NONE of them "clicked" with me at all. And one of these days (couldn't help it!), I caught the film "Tonite We All Love in London", and you get to hear him read it. Son of a gun! His words just fly right out at you with an incredible force and beauty, that you did not see before!

And that is the magic, that we have forgotten in the literature, as opposed to just "singing", which is a similar form, and we have become all jaded by the musical aspects of it, instead of its very own quality as you mentioned!

ExittheLemming wrote: ... produce good lyrics like Arthur Brown, Christian Descamps, Demetrio Stratos, Richard Sinclair ... Jon Anderson, Roger Daltrey ...

Indeed!!! And they express it very well!

The likes of Greg Lake and Robert Plant, I would say that they are very good actors, and even David Bowie fits more in this group than otherwise. But it's hard to think of the early days of Led Zeppelin and Robert practically having sex on stage with music that helped take it that far, which is something that no one here on PA has ever seen! No progressive band, EVER, has been that strong and experientially important, though I think that Jon Anderson in 2 albums alone, brought this to another level altogether, whicn none of us are capable of seeing or understanding properly.

Of all these, Greg Lake, is a magnificent actor, as is David Bowie, or Robin Williamson, or Kate Bush, and they were really good at blending their delivery to the work at hand, and it made it special. It helped that both KC and ELP brought out something completely different than just a rock song (for the most part) which helped accent the lyrics and poems that were done.

The last part, is the one many of us don't want to discuss. I just heard an interview with Robin Williamson, and he will readily tell you that he was writing poetry way before music came around for him! And we fail to understand that connection many times, and how "poetry" affects what one says, reads, sings, or states from the soap box! You and I included, of course! I get the clown outfit, and you can have the fool outfit! Or viceversa!

Very nice comments on your part, btw ... loved it! Made me think even more!

Gerinski wrote: Well, of course Pop and Commercial Rock have many more good singers than Prog, at least for what regards timbre beauty and technique (not those who need autotune of course), I guess it's because if you are really good as an instrumentalist you don't have many chances to shine in Pop, while Prog (or Jazz, JRF) gives you those chances, but for a really good singer he-she can easily shine in Pop (and make money) so they tend to go that route.

 ...well.. no. 

It's one of the remarkable things of human physiology that if you can hear sound and make a vocal sound you can sing. All humans beings can sing - some of us may not be able to sing in key, or carry a tune, or have good technique and many of us will sound just plain awful, but all that can be fixed with training and coaching to a certain degree - it will never make you a great singer but you can be taught not to be a bad one. (Finding someone who is tone-deaf is very rare because it is a neurological condition not a natural trait, if you can appreciate music you are not tone-deaf.). Singing is the first musical sound the human species ever made, musical instruments were much later inventions created to harmonise with the human singing voice. Unlike playing an instrument singing requires no special equipment and no special training, all children can sing without having lessons and without being taught.

Because we are biologically attuned to the sounds that the human voice can make we are naturally disposed to recognise a sonorous sound that appeals to us on an emotional level and we can then replicate that sound for the appeal of others. The interval between one sonorous sound and another that sounds pleasing to us (ie it is harmonious) is also a product of our biology and it can be analysed and described by mathematics (just ask Pythagoras). That harmonious interval is a constant that is shared through out the world by all humans. Because that interval is relative to the first sound we can repeat the same interval on the second to produce a third sound that is harmonious to the second... and so on until we have a whole bag full of sounds that all sound harmonious with each other. From that bag of sounds we can produce a melody and a tune and that is singing and that is how the phenomenon of music was discovered. 

This is not an invention of musicians and it is not the result of music theory  - it's the other way around - music theory describes this natural phenomenon and musicians employ it. All music and all music theory was developed from singing. It should be of no surprise that the oldest known musical instruments produce notes with intervals that we recognise as being the similar to modern instruments (unless reported in the press of course, where every ancient discover is treated with surprise). They won't have the same pitch but the intervals between notes are relatively the same - this is because the common link is the voice they were created to accompany and that has remained the same. (erm... the song remains the same... I think I've heard that before)

So singing "in tune" is a also natural process of human evolution that is common through-out the world regardless of race or culture. No matter where or when a musical tradition developed all basic singing is in pentatonic scales with the same relative intervals between notes and this is usually over more or less the same pitch range. [a link for those struggling to believe this]. This is not the same singing in key or singing in other musical scales or singing with the same pitch-tuning because all those are artificial constructs and the result of imposed standardisation.