So if he hadn't been ill, do you think his voice would have sustained a full tour with Monst?
[/QUOTE]
Personally I don't think it would have. I might be lynched for saying this but in the context of a long tour, Freddie was never the most consistent of rock singers, vocal stamina wise. When he was good, he was brilliant, but just about anyone can get worn out doing that kind of music.
I think if he'd kept at the opera thing for a while (and again I'm being hypothetical, not factoring in his illness) and fined up his technique (as a rock singer he was great, but he was absolutely not in the same league as any serious opera singer) then I think he would've gotten ever greater things out of his voice - and along with that, he also would've learned how to save it over a tour.
So who knows, maybe if things had been different he could've toured with the opera stuff. Would've been sensational, I think...
4 x Vision · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Zebonka12 wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Zebonka's Tiny Ding-a-ling wrote:[/b]
So if he hadn't been ill, do you think his voice would have sustained a full tour with Monst?
[/QUOTE]
Personally I don't think it would have. I might be lynched for saying this but in the context of a long tour, Freddie was never the most consistent of rock singers, vocal stamina wise. When he was good, he was brilliant, but just about anyone can get worn out doing that kind of music.
I think if he'd kept at the opera thing for a while (and again I'm being hypothetical, not factoring in his illness) and fined up his technique (as a rock singer he was great, but he was absolutely not in the same league as any serious opera singer) then I think he would've gotten ever greater things out of his voice - and along with that, he also would've learned how to save it over a tour.
So who knows, maybe if things had been different he could've toured with the opera stuff. Would've been sensational, I think...
[/QUOTE]
Yep, I agree... you'll probably get lynched lol. Na, I think all fans have at some point boasted that Freddie could have been an opera singer, but fact is he was just a very clever rock singer... who, as Yara pointed out, was able to use his genius and showmanship to make up for any weaknesses he may have had singing live (although I suggest reading Yara's last excellent post to get a better insight into her opinions).
I don't think he would ever have put himself through even one full "gig" with M Caballe, as he must have known that they were in different leagues vocally... and he would have put himself under too much pressure for him to bare to perform to a level that would be satisfactory (to his high standards) while playing with such a legend in opera singing (IMO).
It would have been so sweet though!
I think he may have underrated himself a little and could have at least tried singing one number live with her, instead of miming... after all, he would have had the backing singers help (which Brian used plenty of times to help boost the vocals at his solo gigs). Again, the CD I have is actually quite good to listen too and if this guy could do it, then Freddie def could have too. (Have I contradicted myself... possibly!).
I just had a thought... could you imagine Brian attempt to sing this song with MC live lol... sorry, poor Bri... lucky he was such a great guitarist tho!
john bodega · Member since
Ha! I had a similar train of thought the other day when watching Brian do a duet with Pavarotti. Regardless of what one thinks of Brian's voice, he put in as good a version of the song as he ever did, but I mean... no one measures up against ol' Luciano, really! It was pretty brave of Brian to get up and do that. I think most folks would be too chicken!
I wonder if Freddie had any such feelings about performing with Montserrat? Hmmm.
4 x Vision · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Zebonka12 wrote: [/b]
I wonder if Freddie had any such feelings about performing with Montserrat? Hmmm.
[/QUOTE]
He must have had. I think it would have probably been one of the most nerve wracking sets of his career. As good a showman as he was, he would have been worried sick his voice would have gave out on him... I think he would have tried to sing a la Live Aid and attempt all the big notes, knowing that he would be judged by the classical musical society more on his vocals than his performance.
But he would have probably been worried for nothing I'd like to think and we would have had another lovely YouTube video to watch.
turini · Member since
My favorite is probably around the time of Milton Keynes in 82, He really used the power of his voice alot more and kind of dodged the soft soothing voice that ive noticed from earlier tours.
Winter Land Man · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]artemismoon wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Yara wrote: [/b]
Do you think that? I don't know, there's been this baritone theory over there for some time, it does make sense if you listen to him talking in some interviews, but his more natural singing fell already within the low tenor range and he was very comfortable with open G notes in the higher tenor register. Anything drifting apart from it was kind of hard for him to do - the countertenor-like - it's important to distinguish the tune and the color and impression added to it - C5 in the beginning of "Let Me Entertain You" is a good example ("Isles...") - he never matched that note live, even when he did try it - he usually fell to the more traditional, comfortable and natural B4 when did want to get to the higher note.
But that's only a very unaccurate notation because, in fact, he doesn't reach [i]a countertenor [/i]C5 in the studio either - [i]he simulates the sound of it[/i], which is something very different when it comes to singing. Some musical theorists use the expression "false-baritone", "false-tenor", to distinguish the sound produced by people who comfortably sing in those ranges.
The concept of "comfortable" is not restricted to effort. It encompasses, too, the "openness", the clearness of a tune - if the tune of a singer, when he's going for higher notes, begin to sound too "close", even if high-pitched, it's very likely that he'll end up going out of tune.
I'd say that he did a good, sustainable singing keeping himself to two octaves, or maybe two and a half, that's it - the rest is either simulation, which is not bad per se but redefines the vocal range of a singer, or very sporadical moments in which the singer gets both the note, the color and the texture: there's dispute over the final, official studio version of We Are The Champions, but regardless of how the vocals have been layered and pulled together, his "FiGH-intg..." was not within his vocal habilities - it was a sound produced with much effort, after many tries, the volume of which was then leveled up to pull the song together - it's as much an industrial - commercial, conceptual, so on - and engineering product as a music one: he wouldn't sing that live even in his wildest dreams. This is a song he usually had a lot of trouble with because many times he broke the barrier between singing and shouting - and that's something people notice.
So if someone tells me: "I don't find this Mercury all that good", I fully understand, it's not as if he were a miracle in terms of live performance. He was interesting singer for those who appreciate many other aspects of singing other than vocal range - the fun, the humor, the hability to play around with his timber, which helped him simulate many notes convincingly, his wonderful musical intelligence, the way he made things happen on spot, having great ideas; not keeping to strict traditional harmonic structures in live concerts and allowing himself to improvise on the melody: that took talent, and then some!!!
I like many My Melancholy Blues live versions than the studio one. Because it's so clever. In some performances, because he didn't want to hold the falsetto "soooooon", quite risky, he used some fantastic ideas: he'd beginning trying to get a very low note - "my guess is I'm in for a cloudy overcast" - but doing variations on the timber, and then he went [b]to really[/b] sing very high notes taking into account his range: he went up, hit notes higher than in the recording - because the closing darker sound of parts of his falsetto actually dropped and mascaraded the range - and instead of closing or darkening the sound with falsettos or other techniques, he sang it very openly "Stormy Weather...": in some gigs, it was done very high-pitched and, what's great, tenderly, with delicacy and well, clear-sounding. So he builds all this tension because he's going very high, and then he just speaks the following note, dropping the tune: "soon". Hahahaha. It's wonderful. It creates a contrast that it's emotionally very moving and touching, and there's a bit of cleverness there: "Why should I stretch "soon"? "Soon" has to end...soon", isn't it? Haha.
It's, really, these things are hugely entertaining. It takes musicianship more than physical prowess or acrobatics with vocal muscles.
That made him so different and so addictive - once you listen to a song performed by him, especially live, it's very hard to take it off your head because he builds it all in such a beautiful, inteligent way.
Now, I think the guy was a genius. Really. A musician, a great musician. If he's reduced to vocal range, even if his singing is reduced to it, I think we lose the best part of it all - I mean, there's a huge amount of sophistication in his live singing, and that's something I can't deny - I listen to it and notice it. I was not bound to be a Queen fan - it were these kinds of things which attracted me to the band.
Freddie was musical. He had this way of transforming even swearing rants into sweet melodies, he had it all: a precise control over tempo, which was hard because the band was naturally very uneven in this regard, the talent to manipulate color and timber, which is very important and takes a huge amount of creativity, and a good knowledge of some very important composers - it may sound nonsense at first, but the fact the guy listened to Chopin is actually very important, because it's not only an essential part of the piano repertoire, but also very musically appealling - mutatis mutandis, of course, just like Freddie. Chopin was no Liszt in terms of virtuosity, as Freddie was no Christina Aguilera (!), but both, Chopin and Freddie, were musically more accomplished than respectivelly Liszt and Christina Aguilera.
Of course, Christina Aguilera is a virtuose and so on, but the Liszt comparation is just that - a lousy comparation. Liszt was himself a wonderful musician, but again, he had not only someone he came to hate afterwards (lol), but a mentor in Chopin, when it came to composition and musicianship.
GEEZ! I just kept writting and look the SHEER SIZE of this POST. Damn. I go on writting and forget that people don't have all the time in the world to read such extensive posts, especially in internet forums.
Well, hope it's been helpful someway. Hahaha. Damn, this is huge, I don't think it's even going to show up.
[/QUOTE]
Fred had this wonderful ability to switch to his falsetto without out being detected by the untrained ear. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do that. And you have to remember, what you hear on record is completely different than what you hear live. There are various recording tricks you can use to "sing higher". Not to mention you can do the take over and over until you get it right.
Listen to some of his live performances, you'll hear he plays it safe and when he didn't he cracked a lot. I'm not saying he's not a great singer because he is my favorite singer of all time. But, he wasn't a real tenor. Montserrat Caballé has even mentioned Fred was a baritone. Not to many baritones have the range Fred had. He was unique and will always be missed.[/QUOTE]
Freddie is my favorite singer too. Great falsetto he can do... but, Brian Wilson sing in falsetto a lot better.
inu-liger · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Jacob Britt wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]artemismoon wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Yara wrote: [/b]
Do you think that? I don't know, there's been this baritone theory over there for some time, it does make sense if you listen to him talking in some interviews, but his more natural singing fell already within the low tenor range and he was very comfortable with open G notes in the higher tenor register. Anything drifting apart from it was kind of hard for him to do - the countertenor-like - it's important to distinguish the tune and the color and impression added to it - C5 in the beginning of "Let Me Entertain You" is a good example ("Isles...") - he never matched that note live, even when he did try it - he usually fell to the more traditional, comfortable and natural B4 when did want to get to the higher note.
But that's only a very unaccurate notation because, in fact, he doesn't reach [i]a countertenor [/i]C5 in the studio either - [i]he simulates the sound of it[/i], which is something very different when it comes to singing. Some musical theorists use the expression "false-baritone", "false-tenor", to distinguish the sound produced by people who comfortably sing in those ranges.
The concept of "comfortable" is not restricted to effort. It encompasses, too, the "openness", the clearness of a tune - if the tune of a singer, when he's going for higher notes, begin to sound too "close", even if high-pitched, it's very likely that he'll end up going out of tune.
I'd say that he did a good, sustainable singing keeping himself to two octaves, or maybe two and a half, that's it - the rest is either simulation, which is not bad per se but redefines the vocal range of a singer, or very sporadical moments in which the singer gets both the note, the color and the texture: there's dispute over the final, official studio version of We Are The Champions, but regardless of how the vocals have been layered and pulled together, his "FiGH-intg..." was not within his vocal habilities - it was a sound produced with much effort, after many tries, the volume of which was then leveled up to pull the song together - it's as much an industrial - commercial, conceptual, so on - and engineering product as a music one: he wouldn't sing that live even in his wildest dreams. This is a song he usually had a lot of trouble with because many times he broke the barrier between singing and shouting - and that's something people notice.
So if someone tells me: "I don't find this Mercury all that good", I fully understand, it's not as if he were a miracle in terms of live performance. He was interesting singer for those who appreciate many other aspects of singing other than vocal range - the fun, the humor, the hability to play around with his timber, which helped him simulate many notes convincingly, his wonderful musical intelligence, the way he made things happen on spot, having great ideas; not keeping to strict traditional harmonic structures in live concerts and allowing himself to improvise on the melody: that took talent, and then some!!!
I like many My Melancholy Blues live versions than the studio one. Because it's so clever. In some performances, because he didn't want to hold the falsetto "soooooon", quite risky, he used some fantastic ideas: he'd beginning trying to get a very low note - "my guess is I'm in for a cloudy overcast" - but doing variations on the timber, and then he went [b]to really[/b] sing very high notes taking into account his range: he went up, hit notes higher than in the recording - because the closing darker sound of parts of his falsetto actually dropped and mascaraded the range - and instead of closing or darkening the sound with falsettos or other techniques, he sang it very openly "Stormy Weather...": in some gigs, it was done very high-pitched and, what's great, tenderly, with delicacy and well, clear-sounding. So he builds all this tension because he's going very high, and then he just speaks the following note, dropping the tune: "soon". Hahahaha. It's wonderful. It creates a contrast that it's emotionally very moving and touching, and there's a bit of cleverness there: "Why should I stretch "soon"? "Soon" has to end...soon", isn't it? Haha.
It's, really, these things are hugely entertaining. It takes musicianship more than physical prowess or acrobatics with vocal muscles.
That made him so different and so addictive - once you listen to a song performed by him, especially live, it's very hard to take it off your head because he builds it all in such a beautiful, inteligent way.
Now, I think the guy was a genius. Really. A musician, a great musician. If he's reduced to vocal range, even if his singing is reduced to it, I think we lose the best part of it all - I mean, there's a huge amount of sophistication in his live singing, and that's something I can't deny - I listen to it and notice it. I was not bound to be a Queen fan - it were these kinds of things which attracted me to the band.
Freddie was musical. He had this way of transforming even swearing rants into sweet melodies, he had it all: a precise control over tempo, which was hard because the band was naturally very uneven in this regard, the talent to manipulate color and timber, which is very important and takes a huge amount of creativity, and a good knowledge of some very important composers - it may sound nonsense at first, but the fact the guy listened to Chopin is actually very important, because it's not only an essential part of the piano repertoire, but also very musically appealling - mutatis mutandis, of course, just like Freddie. Chopin was no Liszt in terms of virtuosity, as Freddie was no Christina Aguilera (!), but both, Chopin and Freddie, were musically more accomplished than respectivelly Liszt and Christina Aguilera.
Of course, Christina Aguilera is a virtuose and so on, but the Liszt comparation is just that - a lousy comparation. Liszt was himself a wonderful musician, but again, he had not only someone he came to hate afterwards (lol), but a mentor in Chopin, when it came to composition and musicianship.
GEEZ! I just kept writting and look the SHEER SIZE of this POST. Damn. I go on writting and forget that people don't have all the time in the world to read such extensive posts, especially in internet forums.
Well, hope it's been helpful someway. Hahaha. Damn, this is huge, I don't think it's even going to show up.
[/QUOTE]
Fred had this wonderful ability to switch to his falsetto without out being detected by the untrained ear. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do that. And you have to remember, what you hear on record is completely different than what you hear live. There are various recording tricks you can use to "sing higher". Not to mention you can do the take over and over until you get it right.
Listen to some of his live performances, you'll hear he plays it safe and when he didn't he cracked a lot. I'm not saying he's not a great singer because he is my favorite singer of all time. But, he wasn't a real tenor. Montserrat Caballé has even mentioned Fred was a baritone. Not to many baritones have the range Fred had. He was unique and will always be missed.[/QUOTE]
Freddie is my favorite singer too. Great falsetto he can do... but, Brian Wilson sing in falsetto a lot better.
[/QUOTE]
Did Freddie spend a year in bed singing in falsetto?
Winter Land Man · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]inu-liger wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Jacob Britt wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]artemismoon wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Yara wrote: [/b]
Do you think that? I don't know, there's been this baritone theory over there for some time, it does make sense if you listen to him talking in some interviews, but his more natural singing fell already within the low tenor range and he was very comfortable with open G notes in the higher tenor register. Anything drifting apart from it was kind of hard for him to do - the countertenor-like - it's important to distinguish the tune and the color and impression added to it - C5 in the beginning of "Let Me Entertain You" is a good example ("Isles...") - he never matched that note live, even when he did try it - he usually fell to the more traditional, comfortable and natural B4 when did want to get to the higher note.
But that's only a very unaccurate notation because, in fact, he doesn't reach [i]a countertenor [/i]C5 in the studio either - [i]he simulates the sound of it[/i], which is something very different when it comes to singing. Some musical theorists use the expression "false-baritone", "false-tenor", to distinguish the sound produced by people who comfortably sing in those ranges.
The concept of "comfortable" is not restricted to effort. It encompasses, too, the "openness", the clearness of a tune - if the tune of a singer, when he's going for higher notes, begin to sound too "close", even if high-pitched, it's very likely that he'll end up going out of tune.
I'd say that he did a good, sustainable singing keeping himself to two octaves, or maybe two and a half, that's it - the rest is either simulation, which is not bad per se but redefines the vocal range of a singer, or very sporadical moments in which the singer gets both the note, the color and the texture: there's dispute over the final, official studio version of We Are The Champions, but regardless of how the vocals have been layered and pulled together, his "FiGH-intg..." was not within his vocal habilities - it was a sound produced with much effort, after many tries, the volume of which was then leveled up to pull the song together - it's as much an industrial - commercial, conceptual, so on - and engineering product as a music one: he wouldn't sing that live even in his wildest dreams. This is a song he usually had a lot of trouble with because many times he broke the barrier between singing and shouting - and that's something people notice.
So if someone tells me: "I don't find this Mercury all that good", I fully understand, it's not as if he were a miracle in terms of live performance. He was interesting singer for those who appreciate many other aspects of singing other than vocal range - the fun, the humor, the hability to play around with his timber, which helped him simulate many notes convincingly, his wonderful musical intelligence, the way he made things happen on spot, having great ideas; not keeping to strict traditional harmonic structures in live concerts and allowing himself to improvise on the melody: that took talent, and then some!!!
I like many My Melancholy Blues live versions than the studio one. Because it's so clever. In some performances, because he didn't want to hold the falsetto "soooooon", quite risky, he used some fantastic ideas: he'd beginning trying to get a very low note - "my guess is I'm in for a cloudy overcast" - but doing variations on the timber, and then he went [b]to really[/b] sing very high notes taking into account his range: he went up, hit notes higher than in the recording - because the closing darker sound of parts of his falsetto actually dropped and mascaraded the range - and instead of closing or darkening the sound with falsettos or other techniques, he sang it very openly "Stormy Weather...": in some gigs, it was done very high-pitched and, what's great, tenderly, with delicacy and well, clear-sounding. So he builds all this tension because he's going very high, and then he just speaks the following note, dropping the tune: "soon". Hahahaha. It's wonderful. It creates a contrast that it's emotionally very moving and touching, and there's a bit of cleverness there: "Why should I stretch "soon"? "Soon" has to end...soon", isn't it? Haha.
It's, really, these things are hugely entertaining. It takes musicianship more than physical prowess or acrobatics with vocal muscles.
That made him so different and so addictive - once you listen to a song performed by him, especially live, it's very hard to take it off your head because he builds it all in such a beautiful, inteligent way.
Now, I think the guy was a genius. Really. A musician, a great musician. If he's reduced to vocal range, even if his singing is reduced to it, I think we lose the best part of it all - I mean, there's a huge amount of sophistication in his live singing, and that's something I can't deny - I listen to it and notice it. I was not bound to be a Queen fan - it were these kinds of things which attracted me to the band.
Freddie was musical. He had this way of transforming even swearing rants into sweet melodies, he had it all: a precise control over tempo, which was hard because the band was naturally very uneven in this regard, the talent to manipulate color and timber, which is very important and takes a huge amount of creativity, and a good knowledge of some very important composers - it may sound nonsense at first, but the fact the guy listened to Chopin is actually very important, because it's not only an essential part of the piano repertoire, but also very musically appealling - mutatis mutandis, of course, just like Freddie. Chopin was no Liszt in terms of virtuosity, as Freddie was no Christina Aguilera (!), but both, Chopin and Freddie, were musically more accomplished than respectivelly Liszt and Christina Aguilera.
Of course, Christina Aguilera is a virtuose and so on, but the Liszt comparation is just that - a lousy comparation. Liszt was himself a wonderful musician, but again, he had not only someone he came to hate afterwards (lol), but a mentor in Chopin, when it came to composition and musicianship.
GEEZ! I just kept writting and look the SHEER SIZE of this POST. Damn. I go on writting and forget that people don't have all the time in the world to read such extensive posts, especially in internet forums.
Well, hope it's been helpful someway. Hahaha. Damn, this is huge, I don't think it's even going to show up.
[/QUOTE]
Fred had this wonderful ability to switch to his falsetto without out being detected by the untrained ear. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do that. And you have to remember, what you hear on record is completely different than what you hear live. There are various recording tricks you can use to "sing higher". Not to mention you can do the take over and over until you get it right.
Listen to some of his live performances, you'll hear he plays it safe and when he didn't he cracked a lot. I'm not saying he's not a great singer because he is my favorite singer of all time. But, he wasn't a real tenor. Montserrat Caballé has even mentioned Fred was a baritone. Not to many baritones have the range Fred had. He was unique and will always be missed.[/QUOTE]
Freddie is my favorite singer too. Great falsetto he can do... but, Brian Wilson sing in falsetto a lot better.
[/QUOTE]
Did Freddie spend a year in bed singing in falsetto?[/QUOTE]
I don't understand your post. I don't believe either of them did that.
inu-liger · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]Jacob Britt wrote: [/b]
I don't understand your post. I don't believe either of them did that.
[/QUOTE]
It was a bad attempt at joking about when Brian Wilson apparently spent a year or so laying in bed, doing cocaine or something.......read it somewhere a while ago.
Winter Land Man · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]inu-liger wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]Jacob Britt wrote: [/b]
I don't understand your post. I don't believe either of them did that.
[/QUOTE]
It was a bad attempt at joking about when Brian Wilson apparently spent a year or so laying in bed, doing cocaine or something.......read it somewhere a while ago.
[/QUOTE]
He spent three years in bed... but he didn't record any music or sing. He listened to the Ronette's 'Be My Baby' over and over again, at times he did leave his bed and went to Danny Huttons to get drugs, but for most of the time he'd stay in his room and he'd watch Johnny Carson or Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, eat plenty of food, smoke 6 or 7 packs of cigarettes a day, etc. He'd drink a lot too. The lifestyle ruined his falsetto for years afterwards.
Legy · Member since
LOL! I gots the joke.
Brian Wilson and Mercury were one of a kind. We're very fortunate Fred left us while still on top of his game vocally, although his demise was quite tragic. Wilson on the other hand is not even half the artist he once was. His previous drug abuse has really taken a toll on a once wonderful musician.
dewantari deaky · Member since
love his range in 70's era, it sounds soft, gently, lovable but strong enough to kill all the songs haha. and i always take it as a reason why many girls could be adored by Freddie. for live, i like Freddie's voice in Rock Montreal, really powerful and lovable haha. in Wembley '86 he still got the power but sadly the range is really different.
liam · Member since
My favourite era is ANATO and ADATR. I love his soft, delicate and almost feminine singing in these albums and he has i think he has an emotional ability with his voice that he lost after these albums. I know his power wasnt as great as the late 70's and 80's but i think it was his most beautiful work.
john bodega · Member since
[QUOTE]
[b]artemismoon wrote: [/b]
Wilson on the other hand is not even half the artist he once was. His previous drug abuse has really taken a toll on a once wonderful musician .[/QUOTE]
He'd make a splendid comedy act.
PauloPanucci · Member since
I like so much the Freddie's voice in "The Show must go on"... and on "return of the champions" when shows Freddie singing BoRhap, his voice is very cool!
