I have a question about Melissa Cross and considering that Jamie’s tight with her, I felt this would be the best place to ask.

Some background, first. Back in September, I saw Melissa Cross in a Much Music interview and subsequently bought a copy of “Zen of Screaming” that came with the two CD’S. I did the first CD for about a week and found it helpful. I decided I would do CD1 for several weeks before moving onto CD2. However at my next singing lesson I mentioned it to my teacher (who, for the record was not a classical teacher) about it, with horrified her. She gave me a five-minute lecture about how it wasn’t safe to scream period, that guys in Lamb of God would only last 6 months longer with Melissa then they would without her. She also said that if I kept studying that my voice would be strong and “manly” enough that I wouldn’t need to ever scream.

To be fair I have no desire to sound like I’m in a black metal band, but I did think that the program might help me get closer to being able to sing Skid Row songs. But my teacher countered that by telling my not even Sebastian Bach could sing like Sebastian Bach without killing himself. She also said that he was probably on steroids while on tour, and that when he came off stage they probably had to put an ice pack on his throat. (I think she was exaggerating the last part)

Is my teacher wrong/misinformed/Close mined/etc…

One last thing, is it true that perfect pitch can be taught or is it a scam?

Your teacher is VERY misinformed. I do not like to scald teachers, but I cannot stand these vocal coaches who whine and cry anytime one of their students mentions grit or screaming. So, not to put your teacher down, but your coach is very wrong on this matter. This is because you have a coach who has never dealt with this type of approach. I've taught it for years, mainly the 80's type screaming such as Skid Row and I have seen success time and time again. Your coach is right in the fact that you can develop a strong voice, but if you want to 'add' some grit to your voice, it will NOT cause a short career. BTW- Lamb of God ha been going strong for years with Melissa's help...way past thise 6 months...and Sebastian has been touring and screaming, and while he doesn't sound as clean as he used too, his screams are amazing WITHOUT the help of steroids and an ice pack;)

Yeah, I think she's jumping to easy conclusions based on the most common clichés.

Melissa seems pretty cool. I added her on my myspace, she checked out my Voice Yourself website, liked it and sent me her 1st CD for FREE! I was really impressed with that needless to say. She really sounds like she knows her stuff. I'm not done watching it yet (I just have too much on my plate) but I will finish the whole thing this summer even though screaming isn't really for me either.

Perfect Pitch CAN be taught. The david lucas burgs thing, or w/e his name is, works if you put in the time. I downloaded it(i know, bad) and realized it was too intense of a program for me at the time. If you really want to learn perfect pitch, then you can if you put in the time. And by time, I mean A LOT of time. But if you practice a lot i'm sure in a year you could develop it. Or at least thats what other people that have done it have told me.

Yes your teacher is wrong. Brent Smith from Shinedown adds rasp and still can sing AMAZING. Rody Walker can scream, sing really high, and he smokes and drinks xD. Although i'm sure Rody will have problems in the future from the smoking.

If you do it correctly, you will be using minimal strain. But no matter what, it is causing more damage than singing. But you should never feel pain, or lose range over the years.

Oh yeah about perfect pitch: that is usually said of people that can recognize notes or sing notes accurately naturally. It's a special gift.

You can work on relative pitch which is pretty difficult but achievable. Start by taking solfege lessons. You can also develop your pitch memory by focusing on one note at the time and being aware of where the vibration occur in your head when you sing or hear that note. I'm currently working on the international A. I sing/hit it properly most of the days but sometimes it's 1/2 tone flat or sharp... when I'll master the A, I'll move on to another note.

In my opinion, the force of a classical singer belting over an orchestra can be as damaging as adding grit if executed without proper training and technique. I believe that the phenomena of adding grit is just as natural as singing a note clean. It can be done properly. I think teachers are so scared of it because a lot of singers try to do it without practicing it or developing the necessary skills, and they end up needing all kinds of strain and tension to achieve grit, which yes, can be a problem.

Relative pitch is REALLY easy to get. On guitar, if I know the first note I can go around and figure out most of the song depending on the difficulty.

When you know what intervals your doing all the time, eventually you know what they sound like.

I don't mean singing intervals though; I mean if I tell you to sing an D, can you sing it on pitch without having heard any music at all before hand? That is relative pitch. I can sing any intervals but I don't have relative pitch. Perfect pitch is a child for example that can sing you any note without even thinking about it. Someone that hears a melody in his mind and writes it down perfectly on the pitch it was heard mentally without having to figure out intervals. Mozart did that! I have only know 3 persons capable of this and they both played piano. For some reason, the fact that a piano has a more consistent tuning compared to other instruments and that it is often learned at a young age helps a lot.

Oiselle, I'm not sure if this is a language problem, but Relative pitch is actually when you can figure out what another note is -relative- to a 'starting' note.

So for instance if you played an 'A' and said, "okay, that's A, what's this?" then played a D, and I were able to say, "That's a D". It's relative because you're figuring out what the note is 'relative' to another pitch.



Perfect pitch is when you can figure out what a note is without any starting pitch at all, and you just know what the note is.

Yeah, James is correct.

I have moderately good perfect pitch. This means I have to think a bit before I can "remember" a note. It started when I noticed I could remember exactly what pitch a song started on before I actually pressed "play". I've worked on it and am now able to sing and recognize any note pretty accurately. I don't know if anyone can learn this ability, or if it's just with people who have been subjected to lots of music when they were young (like me). But if you want to find out, I'd suggest trying to remember the exact pitch of a song and then press "play" to see if you were right. If it was pretty accurate, then I'd say you have a good chance at developing perfect pitch!

I'm no authority on grit or screaming, so I won't comment there, but I do have to disagree about Sebastian Bach. I saw him perform Jesus Christ Superstar in which he was amazing (2002?), but that was completely clean, with the exception of a few isolated screams he did for dramatic effect.

I also saw him at the Sweden Rock festival, in 2005, with his band, and I was pumped to see him (based on how good he was the last time I saw him) and was absolutely horrified at how bad he sounded. Maybe he was having a bad day, or the complications of Jet Lag, I can only speculate as to the cause, but he definitely sounded BAD, (not just not good...bad!) I was disappointed.

Also, let's remember that "longevity" is relative. even though doing some of the rough stuff for 10 - 15 years is impressive, it's not really the same as Pavarotti, or and even better example: Tony Bennett. I just listened to his 80th b-day cd of duets....80 YEARS OLD and he sounds great! (not like a young whippersnapper, sure, but still great, with range AND power, and that's a career of like 60 years and going!) My personal definition of successful singing longevity would be when you've passed the onset of middle-age (you know, when you're body doesn't heal itself as well as it used to) and you can still wail like nobody's business.

Tommy Shaw - Styx
Glenn Hughes - Deep Purple, etc.
DIO
Stevie Wonder
Sting
Paul Rodgers - Free, Bad Company, etc.

These guys are all over 50, and have been doing this live, on tour, and sounding incredible for 30 years or more! These are the guys I would look to for examples to follow in terms of Rock longevity.

I guess I don't really have a point relating to the grit/screaming thing....other than to say it still remains to be seen whether or not even the best heavy singers will be able to last that long. (30, 40 years!)

-Paul

Hey James, probably not a language issue but a regional issue may be. This is how we call it from where I come from :) Perfect pitch is perfect, natural and requires no effort. From the 3 persons that I've known that were almost "born" with it, there is definitely a difference! They could tell/sing a note perfectly without thinking about it.

To me relative, is when you have to work on it but it's more than sing intervals or writing than down. I can sing you any interval but I'm not so good at solfege especially that I'm not in school anymore and I don't practice it. Even if I'm practicing my pitch memory, I would NEVER consider myself having perfect pitch even if I can one day sing any pitch on its own.

So what would you call the in-between situation? Not so perfect but more than your relative description?

I personally hated Bach in JCS. I felt his performance completely failed to capture the character of Jesus. It was a prime example of a famous singer coming into a role to sell tickets.
Corey Glover as Judas on the other hand was awesome. Although I didnt like all the riffs he used, his performance was top notch.

Thanks for your replies. Not sure if it makes any different but I stopped taking lessons with this teacher back in Octorber, but only because she moved to Vancouver. She called her method the "Open Tone" which is supposedly a fushion of Bel Canto and Black Gospel that was created in New Orleans, if I recall correctly. She was an incredible teacher, her stance on screaming and grit aside, and could sing like her life depended on it.

hey (...)

I know, I know...I can go on and on about Paul Rodgers, yes I can, and so I will.... haha.

Anyway, just wanted to say that your description of this "open tone" method as a combo of Bel Canto and Black Gospel (and being from New Orleans) AGAIN reminds me of Paul Rodgers.

Has anyone seen his live dvd: Live in Glasgow???

He does a vocal cadenza at the end of "Feel Like Makin' Love" which is to die for. I love how he often goes to these modal (Myxolydian and Dorian, I believe) passages that immediately recall delta blues sounds, and I mean the real ol'-timey delta blues sound (like you hear on documentaries on 1900 New Orleans (like Episode 1 of Ken Burns' "JAZZ" -- which is incredible, btw)

Another point in the concert where PR throws down New Orleans style is the opening to "Louisiana Blues" I've never heard more vocal power. Period. (btw, on the cd, the intro of this tune is at the end of the previous track for some reason)

And, he also has an entire cd tribute to Muddy Waters called "Muddy Water Blues". This is IMHO, THE best blues rock album for vocals. It's an absolute text book, a vocal masterpiece, and yet his singing isn't at all a "studied" approach, it's totally free and improvisational. Completely ZEN actually. :)

But the point I'm getting at is PR does these things, AND also is able to sing with huge amounts of roughness and grit. IMO, there is no better than him and soulful, gritty rock singing.

Open Mic said:

"I personally hated Bach in JCS. I felt his performance completely failed to capture the character of Jesus. It was a prime example of a famous singer coming into a role to sell tickets.
Corey Glover as Judas on the other hand was awesome. Although I didnt like all the riffs he used, his performance was top notch."

Hey Open,

I can see where you're coming from. I went out of curiosity to see what Bach would do with the role. (so I guess I'm one of those ticket buyers, lol) I'd say that most of what I liked of his performance was strictly vocal, I wasn't really paying much attention to his acting. However, I was also glad I went because I was not expecting to see Carl Anderson as Judas (same guy as the movie, for those who don't know) and his singing was just, pardon the pun, UNGODLY good! So sad that he passed away 2 years later. :(

Corey Glover as Judas sounds quite interesting though :)

Vocally on its own it was ok, it just didn't fit the role for me. The role really does require great acting and for me he just didn't come anywhere near to cutting it. It's a shame because Carl Anderson was indeed unbelievable.
If you are interested, check out these performances which are some of my favourites from JCS;

Steve Balsamo as Jesus; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rre_BXxC0

Drew Sarich as Jesus in concert (one of the truely great vocals) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIWGh8DaGc

Drew Sarich as Judas on stage; Heacen on their Minds and Superstar;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXaEafnklg4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYcOryjkJVE&feature=related

Finally, Rob Fowler as Pilate in Pilates dream and Pilate and Christ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=812bWRNmhYU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeyT7_2ZBCs

Drew Sarich is amazing. end of story. amazing

I'm sure Ted Neeley is not exactly the best singer from a technical standpoint, but i've always found him the most passionate, and this is my favorite rendition he did, though its a shortened Gethsemane he did as a promotional thing on the tonight show, still that high part always blows my mind. I'd kill to have Neeley's tonality on a G5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy39LlW506I