question on deep blues vocals

[iamanders]

Howdy!

I watched an interesting interview with Muddy Waters. At 6: 00 he said something about singing the deep blues. What do you as singers say about this? Is deep blues the most difficult music to sing? Does it require much more than just vocal technique that you learn by going to a vocal coach?

[PipeDreamTenor]

This is very subjective. He is basically saying it's difficult because you need to have the 'soul' to sing it, it's nothing to do with technique as such. Some would even say that having too much good technique would ruin your 'soul'. In blues and other similar genres, it is often the imperfections that convey 'soul'. No genre is more or less difficult to sing, it depends on your attractor state - how your voice is naturally.

[WRGKMC]

I read an article on blues once. It may have been BB King that wrote it but it helped me to understand the blues better then any other.

 

Blues come form Gospel music of course. The whole focus is overcoming hardship and receiving redemption.

 

Most important thing to remember is - Blues are not sung "by" people who are feeling Blue.

They are sung "to" people who have the Blues by someone who has already overcome those adversities using first hand identification with people feeling bad to give them the "Good News" from a mindset of joy as a method of elevating others out of their depression.

 

This is no different then what a preachers does in church. They identify with the suffering and show people the path to salvation. Of course the lyrics in many blues songs cover topics and cover things the church usually didn't approve of, often being branded the devils music. The methods used to draw people in were identical but the end motives were rarely the same. The music so closely copied what many blacks sang in church that it provided the same kind of uplifting to peoples hearts. Problem is you're rarely told in blues songs what the "rest of the story" is like you would in church so blues can be a hamster wheel for many peoples emotions which goes round and round in a cycle but never ends unless you escape from that cage. Just food for thought.

 

You'll find allot of rock music is blues based too. One interesting thing you can try when you have time. Google up one of these top 100 lyrics sites. I found one that went year by year from the 40's to present. I actually went in and read the lyrics to most of the songs, and to be honest I couldn't find many that had very good story or had good poetry.

 

Maybe one out of 100 each year came close with a few years having more. I was amazed at how many songs had non seneschal lyrics out there. Makes you realize, just how abstract vocals often are. They are in fact a big chunk of the emotional link to the music and words help with that. Unless you're into opera/stage/musicals etc where the vocals are 100% up front, you realize lyrics play a smaller role then many realize because the words are the first thing they forget and its the feeling they remember.