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Post by Mikie on Feb 23, 2020 12:41:53 GMT -5
Well, he's admitted to still having stage fright, and during live performances that's understandable, Pete. But there's still the voice. Plus, sometimes he sings staccato and doesn't annunciate or he shouts. That shows a lack of proper breathing and voice control. Or that he's bored and not into it. Or c) all of the above.
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Post by E on Feb 23, 2020 13:29:27 GMT -5
I'm sure I read that some time in the 90s, he was receiving singing lessons
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Post by Mikie on Feb 23, 2020 13:59:49 GMT -5
I'm sure I read that some time in the 90s, he was receiving singing lessons Edited: Around 1985, producer Steve Levine suggested that Brian employ a vocal coach.
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Post by E on Feb 23, 2020 14:26:25 GMT -5
Wonder if he still does...
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Post by drbeachboy (Dirk) on Feb 23, 2020 15:10:46 GMT -5
Wonder if he still does... I don’t think so, and if so, they should be fired.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2020 15:32:52 GMT -5
I'm sure I read that some time in the 90s, he was receiving singing lessons Probably more than once. Around 1985, producer Steve Levine suggested that Brian take voice lessons. If he did anything to help improve his breath control and range it was by hiring a vocal coach. 'Singing lessons' is the wrong term.
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Post by Cam Mott on Feb 23, 2020 16:10:17 GMT -5
Has it ever been confirmed that some sort of pitch correcting device or application (whatever technically correct terminology) was used in early C50?
Can the new technologies confirm or disprove the use of pitch correction on recent Brian albums?
We are adult enough to handle these topics here right.
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Post by Mikie on Feb 23, 2020 16:45:30 GMT -5
Can the new technologies confirm or disprove the use of pitch correction on recent Brian albums? We are adult enough to handle these topics here right. Well, some of us can handle it, Cam. I was just reading yesterday where it was stated that pitch correction was used on the Brian Wilson 88 album, and I'm not surprised. But they didn't use the "autotune" technology yet back in 1988, so the C50 is another story (and maybe another thread).
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Feb 23, 2020 17:58:10 GMT -5
Auto Tune was used on C50. Brian reportedly LIKED the sound of auto-tune.
Vocal Correction was used on BB85 and BW88.
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Post by AGD on Feb 23, 2020 18:06:55 GMT -5
Ignoring his studio recorded vocals, which can be tweaked and sweetened, Brian has often professed his fondness for touring , but rarely admitted that he actually enjoys performing live.
More than once in the past decade or so, he's flat out said that he likes everything about touring except performing.
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Post by AGD on Feb 23, 2020 18:13:11 GMT -5
Auto Tune was used on C50. Brian reportedly LIKED the sound of auto-tune.
Vocal Correction was used on BB85 and BW88.
I think Cam means the live shows, not the CD (which is all but unlistenable because of it), and the answer is yes: I was told at the time that for the first handful of shows some form of live autotune/pitch correction was used, and seemingly the band weren't aware of it... and when they found out, they were not at all amused.
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Post by lonelysummer on Feb 23, 2020 23:08:54 GMT -5
I'm sure I read that some time in the 90s, he was receiving singing lessons Edited: Around 1985, producer Steve Levine suggested that Brian employ a vocal coach. I read somewhere that in later years, Carl was seeing a vocal coach, too. Al asked him why he was doing this so late in the game, and Carl mentioned "Wouldn't it Be Nice".
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Feb 23, 2020 23:16:56 GMT -5
Edited: Around 1985, producer Steve Levine suggested that Brian employ a vocal coach. I read somewhere that in later years, Carl was seeing a vocal coach, too. Al asked him why he was doing this so late in the game, and Carl mentioned "Wouldn't it Be Nice". Interesting that Carl took over the lead on WIBN from Al. I noticed that Al had trouble hitting the notes in the early '90s.
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Post by andrewhickey on Feb 24, 2020 5:32:42 GMT -5
I think we're actually looking at several different causes for the changes in Brian's voice over the years, not one single thing. I think it's a process, and it goes something like this:
Brian's "original" voice, on the hits, doesn't actually use much true falsetto. He had a huge overlap between his full voice and his falsetto, so would only go to actual falsetto for the very top notes, and is otherwise just singing in a very high tenor. He can transition between the high tenor and the falsetto almost imperceptibly because of this large overlap.
From some time around the mid sixties -- and I'd speculate this is because of his weight gain rather than anything else -- that overlap starts to erode. He can still hit the same range of notes, but he's having to do more of them in actual falsetto than in full voice, and so he starts giving parts he would have otherwise sung to Al and Bruce instead.
In 74ish, Brian makes a conscious decision to sing in a more "low and manly" voice, and his lower range becomes rougher. I suspect that a *big* part of this is to do with his unresolved issues with his dad, who died around this time -- he's suddenly sounding a lot more like Murry. There's also the Randy Newman influence here, and I think there might *also* be an element of sour grapes -- as it's getting more difficult for him to sound good on the high notes, he decides he doesn't want to sing those parts anyway.
By the time of Love You and MIU, that overlap range is completely gone, because tobacco and cocaine have taken away what's left of it. He can still hit the high notes, but it's all falsetto and more shrieked than sung. But if you listen to him singing in his low range, on, say, "Wontcha Come Out Tonight?" he's still using his low range perfectly musically -- he's still a good singer. And at this point, with proper care, he could still probably have regained all of his voice.
In the eighties, once Landy's involved, he cuts out all the tobacco and cocaine, and loses the roughness. But Landy has him on uppers, and he's *singing* like someone on uppers (and also still trying to sing like Newman -- some of the 88/Sweet Insanity stuff is spookily similar to Newman).
Then comes what I think is the point of no return. At some point, something during the Landy era causes permanent brain damage in Brian (Brian has himself said on several occasions that he's brain-damaged, so I'm not speculating unkindly here). My guess (and this *is* speculation) is that part of the brain involved in motor control of his mouth and vocal cords is damaged. From this point on he slurs a lot more (though some of that may be from whatever other medication he's on), and his vocal problems become more about control than about his chest and throat.
I think Brian from the mid-eighties to the early 2010s was physically capable of singing as well as he ever had, or close to it. I think the problem at that point was that a lot of things that he used to do automatically now required his full concentration because of the affected parts of his brain. It's like if, every time you walked somewhere, you had to think to yourself "now I'm going to lift my left leg up -- must remember to bend it at the knee as well -- now I'm going to put it down again, a couple of feet in front of where it was before. Now I must shift my balance to get a new centre of gravity, so I don't fall over. Now, I must lift my right leg up..."
So in the studio he could turn in performances like "She Says That She Needs Me", which are as strong as anything he'd done, because he could take the time to do it right. And on a good day he could do marvellous things live -- especially when he was properly relaxed and in a comfortable environment and didn't have anything else to distract him. As late as 2014 I've seen him give a spellbinding performance of "God Only Knows". But if he lost concentration -- and there are so many things going on in a live show that *anyone* would lose concentration at points -- he'd be thrown, as if you accidentally got the sequence of leg movements wrong and tried to lift your right leg up while your left leg was in the air.
And I think more recently, from 2016 on, he's also been having breathing problems which have affected his phrasing, as well as his obvious increased physical discomfort from his back.
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