Seeking suggestions for vocal arrangement

[Wm. E. Evans]

Here's a question for all the cover band people out there...

I'm currently leading an acoustic cover band consisting of female vocals/percussion/eventually piano, male guitar/vocals, male bass/vocals (me) and drums.

We've been doing a lot of material that is quite harmony heavy, but I feel we're running into problems when the female vocalist is singing lead. For example, at rehearsal tonight, we did "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall. In the chorus, the lead vocal is the lowest of three parts. This leaves us guys either a) trying to sing falsetto (light neutral mode for the CVT folks) above the melody, which doesn't quite carry for the range, b) singing in full voice (curbing) above the melody, which is too heavy, c) singing an octave down, which also unbalances it even if we sing soft/away from the mic, or d) omitting the backing vocals which makes the arrangement sound too thin.

Songs in which one of the men are singing lead work fine; for instance we do "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones and nail the 3 part harmony on the chorus with the guitarist singing lead, and we can pull of "Happy Together" by the Turtles with a fairly accurate arrangement. But a lot of the songs we're doing with the female lead just don't work tone balance wise? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[CincyBassMan]

If you have ever seen K.T. perform, see has a jam station looper and sings all her parts starting w/harmonies first...Anyway, the situation you describe will always be an issue with low male voices. You need high tenor voices to help blend with the female lead. It sounds to me like you do not have a high tenor voice in your band. Going to falseto is a way around it but you've described the limitations in your post...So, what to do? Octavating won't solve the problem. You can try working on the full voice/falseto with mic techniques...I think you might want to try switching parts when you get to the chorus, have the female lead jump up to the high parts and you sing the lead.

Hope this helps. Russ

[Deacon_Blues]

I'm not familiar with that song or the music you play so it's hard to tell what would sound good.

You didn't say what mode the female lead singer uses. If she's in curbing, overdrive or belting (mixed voice or chest voice, kind of) you should be fine using curbing for the harmonies regardless of pitch. If she sings in neutral I think you might need to use neutral (falsetto) too. Play around with the volume balance between your mics, record your performance and see how the result is.

The advantage with having tenors is they can sing higher with slightly less effort (I think) and it sounds "lighter". However, anyone can sing up to and above the tenor high C in curbing with some practice (I'm a living proof of it, I'm a baritone). Even the deepest bass voices. If it sounds good or not depends a lot on the music...

Good luck!

(BTW, glad to hear someone else using CVT terminology! )

[bassplayinggirl]

We do almost every song in three voices, mine (female) and two men, and people really like our harmonies. But our covers are always our own arrangements. Since we're not a copy band, we take all kinds of liberties with every song, which means sometimes I sing boy songs, sometimes our boy sings girl songs, and we always create our own harmonies that suite our voices and style. It's also a lot more fun to break away from the known version of anything.

If you're trying to sound like KT Tunstall, more power to ya! (I just checked out the song. Very cool.) If you want to make it your own, find different "ooh oohs". If what you come up with is like Aly and AJ's version (looked that one up, too), why bother?

There are dozens of songs that we love, and that we've tried over and over, and just aren't right for us. So we put them away with a sigh and move on.

Good luck.
BPG

[ric1312]

Originally Posted by Wm. E. Evans

Here's a question for all the cover band people out there...

I'm currently leading an acoustic cover band consisting of female vocals/percussion/eventually piano, male guitar/vocals, male bass/vocals (me) and drums.

We've been doing a lot of material that is quite harmony heavy, but I feel we're running into problems when the female vocalist is singing lead. For example, at rehearsal tonight, we did "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall. In the chorus, the lead vocal is the lowest of three parts. This leaves us guys either a) trying to sing falsetto (light neutral mode for the CVT folks) above the melody, which doesn't quite carry for the range, b) singing in full voice (curbing) above the melody, which is too heavy, c) singing an octave down, which also unbalances it even if we sing soft/away from the mic, or d) omitting the backing vocals which makes the arrangement sound too thin.

Songs in which one of the men are singing lead work fine; for instance we do "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones and nail the 3 part harmony on the chorus with the guitarist singing lead, and we can pull of "Happy Together" by the Turtles with a fairly accurate arrangement. But a lot of the songs we're doing with the female lead just don't work tone balance wise? Any suggestions?

Thanks.

P.S. that CVT stuff is a bunch of crap the only way to sing good with a resonant tone is to attack the voice with the mask. when you do this there is no registers or breaks, you can sing in wide range and swell the intensity and volume with ease.

[Wm. E. Evans]

Thanks for the thoughts. This is the first band I'm leading that has rotating lead vocals; last band I coordinated had a single lead singer so vocal arrangements were very easy.

I'm thinking for songs like this I/we'll probably just have to work out new vocal arrangements if we intend on keeping them; I'm thinking of probably doing a few vocal only rehearsals without a drummer. I'm noticing as a whole we do have somewhat inconsistent mic technique, so this is something we should probably work on. I think it makes sense for us as the harmony vocals will be the main selling point of this band.

On the particular song ("Black Horse"), the lead vocal delivery is great, but it just needs something in the chorus (we have the "whoo-hoo" part worked out to my satisfaction). bassplayinggirl has a good point; we're not a copy band (or a tribute act or whatever) so a little more intensive arrangement is probably unavoidable.

I'm just kinda hitting a mental block with what to do in situations like this because I don't have a sound in my head for what the song should sound like given our available vocalists. I guess you usually don't hear many mixed vocal arrangements in recorded pop/rock, as the vocalist would just multi-track for harmonies. Maybe I just need to listen to more country, or live versions of things...

To CincyBassMan (Russ): Yeah, the guitarist is a lighter baritone and I'm a medium/heavy baritone. That being said, we haven't really been running into range issues; it's more just a blend problem with two baritones singing above a mezzo lead.

To Deacon_Blues: I'm finding the CVT book to be a good pop/rock/R&B/country supplement to classical training and I do like the more precise terminology.

To ric1312: I've read your various posts on the sticky "Bassist's Guide to Singing [or whatever it's called]" thread as well. I fully agree with your statement and appreciate your concern for the general vocal health. I'd like to point out, though, that the thread is dealing with arrangement/balance issues and not problems with vocal technique.

[ric1312]

Originally Posted by Wm. E. Evans

Thanks for the thoughts. This is the first band I'm leading that has rotating lead vocals; last band I coordinated had a single lead singer so vocal arrangements were very easy.

I'm thinking for songs like this I/we'll probably just have to work out new vocal arrangements if we intend on keeping them; I'm thinking of probably doing a few vocal only rehearsals without a drummer. I'm noticing as a whole we do have somewhat inconsistent mic technique, so this is something we should probably work on. I think it makes sense for us as the harmony vocals will be the main selling point of this band.

On the particular song ("Black Horse"), the lead vocal delivery is great, but it just needs something in the chorus (we have the "whoo-hoo" part worked out to my satisfaction). bassplayinggirl has a good point; we're not a copy band (or a tribute act or whatever) so a little more intensive arrangement is probably unavoidable.

I'm just kinda hitting a mental block with what to do in situations like this because I don't have a sound in my head for what the song should sound like given our available vocalists. I guess you usually don't hear many mixed vocal arrangements in recorded pop/rock, as the vocalist would just multi-track for harmonies. Maybe I just need to listen to more country, or live versions of things...

To CincyBassMan (Russ): Yeah, the guitarist is a lighter baritone and I'm a medium/heavy baritone. That being said, we haven't really been running into range issues; it's more just a blend problem with two baritones singing above a mezzo lead.

To Deacon_Blues: I'm finding the CVT book to be a good pop/rock/R&B/country supplement to classical training and I do like the more precise terminology.

To ric1312: I've read your various posts on the sticky "Bassist's Guide to Singing [or whatever it's called]" thread as well. I fully agree with your statement and appreciate your concern for the general vocal health. I'd like to point out, though, that the thread is dealing with arrangement/balance issues and not problems with vocal technique.

Ya, sorry to derail the thread. The CVT stuff is wrong and some of it is even dangerous for your voice. I've taken lessons for years from various coaches and bought every single course available on singing. Of those there is two books I bought that actually made my voice work really awesome, P.M. me if you are interested.

[bassplayinggirl]

Originally Posted by Wm. E. Evans

Thanks for the thoughts. This is the first band I'm leading that has rotating lead vocals; last band I coordinated had a single lead singer so vocal arrangements were very easy.

I'm thinking for songs like this I/we'll probably just have to work out new vocal arrangements if we intend on keeping them; I'm thinking of probably doing a few vocal only rehearsals without a drummer. I think it makes sense for us as the harmony vocals will be the main selling point of this band.

Wm. E., we never bring in a drummer until we have all our arrangements set and our hamonies down pat. For my band this can mean as many as ten rehearsals without a drummer when we're working on new material.

By the way, when your vocal harmonies are tight and good, there's nothing better. Our fans go wild when we go a capella, either an entire song, or just one round of the chorus or something.

Good luck!