Hey guys welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy where the proof is
in the singing. I'm doing a series called What Makes
This Singer Great or what do you think of when you think of this vocalist and
before we get started if you wouldn't mind please like and subscribe to my
channel that'd be really cool. Don't forget to ring that Bell so I can
keep more cool videos coming your way and I have a singing course and the
course is called How to Sing Better Than Anyone Else. You could find it right here
at Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.com where we discuss and negotiate the greatness
of all of these vocals in hopes to help make you great as a singer should you
decide you want to take that on. So with that said what do I think of when I
think of Ann Wilson. Well I think of probably the most or one of the most influential
female rock vocalists of all time. Let's just start there. That's what I think of.
I think of kind of two eras of her being in Heart. I think of the early 70s era
which is you know the "Barracuda", "Magic Man", "Crazy On You" kind of era and then I
think of the Ron Nevison area you know with like "Alone" and "Never" and really
great production and you know so forth. So kind of too, kind of resuscitating
their career you know in in the later second half of what I would call part
two of Heart. I think of very powerful high range, belted singing. Smooth vocals.
I think of a bit of a caprino vibrato from Ann you know she has a very fast
sounding vibrato which is just her. I think of Nancy you know her sister as
being her compadre and the duo that they create together. I think of just great
songs you know all the way around, really great songwriting and they deliver live
man I mean I've seen them so many times and I've never seen a bad show out of Ann.
So just fantastic live performer. Um I think of spot on vocals and also
timelessness you know she's withstood the test of time, she's still out there doing
it this day. I think of her overcoming you know some of the issues with her
weight and whatnot and even depression and so forth so pretty amazing and just
very influential. She's probably maybe one of the most top two, three, four, five
influential female vocalists of all time to influence other female vocalists and
guys too so. Now I put together just a small
little snippet of a video here and I will talk a little bit more about her
singing but the goal of this is what comes to mind when you think of Ann
Wilson and so we'll talk about that more in a second but let's take on this clip
and check it out, here we go.
This is "Alone".
Tasty.
Spot-on pitch.
So now also I notice a lot that they
change up their songs. Sometimes they'll slow them down, they'll speed them up. For the most
probably that kind of break them down, slow them down. They make him even a little
more epic. I actually loved what Anne did with the Zeppelin tunes at that corn.. the
big deal that she sang on but anyway notice the smoothness of her tone, notice
her vowel placements. Now she's got more of a street approach to singing so she's
not like the perfect singer in that sense but the sister knows how to belt,
she knows how to get great pitch, she knows how to do it night after night. You
can hear really good, strong support in her sound and I love that velvety smooth
tone. Now she does something that I personally don't agree with which is the
over enunciation of the vocal tract and articulation of the words themselves.
It's kind of a theater approach but I heard and I've known that a lot of
producers especially in through the 70s and on and early 80s and whatnot not the
least of which was Ron Nevison God rest his soul. I think he passed away here
recently, really like to make sure that people understood the words and for me
you know I want to get out the the beautiful sound of the vowels. That's
what bel canto means is beautiful singing so more about the beauty of the
sound and then the words come along for the ride
but in this case um Ann does both so let's continue here we go.
Spot-on man.
Ok now she's also one that uses a lot of nasality and a lot of mask in her
sound and sometimes for me that's a bit grating. Now we're here to talk about
what makes Ann great, not what makes her not great. So what makes her great is
she's able to pull it off and do it to where it's palatable but for me I'm not
so into that Celine Dion and you know where it's kind of shrill up top and
whatever but she's been doing this so long, she actually does have a warmth to
the sound too and she's able to bring that along for the ride. Some people
aren't able to do that, she actually happens to be able to pull it off but I
did want to mention that in passing so here we go.
Oh. Not yet. I haven't seen this by the way so it's like a vocal reaction for me.
It's a cool rendition man.
Come on now.
Hey I guess it's just the acoustic version. It's cool it showcases her voice a lot so
that's great.
I love the strings in the background but I can't here them yet.
So you hear that like perfect pitch I mean she's just.. do you ever hear like
anything out of pitch. I mean there's like a little thing here and there cause it's
live all the way through and she's playing guitar and you know whatever and
maybe she can't hear herself you know whatever. Maybe she can but you know just
spot-on vocals you know. She's got just that really nice cool, whiskey sort of
round sound to her voice. Now she doesn't really employ a lot of grit or
distortion in her sound and that's totally fine but she certainly has one
of the best belting, rock female vocalists, vocals of all time so.
And Nancy's backgrounds are spot on too.
Cool stage.
I can't hear those strings at all. It's like all that money for nothing.
Finally a little bit.
An obo.
Nice treatment of this tune though. It's really sweet.
Now do you notice it feels like so effortless for her and I've done this
song. In fact I've done, we've done a few of Ann's songs so I'll put those in the
description and you can kind of check out how we did and stacked up against her
but you know it's just so effortless and I know for a fact that those are some
nice notes and they're not that easy to sing so and not that easy to sing
consistently but Anne just pulls it off night after night after night for
decades she's been able to do this so anyway.
Ok that's it. So anyway guys so yeah tell me what you think of when you think of Ann Wilson.
What first comes to your mind, tell me what I missed.
Put whatever your feelings and thoughts are and song choices or
whatever, put it in the comments section and I'm doing most of this by request so
if you have someone else that you'd like me to do a reaction to, on what makes
that singer great, please put that in the comments section as well and check out my
next video.