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 absolutely incredible isolated vocal tracks
I'm doing a vocal analysis, a singing tutorial,
talking about the recording process, a little backstory of the band etc. Next up "Eye Of The Tiger",
not quite the eye of the tiger but this will have to do today. Anyway the band is Survivor, the
singer is David Bickler. Now David was replaced by Jimi Jamison, we'll talk a little bit about that
more as we go. I want to remind you guys that 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 where I also
have a free singing forum of over 20,000 people over there all talking about how to get great at
singing, where I walk you through step by step of how these guys got great, how they're doing what
they do in order to help make you do what you want to do okay. I'm gonna dive right into David Bickler
and let's just get started here we go.
Okay now a few things,
a couple of videos ago I talked about how when we remember a song sometimes we remember it bigger
than it was, sometimes it wasn't as big, we were surprised it's bigger than we thought, sometimes
we're surprised at how it stood up to the test of time of modern recording and better fidelity and
so forth and then sometimes there's just other things in between, things we just never noticed
about a song and so forth. So in this particular case in my mind's eye I remember this song being
a lot bigger than it was especially the vocal and I as much as I know the song, in fact I did a
version of this with my student Sara Loera, we'll put that in the description so you could check it
out Sara did a great job but I didn't remember it being quite as choppy and stabby (sings)
right. Now I get it needed to be kind of boppy because my understanding was Sylvester Stallone
actually called David or a member of the band, I think it was David and said hey this is Sylvester I'm
looking for a song for my new movie and I think he had something else in mind that he couldn't
get cleared so he actually asked Survivor David Bickler to write the song and come up with this
theme which is awesome, "Eye Of The Tiger" I think he even might have mentioned you know it needed to be
like you know the tiger you know kind of thing and so they wrote a song about it which is really cool.
I also understand that it needs to be really triumphant and you know a comeback kind of
song and all that stuff so that plays into the the boppy sort of stabby kind of thing,
but I remember it just being a little bit more manning up (sings) you know.
I guess I kind of wanted it a little bigger. Now personal preference, I'm a little bigger fan of
Jimi Jamison with a big, beautiful, warm, velvety tone and the incredible range that he had and
his ability to sync ballads and stuff so. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get to some of that stuff too
but I want to backtrack on one more thing. I never noticed how much reverb was on this vocal track
until I played it alone, there's a lot, but I did notice too which I'll show you right now
that when you put the track in, you don't notice it as much. Check it out.
Here's with the track in right here.
Now I do, I will say in defense of that it's interesting the band is pretty tight
and there's not a big huge production thing as far as a lot of reverbs and stuff going on,
so the vocal is kind of featured as like the thing to have the vocals on to be
really accentuated in that way so. I get all that that's cool. All right let's continue. Here we go.
Cool now I like his pitch, his intonation is spot on but I did notice like little artifacts in here
like at the end of will to survive, he kind of flutters in his vibrato a little bit, I'm surprised
he didn't redo that so check this out.
(sings) right. He's kind of fluttery. Now he uses a little bit of a raised laryngeal position (sings)
so he's got kind of a little bit of a raised vibrato (sings)
right bad lyric sorry but anyway you can hear the raised laryngeal position
and it's a pretty small tone. Now we've talked a lot about you know contralto singers and, and
whatnot and I did a whole series on this, I did actually a couple of them but one that you may
want to check out is The Outfield where this kind of voice type is very kind of one-dimensional in
the way it's very tubular and small and has, you know doesn't use a lot of dynamic range
in the volumes and also a lot of dynamic range even though it's a high vocal, in the actual
range of the vocal itself. It's not sung in two octaves or three octaves. It's all kind of belting
right at the same register. So I thought I'd point that out along the way. Let's continue, here we go.
Now I'm not trying to be mean or pick this apart cause David's a great singer, come on guys "Eye Of The Tiger", it's
like you know one of the most epic, anthemic you know rah-rah songs for triumphs and comebacks of
all time so I'm not trying to diss that but I do have to point some things out along the way.
It kind of almost sounds like he's reading the lyric and I don't, I don't take ownership
of it in the verses as much as I do by the time I get to the chorus. Let me show you
what I mean if you listen closely, he's kind of rushing the lyrics almost like he's reading him
and maybe he could have found a better way to phrase it. Check it out.
Almost like he loses the breath on pass you know (sings)
you know instead of (sings).
So it sounds kind of like rushed and just it's not
as thought out as I personally would like and it's just my personal preference but anyway I thought
I would point that out because it's worth noting along the way and again we're talking
legendary, we're talking epic. I'm only Ken Tamplin. I'm just making some comments all right. Here we go.
See (sings) right. It's just so on the dotted line for me I don't know.
Now in this part he does do that, there's some swing to it and i get it. So (sings)
right. So there's some
swing to it it's like, it's like okay that, that seems like that you sung that a bunch of times
as maybe not as much as the verse.
I love (sings). I love, that's a C right. I don't have my guitar but I love that note that's great.
See a little bit of loss of control (sings)
Like he couldn't quite control his vibrato there. Here we go.
Now
interesting side note, I said I like Jimi Jamison, this part sounds a lot like Jimi Jamison's voice.
Take a listen real close. It's a little more staccato, it's a little more tight in the vocal
but there's some there's some tonal qualities and things and I could see how they picked Jimi
to step in and fit David's place because there's some similarities. Check it out.
See there (sings). How Jimi has that air right normally compared to David.
By the way,
impeccable tone, the only thing I even heard was on the word too
was it was a little you know pitchy and in today's day and age someone would have
just autotuned that unfortunately so I love the fact that it wasn't autotune
but you can listen the word too.
Too's a little, a little flat.
I'm being really picky sorry guys I'm just pointing out stuff just along the way as I hear it. Don't get mad.
Cool now I can hear Jimi singing that too like all the, this part here in the second half right here.
Check this out right here.
(sings). Could you hear JImi doing that you know right so
it's very similar, some interesting little things to pick up along the way.
Love that.
Okay so let's continue on.
Again back to the chorus so and
you know there's nothing really spectacular about it other than it suits the song, it suits Rocky,
it suits the theme, the lyrics great "Eye Of The Tiger" is a great concept, like all that is really cool.
See how thrill of the.
Right (sings) he's like (sings). Check it out.
Thrill. It's the thrill of. That whole thing is a little pitchy.
By the way he's a little flat in tiger there too but he crushes it he, and I know I'm pointing out a
lot of stuff like Ken can't you lighten up, what do you want absolute perfection. Well we kind of
strive for that as we're going for stuff if we can get it great we can't. I'd much rather have
feel and emotion and passion and, and all of that and soul and vibe than absolute perfection. We see
a lot of that in different songs. I'm surprised at some of the stuff that wasn't re-recorded it, but
was done in the name of keeping it because the vibe was cool with the track and the song. Now I
want to point something else out too we've talked a lot about for you guys wanting to learn to sing.
I want you to notice how he under enunciates almost every single word. I'll do it with him so.
(sings)
there's almost no annunciation going on there. There's almost no annunciation.
There's almost no enunciation in there right. Now I was kind of surprised
that they didn't do like a harmony on the end (sings)
I'm surprised they didn't do that but maybe they didn't because they wanted that solo vocal
right out in front and not a distraction away from the melody but.
Right. Couldn't you hear that maybe in there.
But they chose not to do that that's fine you know right. Now I want to show you again
how much the, the, as much as all this reverb plays into this when you've got the track in,
especially in the chorus when the heavy guitars come in. So I'm going to take this all the way
up to the chorus I'm going to put the track in so you can hear it and then you you can
see how the reverbs disappear and so as you're adding your reverbs and whatnot to your main mix,
don't just isolate it, solo it and say okay man that's too much or it's not enough,
make sure that it sits in the track. The length of the reverb, the color of the reverb, is it competing
with the track, is it you know is it just subtle enough to where it's really setting up the track.
I love the fact they didn't use a lot of stuff on this it's just a simple verb but here we go.
Okay now there's good, that's the next verse. Let's go up to, up to the chorus here.
I think it's here.
Cool. Anyway gang hopefully you enjoyed this. I definitely love Survivor and I'm going
to hopefully get the chance to do "The Search Is Over" and some of the other beautiful epic
songs that they also did and I'm going to sing those songs too, either I'm going to do it
myself or I'll do it with one of my students because it's, it's worthy and and this is again
one of those bands that never got to make it to that super icon status, except for this tune
but if you go back, you guys that don't know the band Survivor I really encourage you to go in
and check out some of the really great stuff that you know that Jimi Jamison
did with this band also okay. Thank you for joining me and until next time, peace out.