Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm continuing a series where I'm doing takedowns of isolated vocal tracks to do a vocal analysis
and a vocal tutorial on how these artists actually did this, as well as discuss the recording process
and other nuances in between. Next up is Bruno Mars, the song is called "When I Was Your Man".
Now I did a version of this myself so I will put the version I did in the description so you can
see how I stack up and I want to remind you guys I have a singing course, the 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 forum over there with over 20,000 people and some excellent moderators to help
you guys negotiate and discuss all these amazing styles, to help you get amazing at singing okay.
So with that said I want to dive right into it without much further ado. Let's rock this thing, here we go.
Okay couple things straight out of the
gate. You can hear he's using a microphone called an sm7 and it's kind of pillowy,
it's kind of covered sounding. It's not, it's not like this real, you know (sings)
It doesn't have that real crystal clear brightness, it's kind of covered
and like there's paper over the microphone a little bit. You can hear that. Now in fairness,
Michael Jackson used the same microphone with Bruce Swedien, the engineer on that
and so I want to point that out that that's probably deliberate
because they were looking to have it maybe sound more like Michael Jackson. Now as we know Bruno is
sort of the reincarnation in some ways of Michael Jackson in the way he approaches a lot of stuff.
He kind of even took Michael Jackson up a notch in singing in his upper register a lot clearer,
more clean than Michael did. Michael was a little more thin. He's a little more naturally gifted at his
age to sing in this registration so. Let's listen to that covered microphone again. We'll listen to
the clarity of his voice and we'll move on.
Now by the way so he uses a lot of mask in his sound (sings). So if you want to try to do this go
(sings)
right. So you can hear it and he's also adding a little extra air in the sound to give a little (sounds)
kind of sound. So it's not too brassy and too shrill as it's coming at you. He wanted to warm
up the sound a bit. So you can do that kind of by holding your breath (sings).
Hear me do that. I'm kind of holding back the air and I want you guys to try it (sings)
You can do that yourself and practice this. Now be careful because overusing this air
will dry out your vocal folds and it'll be hard to get them to be resilient and flexible and have
the elasticity that you want to move around freely in the cabin of your voice so to speak okay. Let's rock.
By the way I like (sings). I like his phrasing, he's got some real nice stabs and some cool, you know very, very cool phrasing.
One more thing. Do you hear how boxy that mic sounds. It doesn't sound real full and round like a
an expensive mic. Well again that's a technique to make the sound of the mic push forward into a mix.
In this case there's only piano going on, but to make this sound, sound really boxy you know and
you can really hear it's covered, it's got kind of papery kind of sound and it's real mid-rangey or
boxy in the sound.
Now there's something interesting about this. When I first heard this song, I thought kind of,
that that part of the song was like, it didn't, it, I don't feel it took me
over the top right, but the more I listened to it, the more I realized
why they did it, was he want, they wanted him to sound melancholy which means sad. So (sings)
So he's reminiscing, kind of about what he just said and about what the song's about, about his
heart breaking, he should have taken better care of this girl who's left him. He sees her dancing with
another man and we get to the chorus. I thought there could have been a little bit better setup
for the chorus, and then I realized they wanted that, they wanted to back off that and not give you
the one-two punch before the chorus, because they wanted to save the emotion and the passion for the
chorus. So I believe that's why they did that part there. I may be wrong but that's the impression
I get and the feeling I get when I hear it.
By, by the way now, Bruno is an awesome singer, no question
about that, I'm only pointing out things I hear in a mix so don't shoot the messenger, but to realize (sings).
You can absolutely hear auto-tune working on those notes. Listen closely because it sounds robotic (sings)
Listen closely.
As it went (sings) on (sings) you can hear it. So I don't know what happened. I don't know if they feel like they got the perfect
take. iIknow it was like a piano thing, him singing and playing the piano. I've heard him sing it live and
he did a killer job, he didn't need auto-tune that I know or that I don't know if they use the auto-
tune in the live version so I'm not sure why they used it in the studio because he's not the kind
of singer that needs it, but nonetheless it was used. Listen to it one more time, you can clearly
hear the auto-tune working.
Did you hear the word hours it's a direct, (sings)
when you hear the hours come in you can hear a punch. Now it's kind of weird,
why didn't they just have him sing the whole line again like, what's really going on in these studios
behind the mask I mean we've heard him do it live so, and we know that he's got a killer voice so
I'm not sure why they had to punch that thing, but listen closely, you can hear it. Check it out.
By the way (sings). On (sings), he did a really great job of mixing (sings). When he gets there, he does a really
great job of mixing in that and then bring it back down so, he uses a lot of really cool mixed voice. So
I'm not trying to just you know point out all the problems and the anomaly, ah you did this, ah you
suck. No he doesn't suck, he's a great singer and he's really raised the bar for a lot of pop guys.
I love his tone, I love his soul, I love his little, you know riffs and licks at
the end of his stuff. You know he's very mature in the way he handles some of his stuff so
I love that but let's listen to this one more time.
Here we go.
I like that little (sings) right the
lyrics. Sorry I forgot the lyric.
Now I like the (sings) of little whines and the creeks (sings)
right. He's got some really great, character in his voice and his distortion
is really cool too. You know I like "Uptown Funk", all these different songs that he's done, even "Grenade",
like all those songs. He's got some really great, you know in fact, you know the heaven song you know,
taking me to heaven and all that. He's got some great tone and I really appreciate that about it
because you can hear his maturity in his singing it's not like a lot of the pop guys today that
just seem real monotone. I don't want to name names because I don't want to get in trouble but
a lot of the pop guys today, don't have anywhere near his tone and his, just the maturity in the
way he approaches his phrasing.
(sings) I love (sings)
you know. It wouldn't surprise me, he could probably pull off some cool rock songs if he wanted to stay
in that, kind of belting range and it would have been kind of interesting right.
Now the (sings) instead of (sings). He's real closed mouth (sings),
a little bit of a raised larynx (sings) right. I love that tone and he does it when he comes down
it's really hard to have that sound when you're up.
Now on closed you can hear that auto-tuner right
(sings). You can hear it working. Check it out.
By the way if you guys want to work on that with me (sings)
right. You can just do that sound go (sings).
Now he's using a lot of air in it, it's not real, cut back and bright on the air. It's, he's got a lot of (sounds)
in the sense (sings) there's a lot of air it's (sings).
So there's some hooty fluty sound to this too that he's adding in it
to add a little bit more of the, the pain and the emotion, it's not just (sings)
like some guy whistling. He's got some pain and some emotion in the sound.
Hear that.
Love this song.
By the word check it on the word hours. There's another punch
there. Listen closely. This one's more subtle than the last one but it is a punch. You can
hear a little difference in the change of the volume when it comes in. Listen.
By the way, I love those (sings) right. Do that with me (sings)
and by the way you can, you can jazz it up even more (sings)
You know you can, you can kind of sauce it up a little bit even more than he did.
Those are the kind of licks like why cover all this in my singing course,
where you can take one lick, you can repeat it multiple times,
or you could just you know cut it in half or do one of them like he did it, but you can (sings)
right. You can add all these little flavors of all these extra licks, and you combine
them but like building blocks. You add one here, you add a little bit over here,
you know and then that's kind of, gives you riffs and runs. That's how we get them okay. Listen to
it closely.
There's that punch.
I love that tone (sings) right. Just killer tone. Like I said you could hear him singing some rock
tunes man. You know I know Miley Cyrus and other people coming out with you know some rock stuff,
and you know I know Lady Gaga's done some rock stuff but this brother could actually pull
this off I think you know so some people are going to like their stuff but I, I can't, there's, I just
can't take that seriously. No offense I'm sure it's going to be fun and cool and interesting
and a novelty, but it's not going to be Led Zeppelin guys, come on let's face it really.
Right here.
I love (sings). I love that tone, the way he comes in like that.
Love his sensitivity.
Good stuff.
And (sings) right. Just the trickle-offs and the you know, the, you know when you, when, you can tell a really
great guitar player, like a singer like this. When he's playing his solo and he goes (sounds)
and he kind of has these little trills that (sounds)
right. Rather than just going (sounds). It's (sounds)
like his he's like, little kind of trail off things right that. That's you can
tell the maturity of a guitar player especially too you can really hear the nuances of that,
he does that too, all these tiny little nuanced gesticulations on his voice. It's really cool.
(sings)
(sings). He gets real sensitive back and forth.
He goes from throwing down really hard to just being real pillowy talk, bedroom
talk so. Anyway guys so thank you for joining me and check out my next video.