Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm continuing my series on taking these incredible, isolated vocal tracks.
Next up is Jon Bon Jovi and the song is called "Lay Your Hands On Me" so we're gonna
listen to the isolated vocal track, we're gonna do a tutorial, we're gonna do an analysis, we're gonna
talk about the production maybe a little bit about Jon himself but if you wouldn't mind,
please like and subscribe to my channel. Coming up on a million subs we really like to nail that soon.
I also have a singing course, the course is called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else
for you guys wanting to learn how to sing you can find it right here at KenTamplinVocalAcademy.com
where I also have a free singing forums with about 25,000 singers in there all talking about this
stuff okay. So now these isolated vocal tracks to me are interesting, especially the Bon Jovi
ones right now because the production is off the chain, off the charts or whatever that term
is. Off the hook. Yeah all those. Anyway and I want to kind of point that out along the
way. I'm not going to do the intro first right now there's a giant intro and it is neanderthal huge (sounds)
You know it's like this massive explosions and soaking in arena reverbs
but what they do is they come off this huge thing and then they go all the way down into.
This.
Now of course he's going after a gospel vibe (sings) right. So
and the other interesting thing is, as I mentioned before Jon uses a lot of biblical
references to stuff okay. Some of it is not so biblical he just applies it to a song
and so when you listen to this, the laying on of hands is actually a very biblical term.
It usually means when someone's gonna pray for you and they're gonna
you know minister to you in some way and there's lots of you know things that go along with that
but he's using it kind of a little bit more in a sexual connotation which is kind of a little bit, a little
risky you ask me but nonetheless that's the song, that's him writing and I'm going to just kind of talk
more about it but I want to note one more thing . I've gotten asked a lot about Jon's range, what's
happened to his voice and all this and this is kind of a little later in his 80s metal career,
not in his later career but 80s metal career and so you can hear him very, very intentionally
writing, lyric, music melodies that are a lot lower in pitch okay and this is certainly one of them. So
I want you to listen with a view towards it's not these screaming high vocals that he did you know
on the Fahrenheit album or some of the other stuff, this is written in a lower register but he's still
able to pull it off. He's able to take you know lower regis, register stuff and still make you feel
like you're hearing the real intensive stuff or the high range stuff and the Bon Jovi stuff early
on. So listen closely you'll see what I mean and by the way what I was going to say sacrilegious.
I don't think he's intentionally trying to be sacrilegious I think he's a really spiritual
person. I just think he was kind of, he just is, is cherry picking things that people might kind of
remember somehow and lay your hands on me is one of those things okay. So I wanted to clarify that.
Cool now do this with me. Think about a Bon Jovi song how hard the earlier stuff was to sing.
(sings) okay. Now and by the way I
did a version of this. Like I said I'm always trying to, I say the proof is in the singing
for a reason. I prove it with my own voice and my students voices. So I did a version of this.
I'll put it in the description, tell me how I did. Say I suck, say I'm great, somewhere between. I don't
care but I'm showing you how this can be done and I'm not trying to get you to sound exactly
like Jon Bon Jovi. I want you to sound like you but if we have these influences and Jon has a lot of
influences that's how he's able to write all this great stuff. So anyway with those influences,
he's using a gospel influence right now in the chorus of this song. So anyway you can incorporate
that in your toolbox for singing. So sing along with me (sings) right.
Now I love his attitude. He's always got a great (sings)
right. Now listen to my version right it's kind of hard
to match that energy but the brother's got a lot of energy and so he's just throwing it out there
right away and just letting you have it. Now what was cool is two things happen in the song and now
now I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna regress to the intro and then I'll come back here right now in a
second. So I'm gonna mark this, I'm gonna go to the intro and I want you to hear how big this intro is.
Right it's like, neanderthal huge. Now let's go back to this section
I'm gonna take the instrumentation out we're gonna listen to this one more time.
Here we go.
See how that (sings). Right he's got all this extra, that was the Glenn Hughes version but he's got all
this really like a lot of great energy right.
Now we talked about how much production goes into this,
even down to this part right here if you (sings)
right. He's, he's doing all the hits of the band. Listen.
See what I mean he uses a lot of biblical references right. I forgot about this being
in the song and again check out my version guys I'm trying to put a lot of effort into this stuff.
Check out see how I did man I'm not just you know whistling dixie over here I'm trying to like
show you guys how doable this stuff is, it's not as unattainable as it might seem and especially this
later stuff that he's written that isn't crazy high like some of the earlier stuff, this is really
doable stuff.
There's that David Lee Roth (screams). Now I want to talk about that scream. I want to talk about that
scream. Did I say I want to talk about that scream. I want to talk to you guys about that scream okay.
I get a lot of people saying Ken I want to do the David Lee Roth scream and I'm going to play
it back, you're going to hear him do it and I want to show you something. Okay listen up, real close.
(screams) right. You can hear, I want you to hear the two or three tones,
like I said like Tuvan throat singing or whatever it's like three tone (sings)
you know the guys that kind of have all these different tonalities in their voice when they're
singing. Tuvan throat singers. Check this out.
Now, what that is so that we're clear on this is it's kind of a form of flashlight whistle register but not.
When the chords are raw and they don't have good chord closure. Your chords look like this right
and they kind of close up like this. When they don't have good chord closure, particularly in
your falsetto, this right here is the earmark of the beginning stages of losing your voice
okay. Now that we're clear on that when David Lee Roth did it again it was from over singing and (sings) when
he's you know running with the devil or whatever song it was I forget, that it happens in
a few times, is it's chord separation or loss or loss of phonation, loss of sound or loss of good
chord closure all right. Now I'm not saying it's not doable without that but what I'm saying is
you're hearing the beginnings of a vocal loss. So as cool as it may seem, as cool as you may want to
run around and do it and even on scream and growl and all these other people you know doing all this
stuff that are really you know it's like, like I said it's like an extreme sport on your vocal
folds. This is kind of the beginning stages of that and, and a lot of times too, people
supplement that or, or I should actually say that they switch it out for going (sings) and hitting
something clean or a real powerful high note, what they do is they you know give the illusion that
they're actually singing high when in fact it's just this kind of falsettoy, broken up vocal
thing and I'm sorry for beating that up but I've gotten asked a lot about the David Lee Roth scream
and you've heard a couple tunes where Jon's done it and one more time this is him doing it again.
Ah it's actually before that sorry,
By the way those are great note choices (sings). Those, that's, those are great note choices. He
always kind of finds the right kind of cool gospely seventh you know things whenever, whatever song,
especially in the outlaw stuff that he does he come, he picks off the cool notes which is great.
Catchy chorus.
Now I've heard a lot of people comment on this era of Bon Jovi's songs saying there was nowhere
near as good as "Livin' On A Prayer" and stuff. I disagree, I think this stuff and "Bad Medicine"
and some of the other stuff you know, I disagree. I think this stuff is really, really good. It's
really good songwriting, the production is awesome, the playing is awesome, it's really well thought
out you know what I mean. So you guys out there that are like kind of talking smack against Jon,
please don't do that because this stuff is every bit as good as the early stuff.
It may also be yes at the time it started to come out you know grunge music was coming in like
this and then that music was starting to go like this so it didn't get quite the same, you know
yahoo, waha, yeeha, kind of, you know the world wasn't chasing after in the same way because tides
were changing and, and the climate and sort of the culture was changing musically for rock and metal
and then on into grunge but Jon did something that was, is notoriously Jon and I want to
also talk about his work ethic is that, I remember I was living in Germany at the time and I was
you know going to these festivals and stuff and Jon was was actually you know before Fahrenheit
and he was you know just kind of coming up the ranks, this guy is one hard-working dude. I mean
kind of like my cousin Sammy Hagar when he left Van Halen and looked like maybe he was going to lose a
lot of audience and stuff, he just bam right after all these tours and albums with Van Halen he just
went right back out on the road to reclaim his audience and even the audience before Van Halen,
Van Halen and then sometimes through what would happen through Van Halen and then grab some more
audience because he went out and he worked his butt off to be able to you know keep that
from happening, from losing an audience. Jon did the same thing. So when grunge happened
he just went right back out on the road and he found out that you know okay so he lost some
ground in the United States but he remembered that his first you know, core audience actually
kind of came from Europe believe it or not so he went back to Europe he hit the ground pavement,
hit that pavement, got you know and then brought that success back over again to the United States.
So kudos to Jon for his hard work ethic so this guy is, is a force to be reckoned with and has
really worked very hard so if you think this just because he was a pretty face and high range and
you know got a record deal early on, no, uh-uh, no. He worked for this stuff and you can hear it in
the music and that's what we're listening to so.
Just wanted to say that.
It's funny. Very David Lee rock.
See that (sounds) what vocal separation. Let me move it up here so hold on let's get to the.
And then (sings). I don't know what that was.
Now you heard the stacking of the vocals got bigger and bigger and bigger to create more
and more intensity so they could have left it alone I mean Foreigner "I Want To Know
What Love Is" you know they had the one choir and it kind of was the same all the way through and
then they kind of ad-libbed at the end. He didn't do that. He made it a little bigger.
Next, next time came around, a little bigger. Next time he came around, a little bigger.
I think that's really cool man the guy put in a lot of effort to this stuff and whoever was
producing this at the time, I don't think it was Fair Bearing here I forget who it was it did this
album but, maybe it was I forgot but anyway just some great stuff. Now I want to, I want to
actually add some of the track just so you get a flavor for how much awesome production is in this.
Here's a solo let's go to the co.
Listen without the vocal.
See it get bigger.
Building and building.
(sings)
Anyway obviously I'm a Bon Jovi fan and it's, like I said I have a lot of respect for people
that are hard working and this guy is hard working and has really put in the time, the
blood, the sweat, the tears and everything to have this career be that long-lived so.
Hopefully you enjoyed this as much as I did and putting it together for you guys
and please, please, please definitely stick around and check out my next video.