I bring up this topic because I was contemplating my hearing this afternoon. I'm somewhat deaf in both ears (the right more than the left), and I'm not sure how I'd do without music. Then, I wondered whether perfect pitch was a blessing or not...
And in so saying, there are several different forms of singing (I suppose the reaction of 'duh!' would be appropriate right about now), but I find that musical theatre tends to produce the best technical singers (in the main) out of all the music related industries.
Let's do the rundown, shall we:
1. Popular music - autotune... everything can be summarised in that one, rather hateful word (yes, I do know that a lot of artists don't, but the majority do... get over it). All recordings are edited half to death, and often there's lip-synching at 'live' performances. No disrespect to them, but pop singers are better at looking good than sounding good, hence my ambivalence towards them. Hell, most can't even vibratto properly.
2. Indie - unless their classically trained, projection technique is often completely ballsed up (unless lucky in inherent skill).
3. Opera - opera singers are trained to do essentially just one thing: project their voice. That means singing from the diaphragm and invariably, that screws up diction, and pitch clarity is often adversely affected, especially in men. And it's the opposite case, vibratto is excessive.
4. Oratorio - musical orators are trained for diction and projection, though more from the thorax.
5. Musical theatre - these guys have to be able to sing clearly, project and act at the same time. No mean feat, sure, but added to this is the trend that musical theatre actors have by in large the purist voices.
By that I mean that if you took a recording and analysed the soundwave patterns when notes are held at vowel sounds, they'd be as damned near close to being sinusoidal without any aberrations as you can get without having a machine make the sound.
So, question: who would you consider to have the best singing voice from a technical point of view? Or, if you feel I'm being too much of a pretentious ponce, just cut out the 'technical' bit.
Despite having not heard that much of her stuff: Stephanie D'Abruzzo, not least for 'My Musical'/Scrubs (and Avenue Q...). A more serious answer would be Ruthie Henshall.
And in so saying, there are several different forms of singing (I suppose the reaction of 'duh!' would be appropriate right about now), but I find that musical theatre tends to produce the best technical singers (in the main) out of all the music related industries.
Let's do the rundown, shall we:
1. Popular music - autotune... everything can be summarised in that one, rather hateful word (yes, I do know that a lot of artists don't, but the majority do... get over it). All recordings are edited half to death, and often there's lip-synching at 'live' performances. No disrespect to them, but pop singers are better at looking good than sounding good, hence my ambivalence towards them. Hell, most can't even vibratto properly.
2. Indie - unless their classically trained, projection technique is often completely ballsed up (unless lucky in inherent skill).
3. Opera - opera singers are trained to do essentially just one thing: project their voice. That means singing from the diaphragm and invariably, that screws up diction, and pitch clarity is often adversely affected, especially in men. And it's the opposite case, vibratto is excessive.
4. Oratorio - musical orators are trained for diction and projection, though more from the thorax.
5. Musical theatre - these guys have to be able to sing clearly, project and act at the same time. No mean feat, sure, but added to this is the trend that musical theatre actors have by in large the purist voices.
By that I mean that if you took a recording and analysed the soundwave patterns when notes are held at vowel sounds, they'd be as damned near close to being sinusoidal without any aberrations as you can get without having a machine make the sound.
So, question: who would you consider to have the best singing voice from a technical point of view? Or, if you feel I'm being too much of a pretentious ponce, just cut out the 'technical' bit.
Despite having not heard that much of her stuff: Stephanie D'Abruzzo, not least for 'My Musical'/Scrubs (and Avenue Q...). A more serious answer would be Ruthie Henshall.