Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm continuing a really fun series where I'm taking isolated vocal tracks of some of the most
epic, legendary pieces of music in all of pop, rock, country, disco you name in history and
we're doing it. Next up is the king himself Elvis Presley "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You"
and I did a version of this myself, I'm going to put that in the description so you can check it
out, but before we get started if you wouldn't mind, please like and subscribe to my channel so
I can keep new cool videos coming your way. I also have a singing course and the course is called How
To Sing Better Than Anyone Else where I walk you through step by step how all these amazing singers
at least try to show you how all these amazing singers got to the places that they got so that
you not just can copy their voices but that you can set the bar really high for yourself and
have a big toolbox to draw from in your singing so that you can sing pretty much whatever you want
and we're going to talk about that as we go along. Now Elvis was interesting, in the version that I
did that I'm going to put in the description is most the time when I cover a song, I'll kind of
try to do it in the likeness and in the spirit of the artist but then I'll still be Ken Tamplin
and I think there's a tremendous value in that because then it maintains my artistry and I'm not
just mimicking or a copycat of someone else. In this case I actually did this for a
movie soundtrack and I've done a lot of movie soundtrack stuff over the years. So if you want to
go to imdb.com and just put in Ken Tamplin, you'll see you know some of the stuff I've done over the
years where this would be one of the pieces in there but the reason I bring it up is, because
when I did this song, as I've done many other artists trying to get in the spirit of their
you know kind of, I don't wanna say ghost to the spirit you know, no but really channel sort of you know
the spirit of Elvis, kidding I, I realized how ginger and sensitive and and genteel he was on
this particular song and also the way he covered his vowels and so forth that we're going to talk
about in a minute, but I didn't realize that he has a very, very specific technique in the way he
draws down on his vowels, he stays really long in the vowel sounds themselves. So I just want to kind
of dive right in and we'll talk about it. So in my version I tried to sound really close to Elvis, it
still sounds a little like me but I think if you were to close your eyes and listen to his version
and then listen to my version and then kind of go back and forth you'd see what I mean about
me really trying to get it like Elvis okay. Let's do this. Here we go.
Okay so let's start with a couple things here so this, I promised a tutorial on the voice so let's do this now. So
he starts out really long in the face (sings) right and so he actually
kind of slurs a little bit in his mouth and he doesn't over pronounce his words hardly at all
and he's really long he's not (sings) no he's really long (sings)
I think I'm a little flat sorry about that but anyway and he's got a really kind of fast vibrato
but he uses a lot of it okay. Now another thing he does which I didn't really notice until I dove in
and i tried to emulate this stuff is he'll hit the the first part of the word or the phrase a little
hard and then he'll back it off, he'll hit it again and he'll back it off. Watch. He'll go (sings)
right. Boom back it off, boom back it off. Let me play it again. Check it out.
Right. So let's, do this with me now. Stay really long in the vowel, we want a lot of vibrato and we
want to vibrato on each note we want to slur the words themselves and we just want to go (sings)
Now he's adding a lot of air to that sound. He's not going (sings)
right. He's being, he's using a lot of air in this sound so let's continue.
And he, he does this a lot (sounds)
and he falls off on his words a lot too. So (sings) right (sings)
a little chirping in the words there (sings)
right. Falling off on the words, using a lot of air. Check it out.
Now if you were to sing this to a lover right, think about this. He is literally singing it to
a lover, think about it. Like let's really listen let's, I want to go back to the beginning of this
and if he had done this any other way, any other way, it would have sound contrived, it would have sounded
like he worked it up. It literally sounds like he's singing it to someone that he loves. Listen, listen
really close. There's no, he's not showboating or he's not trying to you know, you know jailhouse
rock, you know he's not doing any of that. It's kind of like when he did his gospels, when he did a lot
of the spirituals that he did a lot of the, the gospel songs that he sung, he did the same thing, it
was the same approach. Check this out real close and imagine now, instead of him wowing you with
his voice, you just get the feeling of it and you know it's Elvis and the warmth and the sensitivity
and the, and the the love that he, you know you feel in this song when he's doing it. Check it out man.
Or cell phone.
Right.
You see what I mean you get that sensation through the whole song. Let's continue, here we go.
Now do this with me (sings)
right. He's so sensitive in it. Right. Check it out. Look, watch.
Now this part's really kind of interesting because this is,
all of a sudden I'm going to point this out to you guys right. Stay with me. He goes from
you know literally bedroom voice, whispering in his lover's ear,
to telling the story and so he shifts gears out of that. Watch. Check it out.
And then he goes back into (sings)
stay right but look and he goes (sings)
and then he goes into the next line right. Let's continue. Here we go.
See what I mean. Okay let's fast forward. Here we go.
Now I don't remember who the background vocal people are on this but man, kudos to those
guys for not stepping on or trying to outshine or overshadow the lead vocal. If you really go back
and listen those background vocals, they really come alongside him, rather than look at me, look
at me, look at me right. It's not that. It's just a real gentle pillow of coming alongside you know
his headdress you know telling the story. Now the other thing too is, there were other
artists like at this time and even before that, I think it was the Kingston trio that did that for
sure, for guys like Harry Belafonte and early stuff like that and they were just, Lord what was
his name I forget, Lord Farquaad no that's, that's Shrek. Lord something, I forget that who
helped write all that stuff and arrange that stuff but just a phenomenal orchestrator arranger
and also used the very same, similar techniques as this, in doing this. So I think, kudos to the
background vocals on this because I thought that's really special. Maybe you didn't notice that but
I certainly did, and even the band too with a stand-up bass like the original, has a stand up
bass and just brushes on the drums and just real gentle stuff going through these are really cool so.
And by the way, something else I noticed too here. When I was doing this tune I noticed that on
this song, he was a little stuffier than on other Elvis songs that I've tried to take on before
and so it was kind of hard because (sings) like (sings).
So it's almost like (sings). Instead of
(sings) right and I noticed when I was doing this track
early on and i noticed it too in the iso version is. Check this out.
See (sings) right. He's kind of stuffy through it so it's kind of hard to match
some of the resonance in the face the way he does.
See the word some (sings) you can, I don't know if he was doing blow
that day or just had a cold or just you know whatever but if you listen, listen something.
(sings)
By the way, I have to do takedowns and break all this stuff down when I'm,
I'm trying to dissect a vocal like this because I got to know how he got the sound
and all this matters. So like when you're doing something, when I say hey use more mask on this
song or cover or darken this sound over here or let's get a little more distorted here or
let's stay bright or airy on a sound, all this stuff matters in the mechanics of taking this
down to understand how it was done, so we can replicate the sound okay. All right.
Hear those background vocals. Now they've stepped it up a little bit because the
song's kind of crescendoing and it's coming into a close.
Do it with me (sings)
I had to do that sorry.
Here we go.
Such a beautiful, moving, epic piece. You know guys I'm not going to go on any rants here
but I do want to close with this because I think it's important for us to take a look at.
What happened to music today, no offense and I'm not trying to live in the past, I'm not one of
those kind of guys. I appreciate any form of art, good, bad, indifferent. If I can find a nugget in
it I try to do that, but in today's music where's the, where's the the purity and the wholesomeness
and the sensitivity and the genuineness and just, all the stuff. I feel like we've lost so much
in the name of just singing high notes or belting or this or that or or getting creepy
on telling sexual stories or just whatever that is, that we've lost the romance, we've lost the,
the courting relationships, we've lost the mystery. You know everyone's just gonna take their
clothes off and start you know having sex in the streets and instead there's such a beautiful sweet
romance to this that it, it's really sexy. To me I find that really sexy and just
cause someone, I remember one time. Another little side note okay. All right long time ago.
I've traveled the world a lot and I remember, gosh my first actual time, I, I toured
Europe a lot but this was the first time I got to go to some nude beaches right. I did with a
band I was in many, many years ago but this time I actually, you know I was on the, in St. Tropez in
the South of France you know and also Southern Italy, or excuse me Northern Italy and, and I remember
you know going down this beach and it was a topless beach, it was a nude beach really and you know
bodies aren't that awesome all the time unless they're kind of perfect, and it was funny because
after a while, it lost its sexiness right. It's kind of nice to have something covered in a
little tease here and a little, a little something to have some mystery and so it was funny that some,
several of the people that I'd seen on the beach that day that were like you know and they put some
clothes on I'm like hey they cleaned up pretty good right. So I say that to say that we're living
in an age where everybody wants everything so fast and just you know shovel that fast
food stuff down their throat so fast and to me, I think this is elegant. I think it's beautiful, it's
romantic, it's sexy, it's Elvis. Thank you guys for joining me and definitely check out my next video.