Thursday, April 4, 2019 by Rebecca Keogh | Vocal Style
Contemporary singing lessons are focused on improving your ability through an exploration of contemporary styles, expanding your technical ability, broadening your musicianship skills and discovering your own unique style. But what does all that entail?
It is easy to get stuck in a musical rut if you stay within your comfort zone by listening to and singing the same old music you always listen to. I would say 99% of my students under 18 listen to pop and pop only. Which means they are hearing the same musical ideas played over and over again leading to very limited knowledge and inspiration! They actually start to mimic the artists they are listening to and it can become difficult for them to find their own unique voice by listening to just one genre of music. I totally get that pop songs are popular for a reason, but singers need to soak up inspiration from other genres and styles to really broaden their ability. I'm super excited to see an artist like Billie Ilish having such a huge impact of teenagers as she is doing something new and inspirational. More of this please!
Some of my earliest musical influences were; Barbra Streisand who starred in the original ‘A Star is Born’ and Judy Garland who we all know so well from ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Movies like ‘The Commitments’ and ‘Sister Act’ introduced me to the idea of blues and gospel music. I was 8 years old when Michael Jackson's ‘Earth Song’ was released and it blew me away with its mix of blues, gospel and rock style vocals and instrumentation and being an outdoors kinda kid I felt a strong connection with what the song was about and was probably one of the first songs that really made me pay attention to the lyrics. It was actually around this time that I starting creating music. Recording made up songs about my school teacher, Mrs. Kane, and my friends into a plastic microphone recorder. I wonder if I hadn’t of pondered across all this music would I have taken the same musical path that I did? Who knows!
So how can we learn from the music we listen to? Below I have listed a few steps you can take to help develop your vocal style and make you a better musician;
Challenge yourself to learn a song from a genre you’ve never sung before. Find out who were the top vocalists in that genre and use the steps above to gain a deeper understanding of that style.
Useful links
A link to some of the best vocalists of all time!