Quote:
Originally Posted by rokdog49
Good job Glenn, I made my wife listen. 
She's my my most honest critic. She loved your guitar playing, gave you a ten.
On the vocals she thought they were recorded a little too upfront. She won't critique vocals on their merit because she knows how difficult they are. She did say you have a pleasant voice.
I thought your vocals were very good...that song is not easy to sing. |
Hi Jamie,
Thanks so much for your insightful comments and thank your wife for me. Very generous of her to listen and offer her thoughts.
You are right that this is not an easy song to sing. It is highly stylized and the truth is, it tends to take a younger voice to really be good at the methods used by Richard Marx. The notes are often ended up with upward movements, going up another 3rd or so. This kind of vocal gymnastics takes a really flexible set of vocal chords, which really can work well with a younger voice. And Richard Marx really had a great upper range -- still does, actually. As we get older, we tend to lose that agility in our vocal chords. I sure wish I had my voice back from when I was 30 years old or so...
Also, regarding the vocals being too "up front," actually, I tend to agree with your wife's comment in that regard, also. So your wife is a very astute listener. I brought the vocal up front more on this piece compared to usual because I felt that with the guitar playing the melody line, it was competing too much with the voice. If I had just been playing some finger picking pattern to accompany the voice, I would have had the vocal at a somewhat lower level. I struggled with this decision a little bit, so I think it's really interesting that your wife was attuned to this. Good for her!
Thanks so much for your thoughts, Jamie.
- Glenn