Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in
the singing. I have the privilege of taking these incredible isolated vocal tracks, where I'm doing
an analysis and a tutorial of some of the most legendary epic pieces of all of rock and history.
Just stripped down to nothing, just the original vocals. Next up is Led Zeppelin "Stairway To Heaven"
Robert Plant. Before we get started if you wouldn't mind, please like and subscribe to my channel that
would be really cool. I also have a singing course, the course is called How to Sing Better Than
Anyone Else and you guys can find it right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com. I also have a singing
forum with over 20,000 singers in there right now, all talking about how these singers got great in
order to help make you great at singing okay. With that said I just want to dive right into
"Stairway To Heaven". Couldn't pick a more epic song, maybe the greatest rock song, rock ballad song
of all time and let's just dive right in. Here we go.
Okay now I've always said that if you really want to know if you have a great song,
you should be able just to take an acoustic and a single line vocal and it'd be epic right.
Well I think it's pretty evidenced that this is that epic. Let me grab my guitar here real quick.
Check this out to the key of A and I just want to do this myself you know. So it's (sings)
right so it's just that epic. You could just take a few chords. I know there's a dispute
over whether or not they actually, you know Randy California, you know had a song that
was kind of similar with a similar progression or whatever and they've, they've resolved the
lawsuit and said that it wasn't and there are some classical pieces that just have descending you know.
That's the live version by the way. Anyway, where it's just that same kind of progression,
but I say that because, how cool is it that we just heard something go by that is probably,
the most notorious or noticed, not notorious, that'd be bad,
but the most well-known vocal line of all time and maybe one of the most well-known
guitar lines of all time so that's pretty cool start if you ask me. Alright let's continue.
Now Led Zeppelin was one of those bands that could combine a lot of acoustic elements into
their music and be acoustic and then big loud electric and back to acoustic and electric, or
start an acoustic and build, build, build, build. Now one of the most interesting things I think is
about this tune, is that this song originally was supposed to be cut down to four minutes or
even three minutes and 30 seconds because that's what the label wanted and supposedly I guess Jimmy
Page was on board with doing that and whatnot and Robert Plant said, if you guys do that I'm leaving
the band. I want the band to be core and that's not core and that we'll just leave it alone. They
can play it if they want. If they don't, they don't have to. We've never been a radio band it's not our
thing. We are a rock band that is, is you know very progressive in some ways but, but mostly
a lot of the music they did you could tell was like riff rocky like you know being like, the ultimate
garage band so to speak. I dare I use that term in Led Zeppelin but you know the ultimate garage
band with the licks and, and then, and then you know creating melodies and stuff and just a vibe
band, it was more about the vibe of the band and you can really hear that in his singing through
the story and it's, it you know of course his folklore is you know kind of creepy folklore
that he did, mystical stuff but you can hear that in the song too so that's interesting so.
Now one more thing. He also was kind of whiny on his vocals. I want to go back to
the first verse because I remember when I first learned this song is (sings)
right. So it's all (sounds) right. So you can almost
hear kind of a folklore/ British influence in the way he's singing, obviously he's British
and so you kind of hear that along the way in the phrases, but it brings about some of the charm
in it as well as in in the storytelling so.
Now to me the lyrics are a little psychedelic and they don't really mean that much, though they
sound like there's a lot of depth to them. I know that a lot of bands in the 70s wanted to write
deep, mystical lyrics and that was kind of the thing back then you know. So there's a tree
by the brook, there's a songbird who sings, sometimes all our words have two meanings
you know and, and, and. So there's like these kind of phrases where you go ooh that's deep
I think right and you kind of get the sense of that as you're going you're like oh that's deep,
oh that's deep right. It's not really actually I don't think. It's, it's good songwriting, it's,
there's a lot of poetry in it but it's almost like a hodgepodge mishmash of a lot of different ideas
and stuff, kind of thrown together. Oh and by the way the concept of "Stairway To Heaven". So I did something
a long time ago and I don't want to give away too much and I don't want to diminish the awesomeness
of the song but I just want to share some stuff with you. I, I took on a really in-depth study
of songwriting and, and what I wound up doing is, I had a lot of poets that I liked, you know T.S Eliot and
I like Shakespeare and I like you know, I could go down a list of a lot of different poets that I
like but you know I like songwriters like you know John Lennon and and I like Billy Joel and I like
Sting and I like you know Led Zeppelin and there was a lot of you know poetry and a lot of this stuff,
but I was a little disappointed, like in Bob Dylan's case and in this case "Stairway To Heaven", that
I was going through Strong's concordance or it's actually Strong, not concord, excuse me, Strong's
Famous Quotations so there's Bartlett's Famous Quotations, there's Strong's Famous Quotations,
there's the Oxford Dictionary Famous Quotations. So I bought these giant books of famous quotations
that are throughout all of world history and every time I saw something cool, I'd take a yellow marker
and I'd, I'd highlight it and it took me gosh two years to get through these books. It took
a long time but it really helped me with my songwriting. So when I was all done with all of it,
I categorically kind of typed out, every single line and put them on a bunch of sheets of paper,
that i could refer to, back to and I would use these as an influence when I would write my own
material right. In fact I have a green Tamplin album. It's just me standing in the desert, just called
Tamplin. I won a Dove word for that album and the entire record is nothing but famous quotations
and I did that not to plagiarize the artists but there was a whole other reason I did it.
It was because for whatever reason radio seemed to have a hard time with me and my lyrics because
I wrote a lot of spiritual stuff and they said oh that's too spiritual or that's too Christian
or that's too whatever, we can't play it so I wanted to find a way to create a bulletproof
way that I could present my thought and my art, to where that they couldn't just poo-poo it away and
say oh that's this. So I remember specifically one radio dj who said oh I can't play that it's,
it's too spiritual and I said well what are you talking about you know. Well something wicked this
way comes and no one hears their plea and I said well that's Shakespeare and he said oh okay.
Well what about this line you know and oh that's you know that's T.S. Eliot or that's, that's
whomever right, some other other art, you know artist or poet that I like and so it actually
helped me get past the gatekeepers a lot, of a lot of things I wanted to write about where there,
if it was just Ken Tamplin writing in his own words, they would you know again dismiss that.
Whereas they didn't now because I put together this bulletproof way of doing it. So anyway it
led me on a long embargo, or embark, excuse me on this process of songwriting and so, come
to find out like this, of course "Stairway To Heaven" is in the Bible too but, that there was concepts
of other poetry that used the term Stairway To Heaven and I was going oh and then there was other ones
like "Knocking On Heaven's Door and I'm like oh no that's not really Bob Dylan it was some other
author from a long time ago and so I was surprised to find out how many famous songwriters, either
blatantly plagiarized the music itself and in some cases ironically even in this case, the music
which they were challenged on by Randy California or they would just you know kind of borrow,
a lot of it and then just kind of re work it a little bit, massage it in a different kind
of way and sorry if I'm rambling right now but this, I'm really into songwriting, I'm really into the
artistry and I'm really in to all this stuff and I want to share with you so that you know you
might find other points of interest beyond just, or at least what makes up these artists
and what drove them to be great at what they do. So with that said let's continue, here we go.
Now that one line in the backward masking world, I remember a guy named Joe Schimmel from
way back in the early 80s you know as here's to my sweet Satan. I don't know how much of this stuff is
backward masked and has you know, and he makes me lie and all these different creepy things that
are supposedly also backwards if you play this stuff backwards. So you could probably play this
backwards and hear some creepy stuff. So I don't want to get into all that but I did want to let
you know that's there as well because supposedly Jimmy Page was into Anton Levay which was,
wrote the Satanic Bible and all this really creepy mystical stuff and I know they were into some
really creepy mystical stuff. So supposedly again if you place in this stuff backwards, it has some
backward messaging. Maybe some of you didn't even know that but back then there was even, other
albums like, like ELO had an album called Ole ELO so it's ELO backwards and throughout the album
they take you through this you know hopscotch of you know, find it, go to the mighty waterfall
and do this and do that and and it gives all this messaging backwards so supposedly the
Beatles did that, you know (sings) you know and
if you guys want to get a kick out of, Joe Schimel. He's I think a pastor out in
in Simi Valley California now but way back he did an expose on backward masking,
if you want to kind of chuckle a little bit, look at some of this stuff. You go who that's kind of creepy.
Now what does that mean.(sings)
I think that means that you know I want to get out of here. I don't know, anyway.
In my thoughts I've seen.
Rings of smoke through the trees. I'm not sure (sings)
right. I mean again it's really psychedelia, it's like you know someone took some lsd or
smoked a lot of pot and started writing some of these lyrics but the melody's really cool
and it's just so iconic, so legendary it's just, you can't get more like I said, more epic than this so.
Oh I sang the wrong lyrics sorry.
Now that's a kind of creepy line because I think it's referring to the Pied Piper of Hamilton
and that didn't end too well for the people following him so but the Piper will lead us
to reason. So there's a lot of again, a lot of mystical mystery in this, it's on the dark side
if you really want to go down the path and, and figure some of this out and maybe I'm reading more
than is necessary into this. I felt bad for you know the Eagles when they had "Hotel California"
and they were saying that was Anton Levay in one of the windows and like all this stuff
and so some of this stuff is taken a little too extreme but I thought I'd just make some of
these comments to keep it interesting and passing along the way so.
Now if you notice, he kind of shifts gears there you know (sings)
right. Okay let's check it out.
There's the piper thing.
Now why I want to say there could be some authenticity into what I'm saying about
this weird mystical part, is the whole song is about you know finding your way to heaven
by good deeds or some road you're going to take or this or that or whatever.
So it's kind of let's say earning your way to heaven or earning some merit or
figuring out some mystical path or there's still time to change the road you're on,
well you know I guess depending on your on your theological point of view and what you feel,
philosophical and theological point of view, that's actually not true. Once you die you die and that's
kind of you know the end of it so. There's a lot of, a lot of what I'm going to call
skeptical I'm gonna, or I'm skeptical of you know what he's saying in a lot of this stuff because I
don't believe the, the, the lyrical content and the philosophy behind what he's sharing so there is
that for me that makes it a little awkward but I wanted to bring that into the picture too because
I don't want people believing you know there's this way we can earn a Stairway To Heaven, it's just
an epic song and we're just covering it for the sake of covering it because it's interesting.
Now and there's a whiner down there. Now he's getting, he's leaning in (sings)
he's getting kind of leaning into that thing where he does it with his face right so (sings)
right and if you notice he's leaving and departing from this warm, sensitive,
ginger sound and little by little by little by little, he's ramping up more and more and more and
more, you know bringing the song to a bigger and bigger climax which is really interesting.
There's a rhino down the road. Not sure what that means.
There walks a lady alone.
Now I know that this is one of those vocal extractors so this isn't as cool as I would have
liked to have had, some of the tracks we get for the isolated tracks are original vocal tracks
and some of them, people taking them with a vocal extractor and I know that some are better than
others. This happened to be good enough to where I figured we could use it as a demonstration
but there is some doubling in his vocals as you go through the original vocal tract
and you can hear, again for effect, not necessarily make it big but more for an effect and for power,
there was some doubling that went on in that and you can hear it so.
It's kind of sloshy.
So you can hear kind of harmonies going back and forth. Unfortunately it gets more sloshy because,
as they try to extract the vocal, it kind of puts the vocal out of phase and and you kind
of hear you know different, mirrored effects of the reverbs that are all kind of sloshing
together and so it doesn't make for a very clean track here so. I won't finish all of this.
Alright. That's the end.
right and then (sings)
right. So if you liked what you heard guys, please like and subscribe and check out my next video.