How do your singers handle high notes?

[rangefinder]

Hey, everybody. Remember me? If not you can skip down to "QUESTION" below...

 

I'm an (aspiring) singer/frontman/keys player with exactly zero real-world band experience. Back a good long while ago, y'all advised me to GET some real-world experience. Which was excellent advice, but for various reasons I instead decided to spend a year in my (minimalist) home studio making a full-length demo album (which has been getting rave reviews FWIW, with everyone saying the lead track should be a radio hit).

What to DO with the demo album is an entirely separate topic, but I'm not going to do ANYTHING with it until I finally GET some real-world experience.

Anyhow... I'm starting down that path by singing some karaoke and doing some networking (it's a pretty small scene around here), and plan to work my way up to open mic nights, then to sitting in with current bands, then to finding my own cover band. The original stuff can wait a bit.

So, now to my QUESTION:

In songs like "Don't Stop Believin'" or "You Shook Me All Night Long", how do your singers handle the highest notes if they CAN actually reach them? I'm talking about the ones C5 and above. I busted my ass to be able to nail those notes in the studio, but now I'm realizing that it may be pointless to try in a live setting because:

1.) They aren't all that easy to hit in the middle of a live performance and they sound awful if you miss them

2.) Even if you nail them they seem to get lost in all the music/background noise anyway

3.) They put undue strain on the vocals, better to just give your voice a break.

So I'm thinking I should just rearrange the songs and drop those highest notes down a bit. That's what everyone else seems to do, even the original singers in concert. Another option is to keep the original note progression but drop the whole song down a couple of tones.

Thoughts?

[Vito Corleone]

 

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rangefinder wrote:

 

 

So, now to my QUESTION:

 

In songs like "Don't Stop Believin'" or "You Shook Me All Night Long", how do your singers handle the highest notes if they CAN actually reach them? I'm talking about the ones C5 and above. I busted my ass to be able to nail those notes in the studio, but now I'm realizing that it may be pointless to try in a live setting because:

 

1.) They aren't all that easy to hit in the middle of a live performance and they sound awful if you miss them

 

2.) Even if you nail them they seem to get lost in all the music/background noise anyway

 

3.) They put undue strain on the vocals, better to just give your voice a break.

 

So I'm thinking I should just rearrange the songs and drop those highest notes down a bit. That's what everyone else seems to do, even the original singers in concert. Another option is to keep the original note progression but drop the whole song down a couple of tones.

 

Thoughts?

---

 

Better to sing what you can sing well, rather than to struggle hitting notes you can't.    Like you said, even the original singers don't bother with the highest notes sometimes.  

Dropping down the song is fine when it works, but isn't always desriable when dealing with guitar parts that are played around open tunings and/or low E string riffs.   The two songs you mentioned pretty much fall into these catagories.  

[joshmac]

head voice w/ proper projection technique or just change the key to something more suitable

[StratGuy22]

Sing sing sing. Also there's a spot in the night during a given when you are in fire. I can hit the nigh note at the end of Longtime by Boston. And the "turn the lights out" part on You've got another thing comin by Judas Priest. But I'm not a high Vince Neil type.

[Vito Corleone]

Yeah, it never sounded like actual singing to me. Just more of a head voice scream that has some sense of pitch to it.

[Shart]

You guys rippin on Brian Johnson? He's surely not a choir teacher's wet dream but I think he makes some damn fine rock n' roll sounds. I don't think he'd make a good solo acoustic/lounge singer. If I tried to sound like that I probably wouldn't be able to talk ever again.

[rangefinder]

 

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guido61 wrote:

 

Yeah, it never sounded like actual singing to me. Just more of a head voice scream that has some sense of pitch to it.

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IDK I broke down YSMANL just like any other song. I think he's on pitch the whole way, and I can get close to his sound by moving my "target" more towards the roof of my mouth than the front i.e. it's not really a scream like the current crop of death metal guys.

His other songs might be looser, of course.

[TrickyBoy]

A few things:

1.  If we can't sing a song well we don't do it.  Period, no discussion.  Shook Me would go over great with our audience, but we sound like ass singing it, so we don't do it.

2.  The two songs you mentioned are the ultimate crowd participation tunes.  When you get to the high notes, hold the mic out toward the crowd and mouth the words.  They will take it from there.  If it's a dead night, skip those songs.

3.  We transpose songs constantly.  No shame in that IMO.

[Potts]

 

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TrickyBoy wrote:

 

 

A few things:

 

1.  If we can't sing a song well we don't do it.  Period, no discussion.  Shook Me would go over great with our audience, but we sound like ass singing it, so we don't do it.

 

2.  The two songs you mentioned are the ultimate crowd participation tunes.  When you get to the high notes, hold the mic out toward the crowd and mouth the words.  They will take it from there.  If it's a dead night, skip those songs.

 

3.  We transpose songs constantly.  No shame in that IMO.

---

 

 

 

DING!DING! DING!

We have a winner!

[rangefinder]

 

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TrickyBoy wrote:

 

 

A few things:

 

1.  If we can't sing a song well we don't do it.  Period, no discussion.  Shook Me would go over great with our audience, but we sound like ass singing it, so we don't do it.

 

2.  The two songs you mentioned are the ultimate crowd participation tunes.  When you get to the high notes, hold the mic out toward the crowd and mouth the words.  They will take it from there.  If it's a dead night, skip those songs.

 

3.  We transpose songs constantly.  No shame in that IMO.

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Hmm, each item is solid advice of course, but if you think Shook Me would go over great with the audience, I'd think you'd find a way to do it, taking advantage of the other two e.g. transpose it down a bit and then say "OK we can't really sing this song all that great, so y'all are going to have to join in" then have fun with it. Of all the songs where you can get away with not sounding great vocally, I think this one would be near the top of the list.

Just a thought...

[Vito Corleone]

Yep^^^

[wheresgrant3]

 

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TrickyBoy wrote:

 

 

A few things:

 

1.  If we can't sing a song well we don't do it.  Period, no discussion.  Shook Me would go over great with our audience, but we sound like ass singing it, so we don't do it.

 

2.  The two songs you mentioned are the ultimate crowd participation tunes.  When you get to the high notes, hold the mic out toward the crowd and mouth the words.  They will take it from there.  If it's a dead night, skip those songs.

 

3.  We transpose songs constantly.  No shame in that IMO.

---

 

My response was .. throw the mic to the audience and let them grab the notes. For years we've been spoiled with having a large crowd to throw the mic to but Jason has the perfect strategy laid out. 

[StratGuy22]

We play don't stop believing in D instead of E.

[MusicalSchizo]

This is a weird thing that I've found to be true for me (and I can hit all the notes you were talking about):

If you've prepared yourself appropriately as a singer, and you're warm, generally the only obstacle to a note at the edge of your range is your own self-consciousness. Just believe you're going to get there. I heard Stevie Wonder say it once, something like "just go for it - if you don't believe you're going to hit it, you're not going to hit it". Doubt is the enemy here. I took that to heart, and generally speaking if I'm confident and warmed up (and it's something realistic for me to hit, of course - we're not talking soprano parts here), I don't miss the note.

But your mileage may vary...I think commitment and confidence in your ability are essential tools for the performing musician.

Brian V.

[Bajazz]

 

I would suggest to work a bit with your vocal technique to be able to nail those high notes. Brian Johnson use a technique called "reinforced falsetto" for the upper range, and Steve Perry goes seamless from strong falsetto to headvoice.

 

Jaime Vendera have some good stuff and Brett Manning have something called "Mastering Mix" who deal with this. Personally I've found singing a lot in falsetto helps on all aspect of upper range.

 

Put shortly: If you have to push hard to reach the notes, you are doing it wrong.