Hey everybody welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is in the singing.
I'm having an absolute blast doing these isolated vocals from some of the most
epic pieces of music of all time. Next up Frank Sinatra, "Fly Me To The Moon". If you guys wouldn't
mind, please like and subscribe to my channel that'd be really cool. I have a singing
course, that singing course is called How To Sing Better Than Anyone Else and you guys can find it
right here at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com where I also have a free singing forum for you guys if
you're interested wanting to learn how to sing, in different styles, if you're a beginner, intermediate,
advanced, it doesn't matter. I've got like 20,000 people over there we're all talking about all
this amazing information, how to sing, recording, songs, post your videos, give critiques, you name
it, it's all there, but I want to dive right into Frank. Now this is a really cool, epic piece and
I, without further ado let's just dive into it we'll talk about it, we'll do a little tutorial,
we'll talk about Frank, we'll talk about the recording process but it's gonna, come along for
the ride I think you're gonna like this one. Here we go. "Fly Me To The Moon".
Now first of all, there are a lot of singers that have come along that have tried to emulate Frank.
One that I, and by the way Frank too was very Tony Bennett, so Tony and Frank, in fact Tony did a
record called Perfectly Frank so that's kind of funny. Anyway but there, there was a similar
style back in this era and there was a lot of guys that had a croonery kind of vibe to him.
What made Frank really unique was he was really sassy, he wasn't, he was a man's man you know
what I mean and you could hear this kind of East Coast vibe going on, his very Italian
vibe going on, but also in addition that, his phrasing was extremely unique. You know (sings)
right. So we're going to talk about some of his phrasing, he also back then most of these guys
did this too and again there was a lot of great crooners I could talk about, but, and we have newer
guys like Michael Buble and and then we've got you know Harry Connick Jr who's done a fantastic,
you know kind of rendition of Frank in his own really unique way but, and then also too, what's
his name, oh the guy from Panic At The Disco. I'll think of his name in a minute. Anyway he started out
kind of doing a crooner thing too, and then kind of shifted gears doing something I think
the labels wanted to do more of. Brendon Urie meant to say sorry. Sorry Brendon, but he kind of had a
crooner thing early on and has shifted gears on that but what's interesting about this is, there's
very little effect, and if you hear bleed from the band, I'm almost certain that's microphone bleed
because they did all this stuff live, in a room with an orchestra end to end, and they would pick
one of three, four, five, six, maybe nine, ten takes and then would go okay that's take, we'll take
use take number seven okay or whatever it is. So what you're hearing is, you're hearing an actual
orchestra in the background, with Frank singing on top of it, all live. So if there's a mistake, there's
a mistake, you get a mistake, and so the uniqueness of this and that includes a lot of bands back then,
I mean they all just recorded this stuff live. So with a view towards that, no auto tune, no extra
you know over dubs nothing, you got Frank. Check it out.
Okay cool now, the other
thing that Frank did a lot was, a lot of ebb and flow of his dynamic range. So (sings)
right. So he'd go back and forth and play with the energy of the volume
of his voice. Now I'm kind of caricaturizing his voice. Let me, let me have a little more respect and
let me just do it kind of more like he would do it. (sings) right.
I know the notes aren't exact but, so there was a real cool swag. Now, in addition to all of that,
he had this killer golden throat tone. We're gonna listen to it one more time. Check this out.
Great lyric.
Now I know that he watched his conductor who did, I forget his name but he did
almost all of his charts. I mean he was with him his whole career, even down to the very end.
He said let's just do one more chart and I think you know there's a video of him saying that
and that was the last song he ever did and then he passed shortly thereafter, but I could almost see
a conductor going (sings) right.
So with a view towards that, of thinking about him watching a conductor,
singing with an orchestra, the orchestra kind of following Frank because Frank did whatever
Frank wanted to do and it's from a tempo standpoint and whatnot, it was a conductor's
job to sit there and try to corral Frank in to not go too far off on the phrasing of his rhythms,
and you're gonna see this when we put the music up it's really interesting, but then also too,
him, kind of Frank following the conductor as he's going through it right. So listen to the, listen to
that listen, just kind of think about it.
Right.
And by the way (sings) right. There was this funny comedian,
he did this thing, I forget what it was but it was an old Foreigner song and it was,
what was it. It was, I hope I can remember this, but it was, it was something like you know
you know (sings)
right. So he, some comedian like did
a Foreigner song and did it in Frank would have done it. That's not the song but it was actually
pretty funny. Oh it was, yeah (sings). That's what it was. Anyway it's
pretty funny, but that's exactly what Frank did is he had this kind of swag about him that was just
very unique, and then sometimes he'd sing right on the dotted line like right with the band. So check
it out one more time. Here we go.
See what I mean.
Instead of (sings) he's (sings) right. He's singing kind of on
the back of the beat and then the other thing, I know I'm adding a lot to this but, his swing in
the music, because back then things would swing in percentages of how far outside of the band
of the swing that you want, and he'd be really off, far outside the swing. Listen.
Really.
Way in the back.
Pretty cool.
By the way, I know this is kind of nostalgic and and maybe a little too reminiscent of just, I don't
want to live in the past, I'm not saying that, but wasn't this like the coolest era ever, big band,
everybody was happy, no covid 19, no everything was, and, and, and life was good and, and, and it was
just people were dancing and and they're enjoying themselves and they were together, they were very
social, they didn't have their phones out ,glued to their face. This was just, you know and that, by
the way, you could find bad in any era, you could find good in any era so I'm not overselling or
overstating the era, but to me the swing era and just the romance and the, the hats that they wore
from the 20s, 30s, 40s, the way they dressed in their suits. You look at the way people dress today, it's
just ridiculous and back then. You ever see those pictures where they juxtaposed somebody from the
20s, 30s, 40s, a guy dressed for men all suave and his suit this that you know whatever and then
you see some guy dressed with his pants down to his knees and you know tatted you know. Ve,
very different time right so anyway but I, so I don't want to over romance this but it's pretty,
pretty cool era.
Great lyric.
And notice his pitch is stinking spot on and he's kind of (sings) right. Everything
he did was just spot on. Now it wasn't about range and it wasn't about you know, killing
people with you know distortion or anything. It was just sexy, right. Masculine, sexy, cool.
By the way, this is gonna be a funny statement. As much as he was a ge, what kind of comes off like a gentleman's gentleman and real proper and stuff,
I don't think I'd want to get Frank pissed off in an alley. I get the feeling that Frankie knows a
few people if you know what I'm talking about. I think he could probably take you out if you
really wanted to. You know what I'm saying anyway. I'm gonna go to the next section here, here we go.
Big long instrumental break. Here we go.
(sings) right.
That's the song I was talking about. Hey, so, but the other thing too that was also really unique,
and I heard this from several people that actually, I got a chance to work with his string section a
long time ago, and so I know guys that knew him pretty well, and so he was mr ad-lib, like he never
sang this the, this the same way twice ever. Like ever. He would always have a different mood and a
different phrasing and a different note choice, and you could really hear that here. How many people
today can just, on the spot, rearrange a melody or take on a melody and be consistent every single
time with it like Frank. Not very many people man, it's pretty cool.
(sings) right. He's not real spot on in his vibrato but it's good
enough, it's Frank it's cool right. Check it out.
See what I mean and by the way he can read music really good so actually that chart, if you listen to this.
If you listen to how far the band hangs, he couldn't have hit that I doubt, I doubt he could hit that
note this spot on without having the music in front of him and reading the music. Check it out.
There we go. See what I mean. Okay now I want to go back to the very top of this and what I
want to do is, I've talked about his, his singing, is phrasing. Now if you notice, there's almost
no reverb on this at all and I've talked about the recording process, and I'm not going to add
a ton of reverbs to it but what I do want to do is, I wanna, I've recorded a lot of horns in my day,
I've recorded a lot of orchestras in my day, a lot, and I've also recorded a lot of choirs and I've
had a chance to do, I lived in LA all my life so I got a chance to get in all the rooms whether it's
The Village or Ocean, Ocean Way or you know Conway, like a lot of rooms I've worked out of and, the
band is in what sounds like a really good wood room right. So you want to be really careful if
you guys are ever trying to record something like this, you don't want something really bright and
brassy and tinny, you want something really warm and soft to really complement the vocal. So I'm
not doing this because I think this track needs it, but I did want to, oh shoot before I do that,
before we get there, I wanted to show you his phrasing against the the music itself so, let's
go ahead and do that first before I actually add the reverbs and then, then I want to show you
how to warm up the sound even more and make it a little bit bigger, because the band is so big, but
let's listen to the phrasing against the music. Check this out.
See instead of (sings) he's (sings) right.
He's got all this really cool, and it's really kind of his personality. He's just kind of like talk,
so Joe, what do you think about them girls. I think I'm gonna go, maybe warm up my Martini a bit. You
know, he's got that kind of thing where you feel like you just talk, he's talking to you in song. Now
it's not so much that he's he's telling the story. Now I'm big on you know telling the story, telling
the story, telling the story. It's more like Frank expressing himself and the words come along for
the ride. So it's kind of a twist on that, so he actually makes the song itself come alive from
his personality, rather than trying to dig into the lyric and have the lyric dictate to him what
to say, and he was known for that because he did it his way right. So you have this swag, check it out.
So great.
So romantic.
Okay cool now. Now that we see his swag against all that we get a
chance to really enjoy that. Here's what I would do if I was actually adding just a little bit of
effect. I've created a couple buses and I want you to listen to this alone without the track. So first
I'll do, I'll do the raw vocal by itself. Check it out.
So there's already kind of a wood room in there, you can hear a rule. It sounds like they recorded
all in a really nice horn, you know wood room right. Now here's with my effect what I did to it.
All I want to do, is I want to bring out more of Frank.
I don't want to cover Frank up, I'm not using effect to cover anything up. Notice how subtle it
is, but I, so we'll go back and forth between the two, check it out.
With effect.
Without.
With.
Okay so let's do this
another time. I'm gonna go back and forth and toggle between. I'll start without it,
put it in and I'll even announce it as I go. Here we go one more time. Without.
In.
Out.
In.
Staying in.
Out.
Now again like I've talked about this a lot, there's a lot to be said for intimacy and having the
vocal be really upfront and personal, so I'm not trying to do that but what I want to show you now
is when we put this in the mix, how Frank gets to dominate the track a little bit more with the band,
rather than the band kind of, overtaking him a little bit too much. So let's do it first with
the vocal without any effect and the band. Check it out.
With effect. Here we go.
Without.
Right here.
With.
Anyway gang I hope this was helpful, hope you enjoyed it and definitely check out my next video.
in other words the