Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing. I'm
continuing my series on How To Sing Like. Next up legendary Michael Jackson. Before we get
started if you wouldn't mind, please liking and subscribing to my channel, that'd be really cool.
Don't forget to ring that Bell so I can keep new cool videos coming your way and I have a singing
course and that course is called How To Sing Better Than Anyone Else, you can find it right here
at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com. I also have a free singing forums with about 20,000 people in there
that you can sign up for free to kind of test the waters and see if singing is right for you
or if you want to take your singing to a really high level and in this case we're going to
be discussing Michael Jackson. Now Michael has spanned a lot of decades at least four
and he has sort of two different careers that I like to think of. I like to think of him as the
early Michael Jackson way back in the Jackson Five and then you know the the King of Pop era of you
know his big pop star stuff so. I want to start in the early years and I want to talk about the
progression of his singing and I also want to talk about you know singing pre-pubescent, going through
puberty and then on into what we knew of him through you know the the early 80s and even 90s
but early 80s especially so, or mid 80s so. With that said let's get started. Now I, I do this
by demonstration so when I say How To Sing Like, I'm not a talking head where I'm just going to say (sounds)
and give you some quick tip on kind of sort of how to sound like somebody
and I'm also not looking to sound exactly like anybody, we're doing something in the spirit of or
in the, in the influence of. We really want to have our own sound but we incorporate maybe
these influences into our own sound, we put them in our big toolbox for singing okay. So I want
that to be very clear and very important because we're not looking to to mimic anyone in that sense. Now
my first step is I use myself and my students to demonstrate this stuff so you can see how my
technique actually works within the context of all these different styles, it could be heavy, it
could be light, it could be everything in between. Now the next step is Sara Loera and we chose
"ABC", some of you have may seen this on the internet and Sara actually has a fairly
low voice, I kid you not, Sara is more you know in in the in the realm of singing from
a vocal fauch or you know vocal type, voice type. She's a little bit more like Stevie Nicks, she has a
much lower register and can sing pretty low and I think of you, the guys that want to go through
and look through some of the Sara videos, you can see that but Sara through KTVA, has worked
her voice up, really high in order to be able to accommodate this too, just like I have as a high
baritone. So with that said I'm gonna get started and here's Sara.
OK so if you know (sings) you know (sings)
right so what we've done is
we've taken Sara's head voice and we've really strengthened this a lot. Now I cover this in my
singing course How To Sing Better Than Anyone Else, I have a whole section on head voice both for guys
and for girls and so what we did was, even though Sara is predominantly a lower singer, a lower
timbral singer, we were able to get her range to go up into the stratosphere, in the early Michael
Jackson years. Now Michael couldn't you know (sings)
you know "I'll Be There", like stuff like that, that was way, when he could sing really high and as as years
grew on and he went through puberty, he kind of lost a whole octave on his range which is what
we're seeing the early part here and wasn't able to hang on to that, though he was known as being
more of a high range singer. So I'm going to talk a little bit if I can remember, I'm going to talk
a little bit about Bruno Mars because Bruno has really captured the spirit of Michael, kind of
taking it to another level. He's kind of Michael Jackson with a little bit more range, a little
bit more control, believe it or not. Those of you out there might hate me for saying that but he
really has. Bruno's taken Michael's sound, brought it into his own and, and and kind of you know
got some of the early Michael stuff and brought it into manhood but maintained
a lot of that really high tonal quality that early Michael had so let's continue.
(sings) I think it was Jermaine Jackson that did that.
Anyway so I'm pointing some things out here. So now what we do
is, there's a process to this of course so these aren't you know
definitive things, these are little sound bites of the stuff that you'll actually find that's in the
course which is the whole total sum on how to get here but I'm going to give you some you know some
hints on where we're going with this. What we do is we strengthen the head voice and she kind of,
has really little boy voice, I talk about that in the course. Almost Mickey Mouse (sings)
right. We strengthen this really high, bright tone so we (sings)
right. Almost like the Bee Gees you know (sings)
right. We get this nice, bright timbrel, sound and we match the tonal
qualities of our chest voice and we bring it up into our head voice and we have something
called mixed voice and what mixed voice is, is a percentage of our chest voice. How much of that
chest we want to bring, our call register, how much we want to bring into that sound into our (sings)
right. We can go in and out of the passagio, without hearing that register break.
People think that you're pulling in your chest voice and that's your normal big
you know chest resonant sound, no it doesn't work that way.
How it works is we build our chest voice first as a foundation, we've talked about
this a lot, then we build our head voice second as a secondary foundation to hold the top end notes
then we come back and strengthen the passaggio to get this percentage of mixed voice and decide
when we want to hand it off from chest to head and back again and Sara is an extraordinary
example of this so. Let's play a little bit more and then we'll continue.
Okay so I think that gives a pretty good sample you know of early Michael Jackson,
he did a lot of incredible stuff in the Jackson Five but you know so that's the
the first era of Michael Jackson, then we move on into you know his big, King of Pop years so.
Fact let me back this up, sorry about that. Here we go.
Cool now let me point out kind of what I'm doing here. So I, I've, I again I've grown a really powerful, strong head..you know (sings)
right. Excuse me, I have a really strong powerful, head voice. Now I'm going to
back this up just a little tiny bit here and I want you to hear the, the,
the coming into the chest voice and back into head again, check this out.
(sings) right. I slid down into my chest voice and boom I'm back up into my head voice and you can't hear
any break or anything. Now the timbrel sound I'm using here is not the kind of sound I'd use if I
was singing a rock tune, I'd pull more chest into this sound, even though I might use some mixed in
my head voice, because it sounds a little bit too much like reinforced falsetto but
I wanted to match the total tonal qualities of Michael's voice to, to make this work and
make it sound like Michael, though it still sounds like Ken Tamplin okay. Let's continue.
Okay another facet of Michael got the glove.
Okay now let me stop that there.
Now of course you guys know me, I have a real, husky sound (sings)
right. So what do I have to do, I gotta really sing into the mask. I've gotta (sings)
see I'm singing in here instead of (sings)
right. I'm really bringing it up in the mask and I'm shedding all that weight so I again can match
the timbre of Michael's voice. Now again it sounds like me, I'm not saying I sound exactly like him
but I'm showing you how to sing like Michael and still be yourself at the same time, let's continue.
Ok now (sings)
right. I'm real small, I'm way up here in the sound. I'm gonna get rid of all the weight,
I'm bringing it way up high just like Michael does, right in front of my face
in order to be able to accommodate being able to sing that high with it not
sounding like I'm pulling up a bunch of girth or muscle mass in the throat okay, let's continue.
Now did you notice (sings). I've got some mixed there, I'm not going (sings). I'm not really
hootie and fluty on my head voice (sings)
I go (sings). I can add more chest in the sound but I'm mixing it so I can stay
kind of little gentle, a little soft in it and really control how much again how, so I don't
want to sound strainy when I'm up that high I want to sound like Michael. Alright, here we go.
Got the moon walk.
I love this song, I like all of his stuff. He was a talented guy.
So (sings)
right. I got it early, I gotta go right in here. Check it out.
I'm gonna back this up a little bit for you guys to see. Watch this, here we go.
Now I don't have as small of a sound so I can't , I could try to (sings)
right. I can get it really small but I still don't quite
sound like Michael i just, I'm singing in one of his tunes so it gives you the illusion that there's
something that's like Michael. I'm just singing in the technique that gets me
into that sound in order to be able to sing that high without straining and pull it off
and finish these songs end to end without, without epic fails so to speak. So here we go.
Another great song.
If you notice I'm kind of struggling (sings)
I really got to get high and I've got to use a lot of diaphragmatic support to relax the chest and
the neck and throat. Otherwise I'm going to start to build tension in the throat and I won't be able
to pull this off so if you really look closely at this video and I challenge you guys to do this,
watch how I'm really focusing and I'm really trying hard, not to let the larynx raise or
lower on me, it's in a neutral position and I'm focusing really hard on keeping my sound right
here, the whole entire time. I'm not moving around a lot, I'm just really concentrating on this,
this tubular small sound that I'm getting and I'm pitching in the front of my face so
Cool so hopefully this was helpful to you guys. Again I cover all of this stuff in my
singing course so for you that want, you know a lot of people oh Ken you know does your course only
cover rock or Ken you know I only see you know maybe a lot of girls in your courses, that's just
not true. I have, we have almost a thousand videos out now, look at my YouTube channel
in every imaginable style so I'm just showing you how great technique period, works for any style
and in this case it's Michael Jackson, I also challenge you guys when you get a chance,
please check out my version of "When I Was Your Man" by Bruno Mars, I'll actually put that in the
subject line or excuse me description so you can see how I did with that and what I mean by
how Bruno is really kind of you know taking on the spirit of Michael and really you know
juxtapose the two together and check him out. So with that said, check out my next video.