Hey gang welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm continuing my series on taking these insane, epic isolated vocal tracks, I'm doing a singing
tutorial, a vocal analysis, talking about the instrumentation, the writing, the production,
you name it I'm doing it. Next up is Deep Purple "Burn". The singer is David Coverdale. Now for you
guys that you that know, David's one of my all-time favorite singers and he really came all the way
from way back in Deep Purple. I forget when this album released it was like oh was it Mark, Mark
3. I think it was 1974. Check me out on that it's a long time ago but you're going to see you know
the, the evolution from David back in that day with songs like "Mistreated", in this case "Burn",
all the way up and through Whitesnake you know and you guys may not know the earlier Whitesnake
you might know the 80s Whitesnake but David's been around a long time and one of my favorite
singers of all time. Now please don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel, that would
be great. Coming up on a million views, views, million subs here so if you guys can help me out
and subscribe it'll get me to the million mark. I'd really appreciate, I'd be a million man, a millionaire man.
Anyway I also have a singing course, the course is called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else, you can
find it right here at KenTamplinVocalAcademy.com where I have a free singing forum over there
also with about 25,000 people in there right, all talking about how to get good at singing. I want
to dive right into David. Now Deep Purple was known for putting out some of the best singers in
all of early rock history and of course we know Ian Gillen, we know David Coverdale, we know Glenn
Hughes we can go on and then there was another incarnation which is Rainbow which Dio came out of,
earlier Black Sabbath then Dio and then we also had gosh Grant Bonnett, we had Joe
Lynn Turner I mean just incredible singers through that band. I don't want to go into all the details
of this stuff now because I want to focus on David and "Burn" but this era of music was just
phenomenal. Guitar playing, keyboards, drums, bass, vocals right. So here we go David Coverdale "Burn" and
Richie Blackmore on guitar. Let's do it.
Now I remember in the Glenn Hughes part of Deep Purple, him doing (sings) that kind of real throaty
thing right. If you listen to this also you'll notice that he's flat on this note. Let me show
you something. You probably did or didn't know this but let me point it out. You could say it's a blues
thing and maybe it is but check it out.
(sings)
right he doesn't go (sings) he goes (sings). He's flat on the thing but he's full throttling the voice
all through this okay so understand that you know even at this level with this talent,
that you can get caught in the chords and caught with a larynx in a position where you can't get to
those notes and we see so many singers doing this and especially like if you watch you know I don't
know I don't want to beat up on Brian Johnson but if you watch Brian Johnson AC/DC you know after
a while he gets so caught that he can't get any higher and and there's no more threshold for notes
beyond that. So let's listen to it one more time.
So now when we compress the voice and this is going to be more for you advanced singers out
there okay. The concept is to build open throat technique first which I cover in my singing course
which is extremely important all right and what that is is to train the vocal tract, your throat to
stay open so it doesn't pinch and squeeze in the throat so you get access to more range, that's the
first thing. The second thing is I've said many, many times and that's that the over use of air,
the overuse, too much air coming out of your mouth is the arch enemy to your vocal folds. It's
literally like taking a flamethrower of air and going and drying out your vocal folds and making
them raw and maybe even to the point of getting a pulp or a node or a lesion or, or having you
know breaking a blood vessel like what happened to Adele and others and so we need to be really
careful of that so what we do is we literally cut back the breath. Now here's what happens when you
cut back to breath and I'm talking to you like this right. Now let me let me show you something
you might get a kick out of this and I know we're going to talk about David but I also said I was
going to do vocal tutorial analysis etc okay. Now I'm going to, I'm going to take a deep breath and
I'm going to breathe from my abdomen so I want you to take, watch my chest and watch my stomach. So I'm
taking my breath and you see my whole abdominal cavity fill up, that is true diaphragmatic and
actually really abdominal breathing. This is what we want especially to sustain
this kind of you know hemi engine singing okay that's an American muscle car from the 70s for you
guys that don't know. Anyway actually they make them still but so I say that because you're, I'm
going to go like this first right now and I'm going to demonstrate this. I'm taking the breath.
By the way I didn't huff from my chest, my chest is already full about half to three quarters full of
air and I'm taking it from the from the abdomen going. Now what I'm going to do if you notice first I'm going
to talk to you like this and I'm going to just talk to you like. Now I'm going to talk normal
where you won't even know and I'm not taking a breath I'm going to use that same breath and what
you don't know is I'm actually compressing the air. Now you may be able to hear it a little bit
but maybe not and you wouldn't know unless I told you that I'm actually compressing this air
and as I'm doing this I'm literally taking the same breath, I'm not taking in any more breaths
and I can literally talk to you for a really long time and show you how much air, how much
I can sustain the note etc and I could go on and on okay so now I took a breath. All right so the
reason I bring it up is you go how is it possible that these guys can sing these big long notes, man
they got a set of lungs. Well actually when they know how to compress this air, it's why they're
able to hold those big long notes. It's also how we're able to get to, dare I use the word healthy
distortion okay. Healthy is a relative term because this is an extreme sport
with your, with your voice. Now healthy meaning that we can do it and then come back
later after we've you know sung distorted and warm up the voice clean so that we don't forever
sentence ourselves to singing heavy where every time we go to get a note we have to strain and,
and power up to get the note okay. There's a lot to this and I'm oversimplifying this and I cover all
of this in my singing course so if you're really interested in this please get the course it'll,
it'll walk you through all this stuff and then you can go in the forums and ask people how it's going
on or take a lesson or whatever but anyway so so that's what's happening here, not to the extreme
that I'd like and David has struggled over the years, he's older but he struggled over the years
you know just kind of street singing but there were early interviews, you go back and look and
check me out on this about David how is his breath control and Ronnie James Dio said the same thing
that once he figured out that his power, the engine that drives his car, the engine that drives his
voice, all came from his abdomen and it was like this aha moment that he was able to sustain this
kind of singing for his entire career okay and he didn't get this part, the glottal compression part
and the open throat technique part with the vocal tract but he did understand that which was able
to give him the ability to sustain this for a long time. So as we go through this we're going
to listen to it again I'm just trying to dissect this for you guys because I promised a tutorial
for you singers out there and if you want to know how I've been able to do it all these years myself,
it's by understanding the correct way to do this all right. Here we go.
So I want to dissect (sings)
right. So everything's coming from here okay so let's, let's get to this.
So because he over compressed in the throat, he
wasn't able to get to the second note because he couldn't relax the throat, he became flat on this note.
So it's (sings)
right. So he wasn't able to get into that space because of that all right. He didn't
have the relaxation response that's required to relax between each phrase to relax it enough
to give him the ability to get back up into that space. Robert Plant was guilty of this,
a lot of people, amazing singers are guilty of this but I'm telling you there is a way to do this and
to get that (sings) and get you know tons of range out of this by relaxing this whole throat mechanism,
doing what I'm telling you and not over singing of, overuse of air and having the abdominal cavity
do all the work so.
Now (sings) you know he's got, I love that (sings)
but that's to me, that's more of, more of a Glenn Hughes kind of thing that it sounds
like he's kind of borrowed or maybe just you know everyone kind of did it.
I know both of those guys were heavily influenced by Sam and Dave and Wilson Pickett and they
even said that Sam and Dave were like some of their, was it Sam, I forget was, the guy that
sang distorted but that was some of their biggest influence so remember this is back 74,
their influence was Motown right. Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett. You know all those
all those early Motown guys that had a distorted sound and they took it to a different rock level.
So I think that's very interesting too so if you get a chance go back listen to
"Mustang Sally", go back and listen to Sam and Dave and you'll see what I'm talking about all right.
I love that.
Now talked about open throat (sings)
is right. So notice the open throatness of them (sings)
right. Listen to the ah vowels on those those vowels and that it, that helps what I've
shared with you guys a lot talking about that all vowel sounds stem from it's the la ah and
other vowels are just slight variations off the ah vowel and once you understand that then you're
not making big shifts in the throat or the vocal tract to get from one vowel to another
that causes a lot of strain, a lot of fatigue and a lot of pressure in the throat okay. Let's
do it again.
Right.
And then the (sings) that, that kind of. I mean there was a lot
of bands that use that, Bruce Dickinson you know like the big thick vibrato, Ronnie James Dio
(sings) you know big, thick, long heavy vibratos but and we love it it's really cool.
And you guys remember Uriah Heap
(sings) right (sings) right those big thick, awesome rock vibratos.
Almost, almost like you know broadway theater vibratos right really cool.
(sings) right.
(sings) right. It's and you can,
could you guys kind of hear Dio doing this. Now I know that, I think Ian Gillen
kind of sang this a couple times too and I think he stopped doing because all three of
them did it live later even after leaving Deep Purple and he didn't have the same kind of
belty upper mid voice registry, he had a lower register at the time (sings)
like "Child In Time" stuff right but he didn't have the upper mid voice stuff
and you kind of hear it in "Highway Star" how he doesn't really have that belted mid voice he
later like in "Perfect Strangers" yeah I mean he you know he had a different voice then it
was bigger and he was doing less drugs and stuff but in this case he didn't have it.
So these guys, Glenn Hughes. I think Glenn Hughes, correct me if I'm wrong guys please
tell me in the comments I think he's doing the background vocals on the high parts
and then he does the bridge section if I'm not mistaken, I'd have to listen back but.
Now I think this is Glenn right, correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like Glenn. It's
definitely not David because he goes up higher and that's what I mean about the release factor.
So David was kind of always just singing at the top of his threshold of his range
and then Glenn's going up here in the chorus. Check it out.
Cool. Anyway I'm pretty sure that was Glenn but.
Second time it happens.
By the way I never noticed that phasing thing so I don't know if that's something
that happened in the vocal extraction to get the isolated vocals or if there was a kind of
a phase shifter on there. I don't remember that in the track so it could be but
let's move on.
(sings) I just love that. I've been singing all day I think it's my eighth hour of singing today.
I, I actually kid you not, no exaggeration and Bob my guy that helps me with uploading my videos
can confirm this. I think this is my eighth demonstration today and I've been doing this since
nine o'clock this morning it's like 4:30 in the afternoon. So I've been singing my begonias off all
day and so I'm even a little tired. I don't really ever get hoarse but you can hear like a (sounds) kind
of sound in my voice right now from singing all kinds of different stuff all day long and giving
one vocal lesson two on top of it, but anyway so I'm a little spent but I just love this sound
so I can't help myself but wanna sing. Anyway I just thought I would add that. Anyway here we go.
Love that. Okay now what I want to do is I just want to show you,
it's really interesting because the guitar lick and the way the drums are are so funky,
I'm surprised that David was able to carve out rhythmically and melodically the lines
that he did. Now I want to play it without the vocal first so that you can hear that
so you know what I'm talking about but check this out.
Now if, if I came to you with a song
and my name is Richie Blackmore it was Ian Paice on drums. I forget who it is, I think it was Ian Paice
but up and then Lord on, on keys and I came to you and I had this this bit and I went (sounds)
you'd say you know Keith Moon would probably have a good time with this on drums but as far
as vocals, I don't think so I, I don't know what to do with it. So when you listen to
the vocal in that drum fill slash holding down a couple guitar chords,
it's pretty interesting that he was able to carve out this melody.
So you know (sings) you know (sings). I can see them (sings)
you know right. It's pretty frenetic if you ask me to come up with a line like that so.
It's pretty awesome that he did. Next line, here we go.
Now how strange it is that on (sings).
On the part that could have had some rhythm to it or you know some way to kind of sink your teeth
into some actual rhythm, they chose to do a big long (sings) you know on a note which is
really interesting to me. Anyway gang this is so fascinating me for just to dissect all of these
unbelievably epic, legendary songs and you're just going wow how cool I get to, it literally. Guys
we're in a studio right now right, my studio and here's a probably a similar mic to what they would
have sung in back in the day and similar pieces of gear. Now imagine you and me were sitting here
right and David Coverdale is on that end of the glass in this microphone and and say I'm Richie
Blackmore or something else and we're just kind of sitting here and we're listening to him and
we want to do another take and we want to do a different take and you know trying some different
stuff and you're, you kind of get to be in the room like with these tracks. I mean do it again like
look, take a look at the glass and go here's David Coverdale singing over the top of a track that's
never been sung he has no idea how epic and legendary this is going to become and you get.
And then Richie says yeah right. That's about right.
I think that's a take. Let's just wrap it up I think that's good right and hey put it in. I mean
I don't know because the machine head was like this too but they put in it and then this many
years later we're still oohing and ahing over it right. I just think that's the coolest thing.
Anyway gang hope you enjoyed it as much as I do and definitely check out my next video.