Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm doing a series, I'm taking isolated vocals and I'm doing a tutorial, analysis and I'm talking
about the recording process at how these amazing pieces were done. Next up is Anthony Kiedis
of course you guys know the band. First of all the song is called "Under The Bridge" and it's Red
Hot Chili Peppers but before we get started if you don't mind, please like and subscribe to my channel,
that'd be super awesome. I have a singing course it's called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else, you can
find it right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com where I have a free singing forum with over 20,000
people in there if you guys are interested, wanting to learn how to sing, that would be the place to
go so. Before we get started though I have a slogan and a phrase and the phrase is, a singer
is only a singer because they have the guts to be one. Now there's all kinds of shades of singing
and I'm not here to diss anybody singing or say someone's better than someone else because that's
subjective to what you like okay, but I will say that in Anthony's case I don't think Anthony would
consider himself to be the greatest singer. I think he'd consider himself to be a really
great storyteller and more of a vibe singer, he's got a really interesting vibe about him and the
Chili Peppers are really a very unusual band with some amazingly talented musicians in the band so
man some of the best drumming on planet earth, some of the best, Flea's one of the best bass
players ever like, you know just some of the, incredible you know musicianship behind the band.
So I just want to dive right in. We'll start first with the vocals and then we'll start to add on to
the conversation okay. Let's do this, here we go.
Now let's be honest if you were down on the beach walking on the boardwalk and some guy
had an acoustic and went (sings)
right got a little pitchy, not, you know a little in, unstable in his voice whatever,
you'd probably just walk right by right. Let's be honest about this. Now at least, unless you had,
you know you're only wearing a sock you know what I mean, then you would probably just kind of go ah shmeh
right but it's, it's the collective of the Chili Peppers that made, and the lyrics and whatnot and
and the vibe and you know the phrasing, the grooves and everything else that goes with the band,
but let's be really honest and candid, if you heard this.
You'd say huh it's Jack Johnson in training or something right. I don't know and this was
actually before Jack, way back, but I say that because I want you guys to know a singer
is only a singer, and we could talk about a lot of singers from David Bowie on down, even Mick Jagger
to a certain extent, where I don't think they'd think of themselves as great singers, they have a really
great artistry that they bring to the table and a great vibe and great storytelling and you know,
their character on and off stage, but I wouldn't say this is the greatest singing but there's a
spooky, engaging vibe about it. You're kinda like oh wow it's, it's quirky and kitschy and it's,
it's enough to where you go hey what is that right. That's kind of what we think of when we, I think of when
I think of this.
(sings) there's not even any (sings) but then you say well Ken that's too exact if you sang it like that or if
you did this song, you'd probably sound kind of stupid and you're right I probably would.
It's so him that you know Kiedis does he does his own vibe the way he does it and that's it so let's continue.
(sings) that's really flat right.
It's like he's doing everything he can to just try to get as close to pitch as he possibly can,
and still be himself and his vibe right. That's really important to point out guys because again
a singer's only a singer because they have the guts to be one and they go in different stages of
learning how to get better and better and better at their craft. A really good example of a lot of
this and you guys are not going to like me for saying this but I have to say it. If you listen
to early Madonna stuff and you go "Holiday" and like some of the songs you're like oh my gosh you know (sounds)
really I can't believe that became popular, and then you saw her work on her craft and you know
who else is, two other singers that are like that. Lady Gaga, her earlier stuff, nowhere's near the
singer she's become, Pink, her earlier stuff nowhere as near the singer she's become. So we all work on
this stuff folks, don't think that it's just some God-given thing, yes there's God-given talent and
there are Aretha franklins and even Aretha had to work on her stuff or Whitney Houston or whomever,
Steve Perry whoever, Freddie Mercury, whoever your flavor the month guy is or girl is, but,
so it kind of starts at one point. By the way I have an Ed Sheeran thing. If you go to my website,
I have, I literally have a video it's called a singer is only a singer because they have the
guts to be one. It says can anyone learn to sing. I'll put that in the description so you can check
out that video I put together on that because it'll really make sense to you as you're going
through the process of this, and I cover all this in my singing course. Let's continue, here we go.
(sings) Like that word and isn't even in the, in a key right. However one more interesting thing about this,
if they had autotuned this, it just wouldn't be the same, because it's the, it's it's the, the
pitchiness of it or the detuned-ness of it that gives you kind of a a creepy, uneasy kind of vibe,
that makes the song. I know that sounds weird, but it really is, it's, it's the fact that it
isn't in perfect pitch and it, and it is kind of, really just like kind of the guy next door
just you know singing kind of a creepy song or, I don't want to use a word creepy but really
emotive kind of song, that gives it that effect and I, I suspect that if you really autotune the crap
out of this, it wouldn't have anywhere near the tension that we hear in it as it's going by.
So pitchy.
right, but look how many records it sold and look how many people liked it. Pretty interesting right.
(sings) you whatever the lyrics, bad lyrics sorry but,
but you hear it's, it's just vibe, the whole thing is vibe, it's not even about singing. I
think it's pretty interesting, it gives hope for you and me right.
See it's like, he's not even like trying to find anything really
creative note wise, though the chorus is catchy (sings)
right. The little Bob Marley kind of vibe going on that's right, right, but the other thing
too that's also kind of cool is, you've got this band, and I'm going to tell you man the band is
just monstrously, gosh to have that kind of band and then have that in the front is really weird
because here you have, this crazy technical drummer, crazy technical bass player, phenomenal talent in
the back, playing lucy goosey, reggae kind of vibes. So you get kind of a weird sense that you have
musicianship playing in a genre that most, that genre itself isn't about musicianship, with a
singer that's not about singing, it's about the vibe right. So everybody's bringing into this
collective about this whole thing being a vibe piece and and it worked. Crazy stuff but it's the
truth man. Check it out.
Now why you're hearing someone, whenever, whoever did this vocal stem,
they actually plopped in the bass. I don't know if that's exactly where the bass hits.
It sounds like it might because the bass is on the back like (sounds)
on the, on the one end of of a groove, kind of like a reggae
beat would be, but it's competing so hard with the vocal it's hard to get
past this part of where they have the vocal stem, but so I what I wanted to do is I want to go back
to the top of this and I want to show you how this sounds with the band because, the band itself,
the way he's singing, he's not singing like in the groove, he's singing kind of playing to his
own drum ha ha, so to speak as he's doing it. So I'm going to go ahead and put the band in itself
and then you listen to both of these together and you'll see what I mean. Check it out.
See what I mean.
See it's very inexact. I think that's really interesting. Now let's continue.
Now you hear it start to lock a little bit more when the drums come in, but when the guitar and
the vocals are just kind of like really loosey-goosey and just kind of all over
the road and it locks a little bit more as it goes and locks more as it gets in the chorus. Check it out.
Now I wanna point something out about the guitar, like that's a jazz chord it's a major seven right. What's interesting about that
also is, is that he's playing these blues licks that are kind of like
Hendrix, you know Stevie Ray Vaughan a little bit you know because of these blues licks,
in a reggae style and you guys probably wouldn't pick up on this and maybe you don't care if you're
just here for singing, but I think that's really interesting because I want to go back and play
just the instrumentation for a minute, and I want you to listen to the guitar parts, the guitar parts are (sounds),
though they do do that in the chorus, that's not what he's doing in the verse.
So I'm going to back up just a little bit of this so
you can hear it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna mute the vocal. Now check out the rhythm of this.
Right and then when you add the vocal to that it's, the vocal is kind of on the reggae side but
the guitar and the groove is pretty tight, playing some kind of technical,
blues rhythm thing. So the, the, the rhythm groove of the guitar is not
super simple stuff, it's not hard but like II said it's like Hendrix you know
"Red House" or you know some other thing kind of sped up a little bit. It's different check it out.
Kind of busy.
Right and then you don't notice how out of pitch that vocal is,
all you're getting is the vibe of it, and a little bit of the tension when it does go out of pitch,
it forces you back into his story, like you're kind of mesmerized and locked back into a story
because of the pitchiness of it. I kid you not, straight up. That's how I see it. Let's continue.
Now if I were to go back here and, let's just get rid of the drums
for a minute, and if I were to sing this to you with only the vocal and I went (sounds)
You'd go oh wow the syncopation of that doesn't even really work, until
you think of someone clapping like (sings)
That one an, kind of like an oompa
is the bass part has a reggae feel that you're hearing going through that really
locks it in when the drum and the grooves are there, it glues it all
together. I think that's fascinating personally but, then again as, I'm,
I come from a musician's standpoint, not just a singer standpoint to show you guys.
Let's get to this part there. Here check this out.
Now someone put that bass part in that we talked about that was just kind of mumbo-jumbo and you couldn't
really quite make it out. Now I want to go back to the top of the song and I want you to notice how
sparse it is because again how i get these vocal stems, sometimes they have a lot of effect on them,
sometimes they don't have hardly any effect, any effect at all. This is one of those examples.
If it were me mixing the song, I wouldn't add all the effect I'm about to put on it right
now to show you, but I also want to show you how we can sparse, spruce this up a little bit. So
all I really did was create two rooms, a long, a bigger room kind of like the one I'm in or
really kind of like my control room here or I mean my vocal booth room here, and then I
put a really small, bright room and a small bit of a delay, and what I also did was I set up my
pre-delays so one of the delay, pre-delays is about 40 milliseconds. So it goes. It goes (sounds). It's pretty (sounds),
there's a lot of pre-delay to it but the room is really short so it feels like it's hitting kind of
like a racquetball court wall a little bit so that it's not too overwhelming for the track. So check
it out. I'm going to mute the original vocal and the one that I created that has the effect on it
and you're going to see how much bigger it sounds in the track. I'll just go back and
forth between them. You can check it out on your own. Check this out.
Hear the difference.
Here we go.
Now you can tell it's a much bigger sound. Now you say Ken that's too much for that, you're probably
right. As far as just having only a guitar. Now I'm not going to change a thing, I'm not gonna
add any effects or taking you away but when the band kicks in, you can't notice it as much,
except for the fact that it sounds more expensive, it sounds you know just, like a
bigger, more beautiful vocal. Check it out. I'll do it without the vocal or without the effect
first when the band's playing and I'll go back and forth so you can hear it. Check it out. Here we go.
With.
Without.
Now on the one hand, having no effect creates a lot more intimacy which is really cool,
but if you notice when the band actually kicks in even harder, you'll notice the effect even less but
it sits in the track and it thickens up the track even more. So we'll do one without it. Here we go.
Without.
With.
Hear the difference.
Without.
And of course effects, in this context, also cover up
some of the pitchiness in the intonation, attenuation,
intonation problem so. Hopefully you guys enjoyed that and definitely check out my next video.