Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing. I am
doing the coolest series ever and I am taking isolated vocal stems and I'm doing an analysis
and tutorial to walk you through the original vocal tracks of some of the most
epic, iconic songs in all of pop and rock history. Next up Jon Bon Jovi or just Bon Jovi
and "Livin' On A Prayer. So if you wouldn't mind before we get started, please like and subscribe to
my channel that would be super awesome. I have a singing course the course is called How to
Sing Better Than Anyone Else and you can find it right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com. I
also have a singing forum there with over 20,000 people in there all discussing and negotiating
all these different styles and the different ways that we can get to these fantastic vocal sounds,
styles, tone, pitch, range distortion and everything right. Now before we get started, I also did a
version of this song so I will put that in the description and I've done many Bon Jovi songs.
I'll put all those in the description so you can see how i stack up to Jon Bon Jovi and I've
had students do them too so all the different you know incarnations of Bon Jo with me and my
students, I'll put that in the description so you can check out and see how we did.
So I want to dive right into this. Now I know the original, the guy that did a lot
of the recordings for this stuff, he's a great guy and he is just a fantastic, fantastic
mix and tracking engineer. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we go but let's just dive right
into the track and and see where this takes us okay. By the way I haven't listened to this so
this is obviously a surprise for me and I'm doing that too not just to be so much like a
vocal reaction because I'm not doing that, that's not what this is about. This is about breaking
down the actual vocals, how he did it, how he got to different sounds, how the recordings happen.
All the little nuances that we wouldn't normally get to hear, by all of the small gesticulations of
having a solo isolated vocal track. Alright let's jam. Let's do this.
Okay. Even that line, once upon a time not so long ago. I want to play it back and I want you to hear
how much effect is on the voice. There is a ton of effect on the voice and the reverb itself is
a really big, long room reverb but what he did was he gated the back end of it to where the reverb
tapers off really quickly so that it doesn't get real messy in the mix. You don't want to have it sloshy and
messy right. Listen closely to how much reverb and how the gate of that reverb. So if you're looking
for this kind of sound, he's using kind of a gated reverb and the reverb is really thick. Listen closely.
Right. Now also too, there's more than one effect on there
so you hear delay, you have a couple different reverbs, a room reverb, a medium-sized reverb, a
longer reverb. You're hearing a lot of effect going on as this is going so I'm going to play it again but,
and then we'll move on here we go.
A lot of effect. Okay here we go
Now bet you didn't know (sings) that that line is a little out of pitch but there's so
much emotion in it, you wouldn't even notice that right so (sings) right.
He's got this kind of New Jersey, New Jersey accent right from Jersey and so he's got this kind of
you know little boy, Jersey accent so he's, he's a, he sounds more like a little boy sounding like he was
looking to sound more like a man, than a man singing the song and I don't mean that in a bad
way because he was really young back then but it does it sounds very boy-ish to me, to me at least
right and I love Bon Jovi, I'm not dissing anybody, it's just how, the, the feeling that I get right so.
Right and so it's kinda pitchy right (sings) right. It's not that in pitch but that's kind
of cool too because it's these carbuncles and the emotion and all the other things
that play into it, that is what we love about something that's, that's not been auto-tuned or
or affected so much that we don't get the emotion of the track. Alright here we go.
Now by the way I wanna, by the way. He makes his vowel sounds real (sings).
He doesn't go (sings) right. He's not real big on the sound so listen closely.
(sings). He's keeping his sounds really small, really, really small
(sings) right. Now also too, what's making his voice sound so
big, isn't that he's got a big voice, he doesn't really have a very big voice but kind of like
what they did with Joe Elliott in Def Leppard, it's very similar in the, in the reverbs that
they're using, is also around the same time and the same kind of engineering techniques.
So if you listen really close, it's the reverbs that are making his voice sound so big,
but listen to the smallness of the actual vowel sounds that he's creating. Check it out.
(sings)
You get it man, you're from Jersey you know you're gonna take it and if you don't like it you don't have
to take it you know what I'm saying but you know that's what, how I sing, you know like I sing. Hey, hey right.
I'm not making fun but again it's kind of what reminds me, that's the
impression that I get when I hear this. Let's do it one more time for me
and just think of some Jersey kid doing this right. Check it out.
He was cute.
By the way this is a high song to sing. I remember when I did this
I think, I'll confess something to you guys, I think it was like,
nine takes it took me to get it, and I had to take a break like I did three or four takes and I was
like oh man this was a tough tune and I came back I did it a couple more times. This was was a really tough
tune and finally like the ninth take I went ah, I nailed it. There was a couple little carbuncles
in mine too but it's hard to sing through something like this. It's pretty tough but, but,
so the way he distorts his voice is not the healthiest way to do it. So let me play this one.
Right. Well I teach you guys in my singing course,
not to do that. So what I would recommend doing first is (sings) is starting with a clean sound (sings)
open up the throat and then (sings) right. Now mine sounds a little more Dio or rounder on this sound because
it's a better technique to maintain good vocal health and to get more range too.
Though this song has a lot of range, especially the key change at the end but so instead of (sings) it's (sings)
right. I want you to open up that sound, rather than being so pinched and squeezed and small in the
sound. It worked for him for a while but if you notice today he really doesn't have a lot of
voice to choose from and it's because of a lot of this kind of singing for a really long time.
So if you want to maintain really good, long vocal health over time,
I wouldn't recommend this sound though it's his sound, his signature sound. Let's continue.
Now notice when he says take my hand it's a clear punch and it's a clear punch going
into this and of course when guys go in the studio they don't sing the song end to end live
and, and what most of the time that we all do as recording artists is,
we try to give our most epic performance in the studio and then we try to figure
out how we're going to pull this off live. So it's kind of a tight roping walk,
act as we get out there, we have to learn to pace ourselves and not oversing this part so we can
get to that part and not sing that part so heavy we can't get to another part. So we really
have to pace ourselves but if you listen closely again, he's act, there's a punch and take it watch.
You hear the overlap (sings) right.
There's an overlap from the previous vocal and then the punch that comes
in, you can actually hear it's a separate vocal going in so.
Cool. Good stuff man. Okay let's see. I don't want a big, long thing going on.
Now if you notice in the second verse, it's different than the
first verse. The first verse is more laid back you know (sings) you know and now this one is (sings)
He's like really leaning in in this sound. Let me back this up a little bit so we can
hear it. Check it out.
Now he's like, he's giving more energy, more distortion, more, more girth, more force into the sound.
You hear how quickly the gated reverb stuff (sings)
You know so he's got a ton of reverb, but it doesn't get sloshy and too,
again, too messy in a mix, because he's gating the crap out of a big hall sound and he's chopping
it off to where he's able to use all this reverb without it getting too messy in the track.
Cool.
Now I want to add one more thing. Respect, total respect to Jon for this. You can hear the verses are different, the choruses so far
have sounded very different. It wasn't cut and pasted back and forth, he's making it very unique,
he's really trying to have each line have a lot of different emotion for the lyric, we've
talked a lot about that. I've total respect for that. He's using some air sometimes to
to have it be real breathy and then other times he's compressing the air to be more
powerful and distorted and punchy so that's really cool.
Ok now this chorus does sound like it was flown in. It sounds exactly like the first chorus. We talked
about this in the Aerosmith song and some other songs. So it sounds like they just grabbed the
first chorus and cut and pasted it to the second chorus which again, I'm not a fan of that. I really
like to make all my courses different and unique, just a little something so that it just doesn't
sound so robotic or computerized as you're cutting from one page, and it takes away some of
the emotion from it too. It's kind of like a sample you know. You hear a sample drum sound and there's no
breath and breathing, ebb and flow into it, it's just all the cookie cutter and all the same.
So anyway so it sounds like he cut and pasted because you could hear that that take my hand,
you can still hear all that overlay on it so pretty obvious it was cut and pasted.
And you can hear that was definitely punched.
Now what's weird is I'm surprised they didn't put that on a separate track
because if you listen closely, it cuts off the track before it
and then when he goes living on a prayer the second time, I think they wanted to make it
sound like it was contiguous, the line was contiguous, so they chop off the end of the
one phrase a little tiny bit, you can hear it and then they punch it right into the second
phrase. It's odd they didn't just put that on a separate track and bring it up. Listen closely.
Cool. Oh solo so let me go forward here. Again this is all real time
Again you can hear the punch go all that you've got whoa right. That was
probably a studio call some discovery in the studio. He went hey man let's like,
let's, let's you know do a key change right here and then they do that weird thing where they
they take out one beat when they go into it remember all that.
He's kind of halfway between chest and head voice right there. It's a tough tune man.
You hear that cut between, between the verse right there. You cut off one vocal because they
wanted it to sound contiguous like he's sang the line together but he didn't.
Now if you notice guys, I've talked to you guys a lot about little boy voice and if you notice,
from the girth and the roundness and the warmth of his sound in the verses, compared to this, he's
had to thin his voice out a lot to get up into that upper register. You hear me doing that in my
recording too. Listen, check out my recording in the description and watch my video of me doing this,
and a lot of other Bon Jovi songs too. So I've got a lot of Bon Jovi stuff I've done. In fact I did a
Bon Jovi marathon at one point because I was asked, challenged to do that, so I did that. Anyway so
you can really hear how small and thin his sound is so he's not dragging all that weight
up. He could, hey, hey. He kept bringing hey, hey, hey. It's much smaller in the sound. Listen closely.
Cool and kudos to him too man. It's awesome to have an isolated track like this where we don't have all
the background vocals doing all the work for him. So you can hear him busting his balls up top like
that, he's really belting that stuff out. He's not, he's not stepping off the gas at all and a lot of
times when we hear tracks, depending on you know the track, all the background vocals do all the
work for the guy and he just kind of sits the vocal in the middle and it makes him sound like
he's really throwing down hard. In this case Jon is throwing down really hard and he's killing it,
he's just throwing down like a banshee and they have the big background vocals that really push
it over the top which I think is really cool. So like I said I didn't audition this before because
I wanted to be fresh for my comments to be nice and fresh along the way so. Anyway gang again if
you like what you heard please like and subscribe to my channel and check out my next video.