Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. I'm doing a series and the series is
called What Makes This Singer Great and next up is Chris Cornell. Now like I said
in a few these videos already it's not so much just what makes this singer
great technically or you know as a singing artist but what comes to mind
when you think of the singer. So I kind of want to start there for me when I
think of Chris. I think of power, you know he's a very
powerful singer. I think of range ,he had an incredible range at a time when there
wasn't a lot of singers like focusing on range especially in the grunge era which
he didn't want to be called grunge even though he's from the Seattle movement
that wasn't a label or a stigma he wanted to be associated with but so I
think of power range. I think of distortion that really cool awesome distorted sound
in those epic screams I mean it's just this growly scream stuff like in "Cochise" etc.
Um his songwriting, he was an excellent songwriter and I don't care you know
what songs you did from "Cochise"' "Say Hello To Heaven". I really liked what he
did with the James Bond soundtrack, in fact I did a version of that, I'll put in
the description as well so um we'll get to that in a minute if I can think of it
but which just "Show Me How To Live" is another tune I think of. We did that
with my student Kati we're gonna put that in the description also but "You
Know My Name" was the other one. I was trying to think of that I did that was
the James Bond soundtrack. I'll put that in there and I also did that song with
my student Gabriela Guncikova. So anyway and I.. "Like A Stone". I did a
version of that also he's known for that but I did a version I couldn't get the
publishing on it so I wound up writing my own song kind of like it and I put it
on YouTube and I'll put that in the description also so. I think of bands
like Soundgarden "How About You", I think of Audioslave, I think of Temple of the
Dog right. So I want to dive into a performance of his so we can just kind
of make some comments along the way and how Chris's technique works out. Now I
have a singing course called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else and I cover all
this in the course on this kind of range, this kind of open throat technique, this
kind of vocal tract shaping, this kind of distortion and all that. So let's uh
let's dive in and we'll talk about it as we go. Here we go.
He's probably my favorite modern singer of all time.
Okay now there's a lot packed in this right so I didn't do a big long video, I
just did one video of this because I want to break down a bunch of stuff.
The very first thing, I'm gonna repeat it. I'm gonna play this over again so you
see what I'm talking about. In this era and in this time and Eddie Vedder
popularized this and I think he and Eddie were friends and I think that's
how the Temple of Dog came about actually before Pearl Jam if I'm not
mistaken but so everyone used uses and used, in order to sound modern your have
to cover your sound so everything was covered and kind of closed and you know.
So it didn't matter you know what singer was doing it, again popularized by Eddie
Vedder first. Everyone sort of used that approach to singing so you had it kind
of.. you didn't sound like that, you know you weren't a modern singer. Well
that's pretty problematic when it comes to going up in range because the more
you cover or darken a sound, the more difficult it is to get up into the head
and in your face and whatnot and really get good tone and good pitch and
intonation. So if you notice when Chris starts out, he starts out really covered
and slow and by the way one more thing too I might add. He was also
really great at doing this but it's very dangerous and very hard to do, is to sing
something heavy on the bottom and then try to relax and release so that you can
go up top and sing something with range. It's very tough and and and also to get
good tone, it's hard not to sing kind of heavy on the bottom to get that sound. So
you have to really develop this, again I covered this in my singing course. So I
want to go back and listen before we get into the chorus him singing kinda a
little bit heavy, grinding into the sound, covering the sound but notice how he
kind of opens up to all ah vowel, a real open ah sound to get to that the range,
the the open vowel itself and the distortion. So I'm gonna back this all
the way to the top and I want you to check this out, here we go.
Great band.
So you see how he went from a very closed position to opening up that sound
because if he did (sings), it's very hard compared to (sings) right. He's up, open in the
face right. It's a lot easier to get to that range and he also just had really
naturally developed himself on his own, some really cool, low tone without having
to sing quite so heavy on the bottom to get that distorted cool, gritty sound without
over singing the bottom. Alright let's continue.
His epic screams.
So anyway like I said wasn't gonna do some big, long thing but this kind of
encapsulates a lot of what Chris did, you know listen to "Cochise". Now like I said
I've got versions of me doing a medley of "Cochise" and "Show Me How To Live", my
girl Kati did a version of "Show Me How To Live". I did like I said the James
Bond soundtrack "You Know My Name". I'll put all this in the description. My
student Gabriela did that as well and you can see how we fared out how I did
singing this stuff. so now if I missed something guys, I want you guys to step
with.. up to the plate and put into the comments section what you think of
when you think of Chris Cornell and then also too if you would recommend to me who
you would like me to do takedowns of on What Makes This Singer Great, that would
be super awesome and I have another killer video headed your way check this out.