Observation about Broadway style musical singers...

[Leo Chang]

Every time I hear a musical, whether the singer is male or female, there is almost always something aoubt their voice that I find extremely irritating to my ears.

It's obvious that they are good singers in the technical sense, but it's always something aoubt the timbre / texture of their voice that turns me off. It's almost exactly like listening to a technically proficient guitarist with extremely bad tone.

And usually I hear it as a "hump" or "spike" in the upper mid range in the singer's voice. Has anyone else noticed this? Do musical producers intentionally hire singers with that kind of vocal "tone"?


- Leo.

[Rich#6]

YES, Don't you watch American Idol, they always tell a lot of people you would be good in theatre when the say NO to them. I work for a theatre and I don't go to many shows because of this!

[fett]

They are just looking for something new to make what they are doing unique. It's like when singers fuckup the national anthem. Anyone that has a "good ear" will just take this as fingernails on a chalkboard.

[dg]

I wouldn't be surprised that part of making the cut is that their voice projects well and cuts through, and that is part of what you find annoying. I also notice that they sometimes tend to have a bit wider & slower vibrato that can be grating, but again that is probably what works best onstage.

[fett]

Why would anyone watch American Idol?

[fett]

Ethel Merman.:ROTF: :ROTF: :ROTF: :ROTF:

[Leo Chang]

YES, Don't you watch American Idol, they always tell a lot of people you would be good in theatre when the say NO to them. I work for a theatre and I don't go to many shows because of this!

I haven't watched TV for a long time, and by the look of things, my self-imposed moratorium on TV will continue for a loooooooooooooong time

Good to have verification from other musicians, 'cause for a long time I thought maybe I just can't appreciate the style "yet"... and a lot of my friends (mostly non musicians) are really into musicals, so whenever they talk about how great _______ (insert musical) is, I am always "hmm... I see...."

From now on I'll trust my ears

[Endrik]

I loved the old school broadway type of singing, don't care much about the modern stuff.

btw. the latest rockstar who is doing that stuff now is Corey Glover from Living Colour, one of the best singers ever IMO. Sebastian Bach got booted because of his ego.

[Leo Chang]

I wouldn't be surprised that part of making the cut is that their voice projects well and cuts through, and that is part of what you find annoying. I also notice that they sometimes tend to have a bit wider & slower vibrato that can be grating, but again that is probably what works best onstage.

That's a plausible explanation

Too bad we can't just switch out their vocal cords for after-market ones with alnico magnets and hand wound coils

[toejam]

That's what happens when you take opera lessons... James LaBrie, anyone? :ROTF:

[sully]

no thanks!

[MikeStrat]

Umm...why are you listening to musicals?

[fett]

I know!!!!! Because the real good ones have real good music. But, I am a Westside Story kind of guy.

[Endrik]

Bernstein wrote one of the greatest piece of music in the history for Westside Story

[Leo Chang]

Umm...why are you listening to musicals?

I don't actually, just that on the rare occassions when I am driving, and my mp3 player runs out of battery, I will surf the radio channels, and sometimes that's what's on the air... (like today, which is why I decided to post this today to see if I can get some answers to this observation that I have been curious about for a long time)


Or when a friend recommends a musical to me, then I'll listen for a bit, just to be polite...

A lot of them have good music / melody / composition though, it's just the singers' voices that I can't stand