
Ask a real musician: opera singer dissects top 5 metal singers - hernan7
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2010/07/ask-a-real-musician-5-classic-male-metal-singers/
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icarus_drowning
I teach music for a living (theory/voice), and I have to say, I feel like this
validates a lot of my techniques when working with students.

Virtually all of my students want to sing pop/rock/etc. music when they first
come in. My usual approach is to agree to work primarily in the genre of their
choice, but to have _some_ "classical" training as well. I largely due this in
order to promote healthy singing, whatever the genre, so that no matter what
kind of music they want to sing, they are at least not harming their voices.

Notice that almost all of Friedlander's comments focus on the relaxation of
the vocal mechanism ("Like the first singer, he performs with perfect legato,
clear diction, and a consistent, organic vibrancy. He arranges his resonance
space to create a shallow snarl without setting up any resistance for his
breath", etc). I've found that, above all, some classical training seems to
reinforce this, allowing students to create resonance rather than merely
screaming, to avoid straining at the edge of their ranges, and to approach all
genres with a strong grasp of basic music skills. Of course, all of this also
improves their basic technique immensely-- pitch, diction, and aural skills
are usually highly improved as well.

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invisoranges
Hi guys - I run the site, and indeed HN caused a temporary meltdown (thanks
for the link!) As of 9pm EST Aug. 23, it's back up, so feel free to visit,
comment, etc. Again, thanks for the flattering mention!

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ph0rque
Will the sound files be back? I'm getting a 'file not found'.

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invisoranges
Yes, I just tested them (9:20AM EST 8/24) and they work fine. What's probably
happening is that the site is shutting down processes (including audio
streaming) as it gets overloaded (wow, there are lots of you guys!). But the
site is also resetting itself in response to overloading, so if the site or
any of its processes are down, just wait a few minutes to see if they're back
online. Thanks for the link and the interesting discussion here! Due to
popular demand, there will be a sequel at some point featuring other metal
singers, including possibly ones mentioned here.

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bpyne
If you liked Rob Halford, then Geoff Tate from Queensryche should be a real
treat. Anything from Operation Mindcrime would be worth a listen.

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mindcrime
Yeah, I wish Geoff Tate had been one of the singers reviewed in that article.
It would have been interesting to see what she had to say about him. Tate has
- from this layperson's perspective - an amazing voice.

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bpyne
"Suite Sister Mary" still gives me goosebumps when I listen to it.

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treeface
Great stuff. I can't get over her reaction to Black Sabbath's 1970 song "War
Pigs"...

Initial reaction: “Fourth guy is just bad throaty singing… Made my throat
tight to listen to him. How long did his career last?”

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pkulak
haha, yeah. It was the only song I could even stand to listen to.

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CWuestefeld
Page seems dead; here's the Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.invisibleoranges.com%2F2010%2F07%2Fask-
a-real-musician-5-classic-male-metal-singers%2F)

This was interesting. I wonder how much she was reaching to find something
positive to say, because I would have though that, but for Dickinson, they all
are rough. But then, I don't have any formal training or expertise myself.

I'd like to hear a real expert's comments on modern metal virtuosos, like
Warrell Dane or Roy Khan. Anybody with real knowledge care to venture an
opinion?

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mhd
I was a bit scared about what she'd consider the "top 5", but that's actually
pretty okay, although I wonder how King Diamond got in there. Not the one
known for his singing, and I don't think he's in the best-selling or longest-
running band. But it was a different style, and one that at least contains a
bit more than sheer endurance (c.f. most growlers).

I was surprised at the high marks Dickenson got. Not that I don't hold him in
high esteem personally, but he's the only one where I know of a direct
connection to opera singing. It must've been a Freddy Mercury tribute, where
he sang Bohemian Rhapsody with Montserrat Cabbalé. And as opposed to her
previous duet with Freddy ("Barcelona"), those voices didn't mesh at all.

Really nice article, I always thought that trained opera singers tend to look
down upon those doing less "serious" work. Just shows you that there's more
than one way to skin a cat, which is why this actually fits nicely into HN.

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frossie
_I was a bit scared about what she'd consider the "top 5"_

She didn't rate them as "top 5". She got sent 5 unlabeled samples by the OP
and was asked to assess their quality.

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mhd
Well, I couldn't know that before I clicked. The headline here just said "top
5".

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Deestan
Can anyone _please_ let me know their reasons for downvoting this comment?

Lately I've seen a lot of what appears to be mindless pile-on downvoting of
perfectly on-topic, polite, informative comments. It is making me wonder if
there's some bot behaviour going on, or if something in the site's comment
system is broken.

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Robin_Message
I didn't vote on the comment, but I can imagine it was downvoted for slightly
rude tone "Well, I couldn't know that" and claiming not to read the article
but only "the headline".

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Deestan
Thanks for the answer.

I must have read it in a different light then; to me it looked like a
complaint about a misleading submission headline.

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mhd
Thank you, that was what I actually meant. When I saw the headline here
regarding the "top 5", I didn't know if my inner fanboy could handle e.g.
having the singer of Slipknot amongst that set. I thought that my initial
comment was evidence enough that I did RTFA.

And I actually inserted the "Well" to make it sound less harsh, but apparently
that made it look a bit arrogant to a few people. The nuances of written
language…

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acon
This is really great. I just had to fill my Spotify queue with Iron Maiden and
try to sing along. Singing is one of those skills I really regret not having,
but I sing anyway.

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jacquesm
The site seems to be overloaded though, a HN induced meltdown?

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noahth
interesting article, would love to see more like this! for example, i'd be
curious to hear her take on phil anselmo.

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wazoox
I don't know much about Heavy Metal, but this gave me a strong urge to buy a
couple of these albums :)

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technomancy
Wonder what she'd say about Falconer.

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endgame
Seconded. On the other extreme, I wonder what she'd say about Manowar.

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jksmith
Jack Black should be in the conversation somewhere. The dude doesn't even need
a microphone.

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ufomuffin
Hm, yeah in music there aren't any rules, putting a 'real' musician to give
her opinion should be considered a just for fun thing.

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evo_9
Yes and anyone can write poetry too.

There are always 'rules' to any real discipline. If you aren't skilled in
something then of course we say 'he is a natural'. But if you go up to talk to
a 'natural' you always find that they worked at it an incredible amount.

Fun read either way though. Her comments on Ozzie were the most surprising to
me.

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fletchowns
I feel that technique and skill are secondary to passion though with the arts.
Music or poetry, I don't want to subject myself to it if it lacks passion.
Passionate musicians and poets just happen to frequently also have the
technique and skill down as well, but that's not always the case. Some of the
more interesting artists are often the ones that break the "rules" of their
discipline.

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sharpn
Alexander Pope disagreed:

"True ease of writing comes through art, not chance,

As he moves best who learns the steps of dance,

'Tis not enough no harshness cause offence,

The sound must seem an echo of the sense"

Learn the rules, then maybe break them.

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Locke1689
Another famous example is Picasso. Sometimes considered the greatest painter
to have ever lived, he was incredibly inventive and broke basically every
"rule" in the book. However, if you look at his really early pieces -- he was
a fantastic classical painter. He didn't start by breaking the rules, he
started by mastering them.

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fletchowns
I don't think you need to master the rules before you can break them, you
certainly need to be aware of the rules though! How else would you even know
you are breaking them?

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aerique
You don't need to be aware of the rules. You might not even care whether or
not you're breaking them.

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zbyszek
By "The Rules" I think we mean an accumulation of techniques and practices
developed and refined by many people over time because they have proved
useful. If one has any interest at all in the ones art one will surely be
aware of its history and of what others have done. How else does one become
interested in the first place? In this respect some awareness of this heritage
seems to me to be unavoidable.

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_delirium
It doesn't necessarily have to go back centuries, though. If you're doing
rock, you might be intimately familiar with the past 50 years of rock, punk,
metal, post-punk, grunge, etc., without having a clue about opera.

