Conference mr1pst::music

    
    
    Pardon me for being frank, but I don't think you've got a clue about
    what oversinging is about.  The instrumental equivalent is called
    overplaying and refers to an artist so infatuated with his/her own
    technical capability that they lose the feel of the piece he/she is
    performing.  Of course, this is a judgement call for the listener, so
    you'll rarely hear people speak about an artist that overplays all of
    the time (with the possible exception of Yngwie Malmsteen).
    
    Trying to reduce this kind of thing to black vs. white is really
    misleading...
    
    

    >Pardon me for being frank, but I don't think you've got a clue about
    >what oversinging is about.
    
    Possibly. I was interested in finding out how others defined it, as 
    it is term I see used a lot in here.
    
    >an artist so infatuated with his/her own
    >technical capability that they lose the feel of the piece he/she is
    >performing.  Of course, this is a judgement call for the listener,
    
    Exactly.
    
    

  I like .1's characterization of oversinging/overplaying.  Like jealousy, a
  form of self-love.  Occurs naturally in the young musician.
  
  I also agree with .0 that different musical traditions support different
  paradigms for singing.  If you don't see eye-to-eye with that paradigm...

  E.g., Classical singing, esp. operatic, can have a highly mannered quality
  that makes it sound like oversinging to me.  (Then again, simple leider,
  voice w/ single accompanying instrument, is OK.)  Gospel-influenced soul
  singers ain't too proud to beg, and country singers cry tears in their
  beers.  To some people, these sound like oversinging.
  
  Oversinging exemplified, IMO, was Michael Bolton's televised appearance
  singing "Georgia On My Mind" with Ray Charles.  (Michael MacDonald, on the
  same broadcast, arguably did not oversing.)  Stevie Wonder, also part of
  that tribute to Ray, oversings a lot IMO.  (Heresy...?)
  
  Some great singers lapse into oversinging if you give them too many takes
  to get it right:  Otis Redding, George Jones, ...   - Jay

    > Pardon me for being frank, but I don't think you've got a clue about
    > what oversinging is about.

Eh?

I think .0 is partly right, in that the current epidemic of oversinging 
has something to do with white pop attempts to imitate the range of black 
vocalists. 


re 354:

> Actually, why don't we talk about the current trend of the record
> companies encouraging the careers of many people who "oversing"
> virtually every song?
                    
Yes.

For my money, Des'ree takes the cake - with honourable mentions to Whitney 
Houston, Annie Lennox, George Michael, Terence Trent Darby, Charles & Eddie
and Enya.  Maybe it's the industry's belated obsession with the vocal ability 
of soul singers, the current mood of nostalgia and neo-classicism, the 
increasing technical credibility of popular music...  who knows.

But remember!  Oversinging can be fun!! Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Yma Sumac, 
Iggy Pop ("1970" cf "Pumpin' for Jill"), David Bowie (on "Pinups" and "Young 
American"), John Lydon, Sid Vicious, David Byrne (unimpressive when he's *not* 
oversinging) etc. etc.

    
    Well, I don't know that I would cite the majority of your examples as
    "oversingers".  While their performances are definitely affected, I
    would more charitably refer to the tricks they use as their individual
    "styles".  I think we're doing some step-wise refinement on this
    definition of oversinging, though...
    

    Is screaming at the top of your lungs oversinging? If so, that would
    put most metal bands in that category. This would certainly be my take
    on oversinging. Or, maybe it is just over-screaming %^).
    
    I wonder if some of the criticism of oversinging is criticising a genre
    of music where the standards are different. I think vocal expectations
    are considerably different in R&B and in rock singing. Watch Boyz II
    Men, or En Vogue, or Shai, or Jodeci.
    
    I don't like opera, either, the only area of classical music that I
    haven't been able to appreciate; to me, that is oversinging. The heavy
    vibrato does nothing for me. I haven't heard country-western
    oversinging, though I've heard some highly affected vocals, with 
    exaggerated twangs, and nasal vocal effects.
    
    I attend a church here in LA that is quite integrated, has a large
    choir, and a continually changing roster of guest vocalists, many
    very, very talented. There is a lot of talent here because of the
    music industry, and on Sunday mornings I get to hear great concerts
    for free, essentially. Most of the black vocalists are from the gospel
    tradition and embelish the melody quite elaborately sometimes, to the
    great pleasure of the crowd. (how many churches give standing
    ovations?) I've grown to enjoy the style, though it does go over the
    top for even me, sometimes. 
    
    NPR did a story on Thomas Dorsey yesterday; he was considered the
    father of gospel, and did much to spread the folk practice of 
    simple melodies that allowed the singer to embellish and put his
    own improvisational stamp on the song, which was not the practice
    in many black churches earlier in this century. He also was a 
    prolifice writer of these melodies. So, it is a culturual thang,
    though this is not the only culture to emphasize strong vocal stylings.
    
    
    

    Gee!  This sounds so familiar.  Where have I heard this before?
    
    In the GUITAR notesfile you have the purists that seem to hold the view
    that their is some negative correlation between the number of notes you
    play and the amount of "feeling" in your playing.

    Maybe it's a generation gap thing.  I notice that my teenage sons seem
    to love this "a lot of emotion and feeling" style.  Just this morning
    my twelve year old was singing along at the top of his lungs with
    Whitney :-)  And my fourteen year old, who is not really into heavy
    metal, thinks that all these "slows" that are coming out of the metal
    gang with their over emotion is what makes them famous.
    
    This could just be the style of the nineties because this is what the
    youth of the day wants to hear.  (I'm a grandmother so I can legally
    count myself amongst the "old-timers" :-)
    
    I like it sometimes, other times no.  I like opera very much and don't
    find that oversinging at all.  I don't like (most) rap.  I absolutely
    do not like Guns and Roses but I find them "affected" rather than
    overdone.
    
    ccb

    Re: .7
    
    Gee, Dave, I think you are oversimplifying the "purist" issue.  I don't
    think that the general consensus is "more notes = less feeling" as much
    as most people find that the people who do play lotsa notes have less
    feeling (in rock music).  I don't correlate the two at all,
    particularly when you leave the narrow confines of rock (where most of
    the interest is in GUITAR) and get into other styles where speed and
    emotional depth can coexist quite happily (namely jazz and classical). 
    
    As far as oversinging goes, I think that modern pop music *encourages*
    it. Many pop singers learn to hold back more as they mature but when
    young it seems the tendency to show off is too great.  Also, the
    material can detract from the performance: my favorite example is Paul
    Rodgers singing on "All Right Now", a very good vocal performance
    within its genre but posibly the stupidest lyrics to come along since
    "Surfin' Bird".  It's hard to take Paul seriously as he croons, "Now
    don't you wait or hesitate (unh) let's move before they raise the
    parking rate (ow!)".
    
    It's unfair to call opera oversinging when you consider that the singers
    are merely following a score (i.e. the piece calls for it!).  That
    doesn't mean I dig opera though  8^)  8^)
    
    							Brian

    Copied w/o permission from The Lowell Sun 1/14/93
    
    Excerpts from an article subtitled  "Will *overkill* be the ruin of pop
    music?" (their emphasis), by John Leland of Newsweek.
    
    "...Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You', a song that starts high
    and ends...well, just as high."
    
    "If you're wondering where pop music has gone these days, it is here:
    gusting forth from Houston's lungs at perpetual full blast, without
    condescending to foreplay or afterglow. Hear it for a second or an
    hour, and it's exactly the same.
    
    If you're wondering where pop is coming from, consider the Parton
    original. A slick 'countrypolitan' ballad, the song is all orchestrated
    melodrama and high dynamics. Parton begins gently, holding the
    emotional payoff in check. Then the�strings build, the instrumentation
    swells, love is set to pop.
    And when it does, it cascades froth in a giant crescendo. She's earned
    these fireworks and then she's done. Where Houston starts at this peak
    and holds it like a grudge, Parton builds inexorably up to it, hits it,
    then slinks off for a smoke."
    
    On Bolton:
    
    "When he lights into his Grammy award winning version of Percy Sledge's
    'When a Man Loves A Woman', he's already made his point before he's
    halfway through the title; for the rest of the song, all he can do is
    re-enact it
    
    He does so with power and grace, but if Ella Fitzgerald sang like this,
    there wouldn't be a piece of glass intact in America"
    
    
    
    Danny W.

    Thanks for posting that Danny. I agree completely. The blues guitar
    corollary for me is Gary Moore. He knows everything about the blues
    idiom except how to approach it, if you get my drift.

    --Ron

It's not just over *singing*, it's lack of attention to dynamics and
structure in general.  For instance, one band I play in has a guy who
feels compelled to try to sing harmony on everything all of the time.
He doesn't seem to understand that the impact of the harmony diminishes
if it's constantly present.

On a similar note, I've long felt that John Denver has the same problem
with melody writing.  His melodies (except for the real old stuff) tend
to head to the top of his range, and then stay as near as possible to
there for the remainder of the song.  Badly lacking in structure.

Perhaps what I'm trying to say is "familiarity breeds contempt".  If
you do your special trick all of the time, then it isn't special
anymore.

-Hal

    >I don't think that the general consensus is "more notes = less feeling"
    >as much as most people find that the people who do play lotsa notes
    >have less feeling (in rock music).  
    
    I think we have a chicken and egg problem here.

Re: .10

>    "If you're wondering where pop music has gone these days, it is here:
>    gusting forth from Houston's lungs at perpetual full blast, without
>    condescending to foreplay or afterglow. Hear it for a second or an
>    hour, and it's exactly the same.

And if you're living with my son you get to hear it at full volume, over sung,
performed by Markus Bettels hour after hour after hour ...

No Grammy award comin' here :-)

ccb

    Re:.13
    
    I stand corrected Dave, that does seem pretty stupid now that I read
    it again...
    
    I guess what I meant was that I don't think people *automatically*
    equate speed with lack of emotion, just that many speed merchants do
    seem to lack some emotion.  It is possible to have both, I think Steve
    Morse is a great example, I find his stuff *highly* emotional (unlike
    some noters in GUITAR!).  
    
    The reason I never got into a lot of the "hot guns" of rock guitar was
    that I didn't hear much meat.  Some players, like Al diMeola, have
    added depth over the years to balance the flash.
    
    						Brian

>    "If you're wondering where pop music has gone these days, it is here:
>    gusting forth from Houston's lungs at perpetual full blast, without
>    condescending to foreplay or afterglow. Hear it for a second or an
>    hour, and it's exactly the same.
                                                                          
    Has anyone actually listened to this song? This statement is patently
    untrue.
    
    The song starts with a quiet, acapella section with Whitney singing
    all by herself, then strings softly join in, then the song begins
    to build. By the second or third verse she is definitely powering out,
    and that power may be too much for some people, but to say that there
    is no range in dynamics in this song just isn't so. And, she finishes on
    a relatively quieter note. This song, in actuality, has quite a wide
    dynamic range; I think her sheer power as a singer may make others
    forget the beginning and end, but it is definitely there.
    
    

    re .16, but why does her mouth vibrate in that weird way?
    
    Lorna
    

    
    I agree with .16
    
    Whitney doesn't blast her way through the entire song, but she
    nevertheless ruins the power ballad with overembellishment (i e i e i 
    will awh ha ha hallways love a you) and Ethel Merman-like shouting 
    with vibratto during the middle portion.  Whitney's career cooled down
    sometime between the release of Mariah Carey and the release of "Bodyguard".
    Half-filled arenas were not unusual during Whitney's last tour.  One 
    movie, and the public just fell in love all over again with Whitney 
    and her wildy exaggerated, campy i e i e i song.  Go figure.
    
    Anyone recall the Linda Ronstadt version from her "Prisoner In Disquise" 
    album?  I don't - but keep meaning to pull it out and have another
    listen.  Linda recorded IWALY about 6 years before Dolly claimed to 
    write the song for a movie.  Funny that Dolly would also forget originally
    recording the song about 20 years ago - it was a major country hit for 
    her.
    
    Shawn                              

>    I guess what I meant was that I don't think people *automatically*
>    equate speed with lack of emotion, 
    
    Brian, I think that people do, but that you (to your credit) don't.
    
    Unfortunately, I don't think you are typical.  I hope I'm wrong.
    
    > just that many speed merchants do seem to lack some emotion.  
    
    I agree with that.
    
    > Some players, like Al DiMeola, have added depth over the years to
    > balance the flash.
    
    Curious example.  He is so often accused of "having no soul" that
    I can recall several interviews where he even jokes about that.
    
    I've always hypothesized (albeit with no substantive basis) that it's
    because his style has very little bending or vibrato.
    
    My theory is that some people measure "soul" based on some measure of
    vibrato and strings bends.  That notion strikes me as being no less
    ludicrous than an inverse measure based on speed.

    I saw a guitarist on Austin City Limits last night called David Gutton
    (?) who is technically at least the best guitarist I've ever seen...
    his sound was so complex that really was no need for the very good
    back-up band that muffled his performance; I ended up not being sure
    if I liked him or not! The last half of a show that featured Albert
    Collins in the first half. Gutton is up in the DiMeola territory.
    
    And, I saw Patti LaBelle last night; if there was ever an oversinger
    she is one to me, as she has a most powerful voice, but little
    subtlety. She can out-sing almost anyone, on the measure of sheer
    volume.
    
    

>     I saw a guitarist on Austin City Limits last night called David Gutton

  Yup, that's Danny Gatton.  He's been alternately hyped & ragged in other
  conferences - GUITAR, AFTER_HOURS (Albert Collins topic), etc.  As I said
  in one of those, peoples' capacity for liking him sometimes seems to run
  in inverse proportion to how much hype they've heard about him
  beforehand...
    
>     And, I saw Patti LaBelle last night; if there was ever an oversinger
>     she is one to me, as she has a most powerful voice, but little
>     subtlety.

  Still haven't forgotten the awards show, or was it one of the Motown
  tributes? -- where she tried to upstage everyone during the grand-finale
  singalong.  Some classic looks exchanged among the other artists watching
  her -- amusement, bemusement, a little disgust.  She might have the raw
  talent of Aretha in her prime, but...  (Good on Sesame St., though.) - Jay

    Re.: .9 - I agree. As with almost every  other type of entertainment, 
    singing HAS to be "bigger, louder, better" or else it doesn't get to
    the radio or MTV. IMHO, this stems from the "need" for spectacle to
    garner a large portion of the 12-20 crowd, that apparently have enough
    money to establish market clout.
    
    As for me, I define "oversinging" as the vocal counterpoint of some
    jazz; I'm doing this lick because I CAN, not necessarily because it is
    an integral part of the tune.....
    
    For what it's worth,
    
    Bill Message

    Patti's 'showboating' may date all of the way back to Live Aid, 
    as she was ooohing and aaahing to "We Are The World".  I still
    wonder whether a sound technicion was more at fault than Patti, as her
    mike seemed to have been cranked way up in relation to everyone else's.
    Wouldn't a quick turn of a knob have put Patti 'in her place'?
    
    Shawn  

    I think Patti's showboating probably goes back to her childhood. %^).
    I've seen her on a number of shows, including a gospel special,
    where she was THE loudest, and would always come charging in like
    gangbusters. The joke about her was that she didn't need a microphone...
    
    I saw a special she did years ago with Amy Grant and Cindi Lauper. Poor
    Amy was blown off the stage with her pretty-but-small voice, but Cindi
    was very strong, as she has quite a big voice herself, despite her comic
    persona. I wonder what ever happened to her? I thought she would be
    around for awhile.
    

If you listen all the way back to many of Elvis's mixes, there are many
instances of him being way out front (too much for me, but maybe that
was the desired goal of the recordings). You can blame these early tracks on
microphone placement and limitations or 1 track or 2 track (sometimes even
3 track) recording equipement. On the Del Vikings tune 'Come Go With Me',
the lead vocalist wasn't standing out enough, so he was stuffed in a closet
and the door was closed (this was recorded in mono in someones basement
in Philadelphia - done in 1957). I think that a lot of early Motown music has
the vocals way out front. Maybe some recording engineers have different
styles and some like a specific sound (or the vocalist wants it more out
front). I guess it all depends on the type of feel that the producer is looking
for.

							Jens

    Oversinging a problem?
    
    Feel that YOU should be heard over every instrument in the band?
    
    Feel your voice is as important or more than the whole entire
     "backline" of musicians just because you remember a bunch of "words"?
    
    Do you walk around singing never knowing when to stop/shut up?
    
    Well "Bunky" that's what we pay the soundman for! And you thought he was 
    being payed to "balance" the sound? Heck no, don't let that fader 
    with "your name" on it confuse you!
    
    See...  oversinging is NOT a problem in my band...  we just get out the
    baseball bat and *make* them stop!  
    
    Many ;^)'s
    
    		Rock on,
    	    		Fred