BLOG: A Lot of Singers Could Use Some Good Voice Coaching

This blog is getting off the beaten track. I have some strong opinions about this subject but I have no idea if other people feel the same way.

OK, I’m not writing about morality, politics or religion – I’m writing about the current state of singing.

I confess to being a devotee of American Idol. I no longer watch the beginning eliminations. My wife and I begin watching when the pool of contenders gets whittled down to 15 or so.

Most of the singing I hear is on Idol or from CDs I own. What bothers me is how difficult it can be to make out most of the words many Idol contestants are singing. Now, at age 70, my hearing isn’t what it was at age 16, but I have no problem hearing the singing.

I have the feeling that if they’d spent a lot of time with a voice coach, they could both sing well, and enunciate their words well. But what I often hear is the contestants placing more emphasis on their singing style rather that passing their song’s message on to the viewer/listener.

Maybe when the singers perform live on Idol the stage situation isn’t ideal for hearing the lyrics of the songs being sung. Perhaps if they recorded the same songs in studios, with opportunities for electronically enhancing the sound qualities of instruments and voices, and isolating one from the other via the mixing board, the words would be more easily understood.

The Idol judges seem to have been coached to be generally positive, with Nicki Minaj often being a lone dissenter. But none of them have addressed the problem of not being able to comprehend much of the lyrics being sung.

Back when I was in high school in the 1950s the words were generally easy to make out. Most popular singers of that decade like Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Perry Como, and yes, Elvis, got the words across. Then we went into the 1960s (and music went in all sorts of directions with the Beatles, Jim Morrison, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grace Slick, Tom Jones, Janis Joplin, and so on) some singers began going more for energy and style rather than comprehension.

I just finished watching this year’s country music awards on TV. Now here’s a genre of music that usually attaches importance on telling stories. Still, I was hearing singers with their self-indulgent twangs and voice inflections getting in the way of making themselves understood – they weren’t getting the stories across. I suppose that audiences who have heard their recordings over and over have gradually understood all the words (or they read the words on CD liner notes) so they can enjoy performances and sing along. The show producers actually displayed the words one singer was singing on a projection screen behind him! The singer at the awards who best handled words was Blake Shelton.

Returning to American Idol, once in a while the singers sing too softly and don’t get the words across because of that weakness.

I can enjoy a singer without understanding the words, but darn it, if there’s a message I’d like to hear it. There are genres of singing such as scat singing (think of Ella Fitzgerald) which are wordless, and jazz musician Pat Metheny mixes voices with instruments. Bobby McFerrin has an interesting repertoire of vocal sounds.

On the other end of the spectrum is rap music, where it’s 95 percent words.

When the singers on Idol are coached by Jimmy Iovine, I wish that just once, Jimmy would say to one of the aspiring artists – “Think of the words. Your style and performance attributes are great, but you’re not the complete package until you can get the words across.”