hey chris liepe here lots of you have been requesting a breakdown of joe duplantier's voice
from gojira i have not listened to gojira before uh i have not seen this video that we're about to
go through here is the art of dying live but this is going to be a first for me usually i will go
through and study a person's voice and figure out things in my own voice and show you guys how to
get certain sensations so that you can get close to what they're doing and hopefully it influences
your own singing this time that's not what i'm doing i'm still going to experiment with my
own voice based on what he's doing but i don't know what to expect i don't know if i'm going
to be able to jive with it right off because i haven't done my normal rehearsal sorts of things
going into this if you like this sort of thing simultaneously digging into someone else's voice
and seeing what it means feeling out what it means for your own voice you'll love my
course the aggressive vocalists master plan of attack i go over screaming slows highs
aggressive mixed voice click the link below for more information on that if you want to check it
out by the way i'm doing a reaction to the live version of this song as opposed to the studio
because i feel like a lot of the time we can get a better auditory picture of their
vocal technique and what they actually do because it's not buried in production
so i really want to get a good uh vantage point to his approach as a vocalist and live is the best
way to do that i've learned more from studying artists live than i've learned from studying
them in the studio unless i have the isolated vocal tract then it's really fun to to do that
by the way i have to stop the video at regular increments
in order to not get the video taken down due to copyright reasons so that's why i stop some
sometimes why i stop and say something is to break that up and allow the video to remain up
that's some hard-hitting stuff and those lights are already causing problems in my head
that's some low growling that's cool um we'll unpack it as we as i hear more of it okay
right off the bat i want to make an observation there is tone in those growls there is pitch there
he has primary court engagement and he's laying false court engagement over the top
this is very key a lot of times aggressive singers want to lean into what people think of as
the fry scream which is a uh you don't have the the tone you don't have the note in there
some people would consider this to be a voiceless sort of scream
this is not fry screaming as a lot of people would say and i don't like that term anyway
i also don't like the term false chord scream because all compression based grit all screaming
all aggressive distortive distorted singing is false chord engagement so keep that in mind
is
okay let's hone in i'm gonna use the phrase close my eyes close my eyes that's the note
if you listen carefully to what's going on that note is buried in there
close my eyes and the best way to develop a wonderful sounding deep tony scream or growl
is to start clean and build it so that's what we're gonna do here close my eyes and i realize
it sounds absolutely nothing like what he's doing but we want to get those pitches in our mind close
my eyes and now i'm going to add compression to this sound close i'm going to lift something heavy
close close i'm holding back air and i'm pushing more from my primary support close my eyes and
i'm also going to lengthen my mouth close like he's doing now there's still a lot more note
there you you hear a bit of grit i'm going to do more of that so i'm going to hold back more air
close my eyes
there it is i'm kind of going back and forth with it close my eyes and close
my eyes and it's actually not a lot louder because i'm holding back the air and i'm actually giving
my primary cords a break which is the only reason i can still talk after i do that this
isn't just pushing your vocal cords harder and harder it's learning how to moderate the airflow
so close my eyes and there we go now i'm going
to i'm going to compress as much as possible and i'm going to let it fall apart here's what i mean
i'm going to simultaneously compress and let it fall apart like that i'm gonna i'm gonna
invoke my vocal break this is gonna allow more air to pass through my primary cords
without engaging them for just very small moments
hear how much thicker it gets glow
leaning into that break while simultaneously
combining the compression idea lengthening lowering my larynx
and let yourself crack as you're dialing it in this is where you have to go in order to
get this sound now there are guys that are a lot better at it than me and i've worked with them
spencer sotelo from periphery lucas magyar from vale of maya
and let's get one more of those lows just to create that uh that real nice wide
oh serve your image awesome both i've done courses with i've left the link to that below
as well but this idea of adding compression over a clean note
going to the point of breakup and then letting it fall apart and leaning into that falling apart
is how you get there these guys have the muscle memory down so they can do it like this
there's a lot of air being used the lower you go and the more you lean into that falling apart
all right let's move on keep this approach in mind as we listen to the other things that he does
yes
as i'm keeping my eyes open i'm keeping my eyes open i'm keeping my zeroing in on those pitches
layering it over the top compressing invoking that vocal break he's very good at doing that
all over his range very hard to do it low easier for me at least to do it high let it break up
but still having that little bit of pitch in there that's what keeps things
interesting
i'm gonna use the phrase take my life i'm gonna lengthen shake my life
take my life also going to put my tongue back and almost pronounce an r r so i'm i'm placing
the resonance back to get it lower sounding even though the pitch isn't changing my life
notice how low his larynx is but also how how dropped his jaw is that's helping him get that
super low sound a lot of pitching if we take the note consideration out of there a lot of pitching
those really low sounds is being able to have this drawn posture with your face and tongue it's huge
oh notice there again he he invoked that r
r putting the tongue back and lowering that pitch as much as you can and then sighing from that
vocal break like we talked about earlier these guys know how to lay down a groove
obviously i skipped over some of the instrumental sections to trim down the overall length of the
video and really hone in on the vocals but i love the simplicity of their riffs
certainly there's some pounding rhythms but the fact that things are are more lurchy this also
this almost harkens back to the the simplicity of some of the grunge or 90s sort of vibes
combined with a more metal approach i really like it i'm going to check out more again if
you'd like more help with your voice particularly your aggressive singing go follow the link below
and check out my the aggressive vocalists master plan of attack and i'll help you develop some of
the things we touched on in this particular video and please like and subscribe to the channel
thank you so much for suggestions i get to discover new music and
figure new things out please leave comments below and suggest more for me to do we'll see you later