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Singer has pitch issues — fire the drummer?
- Thread starter Bullitt5135
- Start date
IMHO it depends on the how bad he is, and the material you guys play. If this is a fun project that requires singing simple rock tunes, and if he is just a little off here and there, it's somthing you can live with. On the other hand, if he's butchering beautiful vocal heavy compositions badly, then the drummer needs to go.
In my experience dealing with a range of world class singers down to those who struggle, learning to play piano and gaining understanding of basic music theory is the only path for those that don't have a natural sense of pitch. But, many singers don't have it in them to tackle it. I don't play with them because it's also a limiting factor to your acts success. Eventually, you hit a ceiling that you cannot get past if the singer is pitchy.
Exactly the reason we decided to replace the singer. A few months in and we were already hitting the ceiling.
I didn't think it was that bad. The guy was just doing a lesson for beginners type of thing, and the singing was just sort of indexing where he was in the song. It's not like he was performing it for a paying audience.
And then he got to the chorus. YIKES!
A beginner lesson from someone who sounds like a beginner.
Bass is poor, vox is poor.
Achieves absolutely nothing but still he posted it?
I didn't look closely enough to see if he was presenting it as a lesson for others. He might have just been doing what some YouTubers do, albeit at a lower level than most. My point was he was doing OK for about 20 seconds or so. Then it all fell apart. Badly.
posted it and others. and when some pointed out that not only were the bass lines incorrect, but his singing was lousy, he turned off the comments!
Yes, he does as a lesson. "Lesson" is in the title. (obviously you didn't open it). The title is "
Gold Dust Woman (Fleetwood Mac) Bass Guitar Cover Lesson with Chords/Lyrics"
He's done a whole series of songs like this. And he's terrible. I'm a fairly good bassist, but I would never presume to post a "lesson" on any song. Really I wouldn't. You should be fantastic to do that and you'd better be 100% accurate to the note of the song to presume to do it. This guy is MISLEADING bassists on how these songs go. his singing -- which is akin to geese being slaughtered -- is just an irritant on top of it. lol.
That's some good validation to me.
I just remember when he said it I had two thoughts:
1) that's the dumbest thing I ever heard
2) why aren't we enjoying this enough that we want to smile?
In the present group we smile alot, we enjoy what we do alot, so maybe that helps our vocals which are the one thing people comment on all the time.
Quote from a guitarist who, upon being hired for Lawrence Welk's orchestra sometime in the early 1960s, was told by Mr. Welk how to behave on stage: "Look like you're having fun---but don't."
I watched the video, until about 10 seconds after the chorus started. I didn't notice the "lesson" part.
I don't know how many bassists he is "misleading", but it must be a very small group of people, all of whom are less skilled and knowledgeable, and less intelligent, than he is. I wouldn't worry about it.
I'm not "worried" about it. he is but one of many who attempt to instruct bassists in how to do songs on youtube. Some are outstanding. some are mediocre. some are awful. He was just an example of "awful."
Does the singer recognize the pitchiness? If not, there's a long road ahead ... ear training as well as voice training. Personally, anyone who steps up to be lead singer in a band I'm in better have the pipes to do it, or I'm gone. I don't wait around for others to get up to speed.
WRT to the video. Yeah, the playing is rudimentary and not particularly skilled. I think the singing is being done to orient the listener to where he is in the song, which can be important for beginners who don't have the ability to remember things like that without cues. I don't think he's trying to bring any sort of performance voice to that video, nor do I think it's necessary for his purposes.
WRT the OP, the decision has been made to replace the singer so all additional advice is meaningless at this point.
WRT the OP, the decision has been made to replace the singer so all additional advice is meaningless at this point.
Without reading all the rest:
Since the money is generally crap, I am almost always willing to work with someone on anything, rather than go into the perpetual upgrade loop of entropy.
Using this board rule of three - you have the music, and the hang....so work with them.
Since the money is generally crap, I am almost always willing to work with someone on anything, rather than go into the perpetual upgrade loop of entropy.
Using this board rule of three - you have the music, and the hang....so work with them.
