Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. I'm doing a series on What Makes This
Singer Great and I'm about to do Pat Benatar but before I do if you guys
wouldn't mind please like and subscribe to my channel that'd be really cool.
Don't forget to ring that Bell so I can keep cool videos coming your way and I
have a singing course and the course is called How to Sing Better Than Anyone
Else. You could find it right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com for those
of you interested in learning how to sing, for those of you that already sing,
or for those that want to take your singing to a whole new level. We break
all this stuff down and the greatness of these artists in hopes to help make you
great at singing. So with that said what comes to mind when I think of Pat
Benatar. Well I think of this little powerhouse, singing these big vocals.
That's the first thing that comes to mind, this tiny little gal with a
giant voice, kinda like Ronnie James Dio of females right so maybe that's kind
of a funny way to put it but anyway that's kind of one thing I think of um. I
think of her opera influence in her vocals, how it's been
able to sustain her voice which is really really cool, I think of her and of
course there's Janis Joplin but I think of her being one of the few that had a
lot of grit in her sound early on and there wasn't a lot of that going on way
back in the late seventies when Pat you know was kind of getting acclaim. Um I
also think of her being a mega Grammy winner, she won a lot of Grammys. I think
at one point she held the most Grammys of any female artist of all time. I know
that's been superseded since but I think of that. I think of her tone or pitch
being incredible and I've.. every live performance this gals done that I've
seen whether it be on TV or live, I've never seen this girl choke which is
amazing. She's got really good diaphragmatic support so I know that
must have come from her operatic training. Her vowel placements are really
cool so she's got really beautiful more on the soprano side of vowel placements
which is odd because she sings in an alto contralto, alto belting register a
lot and then when she flips in her head voice, she flips into like a whole new
voice altogether for more of an operatic you know round, tubular sort of sound
sounding vowels. Rock chick, that to mind, I think she's a rock chick
right. I think Neil Giraldo her husband and guitar player and songwriter so um
their duo and a team so I think of them they're kind of inextricable..
inextricably linked and of course I think of songs like "Heartbreaker", "Shadows
Of The Night". Now by the way I again like kind like we we talked about Ann
Wilson, she may be one of the most influential, female rock vocalist of all
time just like Ann Wilson. I think they're kind of like neck-and-neck, Pat's
way up there with Ann so I think of that of course and then I kind of think
of two eras. I think of you know the heartbreaker you know "Hit Me With Your
Best Shot Era and then I think of kind of later stuff like "Shadows Of The Night",
and you know that kind of you know "We Belong". So two different sort of things,
one is a little more produced and less raw, guitar driven and more
radio-friendly I would say. So anyway I think of "Heartbreaker", "Shadows Of
The Night", Hit Me With Your Best Shot", of course "Promises In The Dark", "We belong". I
chose "Hell Is For Children" because of her belting and some of the distortion
and grit so we're gonna check that out in a second and then I "Fire And Ice". I
mean there's a lot of tunes so I'm sure we can discuss that more but just a
phenomenally, talented lady. I love her songwriting, I like her note choices, her
melodies are incredible, very memorable. I think at one point, I don't know if this
is still true but I think, "We Belong" was the most played song on AOR radio of all
time, believe it or not above you know Pink Floyd The Wall and Stairway To
Heaven" and like whatever, "We Belong" was like way up there if not.. I think was at
the top. I'm not sure maybe it's been dethroned by now but anyway let's check
out the tune and we'll talk more about her voice as we go. Here we go.
Such command of her voice.
Such a slender little thing.
Man what a prescient song for today.
Now think about a rock chick writing a song like this, "Hell Is For Children" which
is about child abuse, way back percolating way back in the 70s is when
she first started thinking about this tune. There wasn't a lot of people writing
about stuff like that, there was KISS writing you know rock and roll all night and
you know other bands doing whatever but not really socially, conscious songs.
There was yes of course a lot of political songs and and whatnot but you
know most it was like sex, drugs, rock and rolly kind of stuff and she was not
writing stuff like that. She was writing stuff like this, very again socially
conscious, conscious songs just washed my tongue and I can't do anything. Anyway so let's
continue. Notice the warmth of her voice, the command, the confidence, the presence
and she also uses a raised laryngeal position so (sings)
so in her lower register she actually uses a range laryngeal position
more for style and effect okay let's go.
I know Lzzy Hale's done a pretty killer cover of this also so she did a great
job on this.
Okay I'm gonna fast-forward this a little bit cause this kind of
drones on. I wanted to get towards the end but you get a flavor for the
roundness and the warmth of her voice as you're going through it and then and
then her belting which is, I'm gonna kind of fast forward a little bit.. see here.
foot up to here
Great tone.
Cool so I mean you guys get the flavor what I'm talking about, just I mean I
understand her legendary status, she's just such an icon. Now for some reason
and I know that popularity contest plays such a role in like who makes it you
know past this legendary status you know the Rolling Stones make it but you know
Grand Funk doesn't or whatever like I mean this is so weird how people you
know Poison makes it or Sebastian Bach and Skid Row make it but other bands
don't like Foreigner you know or whomever right. So it's just kind of
surprising that she hasn't gotten quite the same acclaim, notoriety maybe as Heart
because Heart has continued to do it or whatever and maybe put out other music
that was more contemporary I don't know but I will say that there's no reason
that she shouldn't be like way at the top two, three, four, five top female
rock vocalists of all time. So with that said guys I mean if I missed anything,
what do you think of when you think of Pat Benatar. You know what songs did I
miss, is there a quirky thing about her that you might know about that you might
want to put in the comments section and like I said I'm doing most of this by
request so if you have a request of a vocalist you want me to do What Makes
This Singer Great too, please put that in the comments as well and check out my
next video.