Hey gang welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing. I'm
doing this really fun series and it's taking isolated vocal stems, I'm doing an analysis
and a vocal tutorial and I'm also talking about some of the production things that go on and the
lyrics and so forth and overall artistry and in this case I'm going to do Amy Lee from Evanescence,
the song is called "Bring Me To Life". Now I did a version of this with my student Sara Loera,
you guys can find that in the description see how we did. Pretty hard to beat Amy though, she's so
unique, not just a character voice unique but unique in every way. She was such a pioneer
in her sound and in kind of bringing in rap and rock and all that together way early on,
and just an all-around great musician, she's just very melodic and very musical
so. I just want to dive right in and we'll just make some comments along the way so let's rock.
Okay right there now very melodramatic, very theatrical, somewhat goth sounding right and, and
I'm not saying they started goth there was other bands that was doing a long time for crying out loud Black
Sabbath was technically goth you know, back in the early 70s so but as far as kind of a nouveau goth, like newer
goth, combining rap and goth and some other things together, she really really pioneered a
sound. Now when I say she's musical I really mean that. She's a good piano player, a great songwriter,
great lyricist and this song is really interesting too because you know at this time you know coming
off of a lot of you know post grunge and a lot of things that were going on early 90s and so forth
or early mid 90s I mean to say, you know you have this girl coming in out of nowhere and there
weren't a lot of chicks rocking at that time I mean there were a few you know and of course they're
still the holdovers, which are, Ann Wilson from Heart and Pat Benatar and you know various
people like that, but for the most part you know Lzzy Hale hadn't quite happened yet and she was
you know coming on the scene later but there there weren't a lot of girl singers. Now there were some
I'm not saying that and I don't want to list them all right now because you know who they are especially
in the, in the goth you know movement in that, that that time frame, but so the lyrics in this are
really cool. How can you see into my eyes like open doors leading you down into my core where
I've become so numb. Well it's interesting that I just came off of doing Chester Bennington, Linkin Park
and the song "Numb" and I never thought about kind of putting those lyrics together and now what
she's talking about. Now his was about you know parental, smothering so to speak and, and
what they expect of kids and whatnot and hers is different, hers is more a spiritual thing I think,
but anyway, without a soul my spirit's sleeping sometimes cold until you find it, then it leads
me back home. So it's a very, mysterious kind of dark, creepy kind of sound but she's
very, very melodramatic. So she takes this great big breath. Check it out. Listen.
Now and she has a very, almost operatic approach so she goes (sings)
so she's not going (sings) she's (sings)
right. So it kind of reminds me like a little bit of ghost love song, sort of that
that era, that kind of time or that sound a little bit and, and that's cool because I love that song
too and I love that band actually, killer band, but so I wanted to, when i was mentioning
great female vocalists I should have talked about Tarja and some others but, but I want
to stay focused on her because there's a lot to cover it's a long song. So anyway, so you've
got this very operatic, very theatrical, very dramatic kind of sound. Let's move on.
Now her note choice is (sings)
right. So she does like you know some minor seven, some flat five stuff, she does you know a
lot of minor nine stuff. She, her note choices are really interesting, believe it or not
sometimes and this is going to be a really oddball kind of statement, but it kind of
reminds me, when she comes and trails off to the end of some note choices like Sade. (sings)
right. She's like (sings)
right. She's minor nine steps, she's picking like a lot of really interesting note choices which are
very untypical and it's very untypical for that time and no one was really doing that except her
really. Like I said there were some goth bands and, and whatnot so I don't want to diminish
you know their, the awesomeness of some other bands, but she was definitely one of the few doing it, let's, I
can at least say that okay. Very operatic approach and even though she has vibrato, she's choosing not
to use it, to also have more of a dramatic effect instead of going you know (sings).
She doesn't do that (sings) she wants that feeling of numb so she's really pushing the lyric
also too on this. Also notice she doesn't use any auto, auto, auto, tune, tune, tune, tune. She's not using
autotune folks, she's a real musician, she wants it known, she doesn't need it, she doesn't want it
she wants the intimacy of her vocals to be heard rather than sounding robotic and,
and by the way there is some robotic stuff when you get to the chorus we'll
get to that in a minute but she's, she's choosing to go more the organic route. Here we go.
See (sings).
Remember those note choices right. Pretty interesting, pretty cool, very very musical.
Cool and you notice the dynamic range you know (sings)
right. She's using a lot of dynamic range, volume and a lot of intensity changes in her singing,
to really drive home just this, engaging, spiritually engaging kind of vocal so. Pretty cool,
pretty interesting you know.
Now listen to those harmonies
(sings) right. It's very, very unique harmonies. Now we
talked about Linkin Park in the choruses how those choruses had really unique harmonies and there's a
lot of bands that did it it at, in this time frame, around the early 90s and it kind of started with
the grunge era and then, and then spawned off from that, the goal was to not sound too commercial,
and the goal was to not sound too predictable, and so a lot of the bands, a lot of the grunge
bands chose the garage band route and did a lot of the 60s progressions and you can really hear
a lot of that which was interesting, which was not typical of the 80s metal bands that the whole era
had just left, and in this case it's kind of taking it up a notch. It's combining you know all these
interesting, orchestral, classical sounding changes, with some very unusual harmonies in the process.
Listen closely. Pretty interesting.
Now it's a pretty big tip off too from maybe a Celtic or or maybe you know an early Druid sort of,
almost British, Scottish kind of, bid my blood to run. You know you could tell that
the poetry of this comes from some you know, 16 17th century ishy kinds of of things. So again
drawing more back from you know this, this early very gothic kind of thing. You wouldn't use a line
like bid my blood to run unless you're trying to invoke that kind of vibe okay.
So thought that was interesting.
Now she also does some things that are a little dangerous to do as a singer operatically (sings)
She raises her larynx at some points and not all the time
but she does that for effect too. So it gives kind of (sings)
right and the problem with that is once you get the larynx locked in a raised position like that,
it's hard to relax and neutralize or even lower them in an operatic sound. A way to do it is (sings),
is to go back to the ah vowel so you can drop the larynx into a neutral or lower position, which she
winds up doing in a minute, but it's interesting that she's not only using an operatic approach, a
gothic approach to the sound, she's also kind of playing a little bit with the larynx to give, to
invoke a different emotion in the throat as she's going along. Listen closely it's pretty interesting.
So she (sings). The minute she does that she drops the larynx and
then neutralizes it and it's a different sound all together. Pretty cool man.
Alright.
Now of course she double tracked the vocals, all around so that the chorus would be taken
up a notch for energy and power and bigness okay. So and a lot of people
do that, I do that too. You know you want the chorus to be big and make a bolder statement
so then when it repeats itself it's pretty obvious that's the chorus.
Can you kind of hear the Celtic kind of vibe going on. Like I could, I'm not saying it's exactly that
but it's goth meets you know, kind of Irish folk music or Celtic music. I can really hear like she, I
haven't listened to it, seen it seen if she's written anything Celtic, but I could certainly
hear kind of Irish folk or Celtic music you know, Mayor Brennan, Clanad like that whole thing,
and there, there's definitely a lot of influence or at least seemingly some of that influence, not
just in the lyric but also in some of these lines and the way the harmonies themselves are arranged.
So thought that was interesting.
Now this part which is kind of interesting, is kind of commercial, like the whole song's
not commercial at all and then this kind of melodic line. Check it out (sings)
Let's do it again I'll play it and then I'll sing it. Here we go.
See (sings) and (sings).
It's pretty poppy right so a reason for doing that, a reason for doing this is, when you have
something dark and and you'll see this a lot in orchestral stuff. I mean you'll,
in fact I challenge you dig up some really cool kind of mystical, orchestral pieces that you like,
movie soundtrack stuff and you're gonna hear that they take the theme of the movie and they morph
it in all kinds of different ways through the movie so that it pounds and embeds in your head,
the theme of the movie but what they do, Hans Zimmer's really great at this I mean you know,
there are so many great guys, Danny Elfman. There's so many great guys that take this theme
and, John Williams and, and they'll, they'll literally, minor key, major key, minor and major key,
kind of you know a very droning key that's almost no key at all you know. It's almost diatonic
with no actual you know, real pitch. It could be chromatic and kind of be done in any environment,
and so you'll see all this this stuff, you hear all this stuff and so a trick to good songwriting
is to take a minor key thing like she's doing like a movie soundtrack, driving the point home,
driving the point home, but you become so bound up in the darkness of it or in the uh, the body,
the spirit kind of wants some kind of release. I know I might sound like I'm reading more into this
than is really there but no this really exists within, I've, I've done a lot of orchestral music
so if you go to imdb.com, you can see all of my credits for all the film and tv stuff or not all
but a lot of the film and tv stuff that I've done so I know a lot about orchestration, but anyway so
you'll take this orchestration and, and the spirit is like oh it's so dark, I'm so bound up into this
that when you go into a major key, it goes ah and it kind of releases the spirit of the tension
you've been feeling all this time, so that when you come back again for the chorus that's in a
minor key, it drives it home even harder and you have all this emotional rollercoaster
of minor to major and minor to major that finally (sounds) this, this big minor key payoff or if it's a happy
scene, a major key payoff or, or something that's kind of mysterious minor and major
happens a lot too, but you'll really notice this in orchestral soundtrack music, happens all the
time and she's doing that here. That's why I say she's so musical and she's pulling out all the
stops in all these cool ways and whether she deliberately is doing it or it's just
by osmosis from hearing a lot of great composers or whatever, she's actually doing a great job man.
All major.
All minor there.
Too major.
See how dramatic this is.
Now this probably would have been a really good vampire music song, maybe it did and I didn't know it. Sorry guys I, if this has appeared
in a vampire movie I didn't know it, but you know of course we know the video, that's where I,
I remember mostly for the video falling out the window and you know all that stuff and the skyscraper,
but it would have been a great, great like you know bring back death to life kind of song right.
Now I've done this song with one of my students, in fact I've done a couple Evanescence tunes,
I'll put, I've done a lot of Amy's stuff so I'll put, with more than one student, so I'll,
in fairness to my students, I'll put this song and other stuff I've done by Evanescence,
Evanescence in the description so you can see how we did, but she's actually taken this
sound to yet another level, and so she's, you know she has some kind of almost industrial
sounding like Nine Inch Nailsy kind of stuff, combined with this sound in
at least one or two of her other songs which I think is really interesting as well. It
almost has like some Ramstein rhythm stuff in a couple pieces where she's singing
this operatic stuff up top so.
There's that haunting, repeating that (sings).
Hard to hold (sings)
I mean she holds the note pretty long right. So hey man her stuff's pretty hard
to do but anyway gang thank you for joining me and check out my next video.