Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm doing a series called What Makes This Singer Great and next up is Roy Orbison. Before we get
started if you wouldn't mind, please like and subscribe to my channel, that'd be awesome
and don't forget to ring that Bell so I can keep more cool videos coming your way .
I also 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, for all you guys out there that want to learn how to sing or
sing better and with that said so what do I think of when I think of Roy Orbison and what makes him
great. First of all I think of him just as being timeless, the guy's been around forever.
I think of smooth, silky, warm, velvety vocals. Just that real kind of real seducing, engaging,
intimate, just feel good feel good vocals is a good way to say it. I think of him of course in
the Traveling Wilburys. I think of him as just being an exceptional songwriter. Good guitar
player too actually believe it or not. You wouldn't, he wasn't necessarily known for that .
So I think of songs like "Pretty Woman", I think of "You Got It", I think of
"Cryin", I think of "It's Over", "Only The Lonely Right", I think of you know a couple things .
We talked a lot about some of the technical stuff and I did a vocal coach reaction to him
so I'll put that in the description because it's a little more expansive than what I'm going to talk
about here because I talk about the band and stuff but I think of his ability for mixed voice. So (sings)
Now I went through mixed and head and mixed and back again but he was able to get in
and out of mixed voice seamlessly, kinda, you know kind of like Luther Vandross. We had a, I do a
takedown on him too for a vocal coach reacts to Luther and both these guys have just incredible
mixed voices so timelessness, I think of that. II also think of his songs being used in a lot of
movies right. There's a lot of Roy Orbison stuff that's you know very catchy
and of course I think of Van Halen covering "Pretty Woman" right but it's because it's a
cool guitar lick and it fits the song really well so. Let's dive in, speaking of "Pretty Woman", this
is live Farm Aid. Let's play this and, and we'll make some comments along the way. Here we go.
I think of the Eddie Van Halen version.
That's a creative lick to come up with.
I think of his vibrato.
Very catchy melody huh.
I think of David Lee Roth doing that.
I love that 335 he's playing.
See, right there (sings). He's in a mixed voice there, he's not going (sings) me. He's going (sings)
right. So he's got really great, smooth command of mixed voice which is just really awesome .
Like I said velvety, warm, seductive, cozy sort of like I said the feel
goods, kind of, kind of voice and he does that in all of his songs too.
Great change. Very creative.
See, that's almost like a (sounds) like reggae meets something and (sounds)
right. So these really great changes. So these guys were just
masterful songwriters with all these great you know, orchestral changes and they have
kind of an orchestral mind when they think of their own craft and their own songwriting,
it's not just this one-dimensional thing coming at you. Just very inventive, very, very ingenuitous so.
There's that mixed voice.
Another cool turn, right.
To set you up for the chorus.
What great left tuns right, in the writing.
Very catchy.
And that kind of vamping on it for a minute too, it's, the hook, the hook is strong enough
where you can kind of still linger on it and vamp on the hook right
So like I said there's not a lot of songs out there where you have like the freedom just to kind of roll with like a vamp on it and just kind of,
kind of do its thing, it's cool.
See and then he has like surprise effects and he's going (sings) like you know not a
lot of songs do that where all of a sudden you're like, you're, you're kind of into the
song and he's taking you down this road, taking the story and he goes stop. It's like stop
for what, she's coming back to me. You know what I mean. Good songwriting, really engaging, really fun.
He drew me in.
Mixed voice (sings).
That was awesome. So anyway guys you know tell me what do you think of when you think of Roy
Orbison and what makes him great to you just, try and sing some of his stuff too, the way he
does it. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to be that finesseful and that tasty, tasteful in
the way he presents his art in his voice, in his instrument. So those are the things I think of if
you guys would put in the comments sections what you think of when you think of Roy.
Also I'm doing most of this by request gang so if you got someone I want to cover please, or you
want me to cover, please put that in the comments section and definitely check out my next video.