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04 June 2010
Which singer do you wish you could sing like?→[More:]Mrs. B. asked me this the other day and I gave it a lot of thought.
For wooing one's special lady, nothing could be better than to sing like Johnny Hartman. And my opera fantasy is singing like Gary Lakes in Act I of Die Walkure.
But for day-to-day pleasure, I think I'd be able to sing like Robert Plant.
I mentioned today on twitter that I am currently nursing a man-crush on The Tallest Man on Earth and I think it's partly because I wish I could sing like him.
I'd be happy if I could sing as well as Bob Dylan or Joe Strummer. I can't sing a note.
Yeah, that's me.
I guess Levon Helm would be cool. But I'll pick Cindy Lauper. Since I'm a guy, if I sang in her voice I think the freak show aspect of it would insure I'd always be able to make a living singing.
Ok, seriously, I can't Sing sing. But as close as I get to Sing singing, I sound like a Carny Cher. So, I would like to sound like Cher. Because that is as close to something I could grasp and aim for and possibly, with a magic pill or operation, get to. She does not have one of my favorite voices, but I can't consider the question out of the context of things I could never possibly do, just only appreciate,
I mean, secretly, I would like to sing like Diamanda Galas, but that is so far away, I'll just listen, you know?
You can't really sound like Levon Helm unless you were born on a cotton farm in Turkey Scratch Arkansas during the depression and then lived on bourbon and cigarettes for the next fifty years.
Van Morrison, the '70s version (I had Saint Dominic's Preview on vinyl so many years ago). But I'd leave out the 'total crotchety bastard' part of the VM persona.
Axl Rose is a good choice. Unfortunately I'm a bariton while rock singers often are tenors. Also, being middle aged, I have to struggle harder to reach the high notes. It seems my chords are less flexible. In highschool I was able to sing a baroque opera entirely; both the parts of the tenor and the soprano. "Non, je ne te crois point! Quelque secrète chaîne te retient et s'oppose à mes voeux les plus doux."
The upside is that I now have a bit more of gravel in my voice which benefits soul and pop.
It's easiest for me to sound like David Bowie. Or Phil Oakley (Human League), Dave Gahan (Depêche Mode). (What happened to dramatic baritons? Did they go out of fashion with the 80s?)
I recently discovered a great way of practicing: during my commute drive I'll have the in-ear phone of my mp3 player in one ear. That way I can sing along, but also hear my own result clearly with my other ear. That works great. As a result I've been practicing singing for two hours every day recently.
I like to sing along to women. Men in pop often sing a bit too high for me. Which is interesting practice if not very euphonious.
I wish I had the voice (translated to a man) of a young Dusty Springfield. There's an effortless, very expressive resonance to her voice in all registers. I like Natasha St Pier as well.
I've been practicing I started a joke. Which is quite a challenge: "I looked at the skies" needs such resonance in the sinuses and such sustain.
Orange Swan, I think a lot of dilettante singers like you and me have soft voices because of practising quietly in our bedrooms as a teenager. The boon of practising in the car is that nobody hears you so you can take more risks. It has been a bit of a revelation to me what I can do as a result. There's an element of 'jumping' in there. You have to just try out some things and see how it works out. At high volume and a fully opened larynx you have less control so there's a risk of sounding awful. But after a bit of practice you learn which things work. And then it can turn out quite powerful.
I guess a lot of singers in soul, but also for instance Jacques Brel, started out singing in pubs with a rowdy audience. So they really needed to crank it up. And that really adds to the passionate expressiveness.
I also would like to sound like Marvin Gaye, or Sam and Dave.
I get pretty far with Marving Gaye. But the shouty powerful way of singing of Sam and Dave is beyond me.
I also fail to sound like Jacques Brel unfortunately.
Also some singers just have an amazing resonance to their voice apart from technique. It seems that Randy Crawford was never succesful back home in the US while quite a few of her songs are staple romantic hits here in the Netherlands.
It's pointless to try to sound like people like her. Because it's just a genetic gift.
Anyhow; it's fun talking about singing with you people. Singing is the one thing that has never failed to make me happy. From the age of 5 on up, through the hardest times.
When I look at my musical preferences I guess I should be gay.
Ella Fitzgerald. I always wished I could sing like she does: the quiet nuances, the big bold belting-out, and everything in between.
More than anything else, she made it look easy, and like a dummy, I thought that meant it was easy, so for a lot of my young life, I really thought it was possible that I'd grow up to sing like her, with enough training and practice.
Freddie Mercury. Which I do, on occasion. The only problem is that, unlike Freddie, I don't usually have a sequencer on hand and can't sing four-part harmony with myself.
Sarah Watkins, formerly of Nickel Creek, has one of my favorite voices. Like an adolescent angel. Again, this voice is so far from my own, I can't even think about having it, but man, I love that voice.
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