I once read an article written by John Mayer in Rolling Stone where he was asked to write about Jimi Hendrix in 'The Immortals' issue (one of the best issues ever, FYI). And not surprisingly, he said something that is not only poignant in regards to Hendrix's influence on the music industry, but also in regards to just music and artists in general.
Mayer said; "Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix."
And so as I go through some old albums, ones that I listened to as a 'kid', really, I realize that I have done the same thing. Who I am as a vocalist is defined by my failure to become Wanye Morris or Justin Timberlake. Who I am as a musician is largely defined by my almost obsessive need to learn the harmony lines in each and every *NSync song. It was a compulsion. I'd listen to the albums, certain songs, even, for hours on end, headphones over my ears, laying on my bedroom floor at 15 years old, trying to emulate Justin's phrasing and runs and musicality.
It's an interesting thing, too, because I listen to these songs now, headphones over my ears as I sit in my office, and I can still sing those runs. I can still pick Joey's voice out of the five part harmony and sing his line if I want to, then switch over to JC's part the next line. It's a little crazy, because at 25, I have both no business listening to *NSync (but I will not stop, because I maintain that they are brilliant), and I have no business remembering such musical intricacies from an album released in 1998. But my best friend and I loved them, and we were/are both singers. At 15 and 17 respectively, we decided that I sounded more like Justin and she sounded more like JC, so we'd sing those songs, each guys' parts claimed as our own, until we got them perfect.
And it was a perfect learning experience that I didn't even realize I was part of. As part of the audition process to get into the vocal jazz program I was eventually accepted to, I was required to prepare a 'lift'. What that means is that you listen to a song by another artist, and you emulate their intonation, phrasing, and style as best you can. Well, not to sound conceited, but I aced it. I'd been doing it for years, since I bought Boyz II Men's II album on cassette (the first album I ever bought) and decided that I wanted to be able to sing runs like they could. The first vocal competition I placed first in, I sang Open Arms. I essentially copied Mariah's version.
I can still transform my voice to copy whoever I'm listening to, which freaks out my brother (a semi-professional musician who has toured the globe with an award-winning artist). He laughs when he hears me singing like Justin, that bit of a smokey, sultry rasp. He thinks it's hilarious that the next second, I can sing with all the swing of Ella. I can bust out a Miranda Lambert song and have a Texan accent singing Famous in a Small Town. Granted, this is usually after a few drinks, when everything is a little funnier. And it's even weirder, because when I sing my own songs, that's when my true voice comes out. Sometimes I hear myself on recordings of my own songs and it startles me a little, because I spend so much time singing like other people, that it's strange to hear myself.
There is no doubt that I'm an auditory learner. I'm not sure if that's innate or learned, or maybe a little bit of both.
And in one of those evenings, after quite a bit of Mount Guay rum, my brother and I, both of us saxophone players, got to talking about *NSync and how good this song is, and we decided it'd be awesome to work out a 5-part saxophone arrangement (one baritone, one tenor, two alto, and one soprano).
We never did it. I still want to. I may just have to talk to him about that...
This post is archived under
Boyz II Men,
ella fitzgerald,
jimi hendrix,
john mayer,
miranda lambert,
music,
nsync
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