Freddie Mercury is NOT a Baritone
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- čas přidán 17. 04. 2021
- An in depth discussion about Freddie Mercury's voice type.
Note Detection: C5 & G#4 - • Note Detection C5 & ... (Have Been Disputed)
Transcription of the video:
Many people have come to believe that Freddie Mercury was a Baritone.
Voice Type is determined by 5 elements:
- Range 0:39
- Passaggio/ Bridge 3:52
-Tessitura 5:04
- Weight & Age 5:56
- Colour & Timbre 10:10
Range is determined by Full Chest Voice. Freddie Mercury's range in Full Chest voice was F2 - E5.
Vocal Range Classifications:
Basso Profondo C2 - C4
Bass E2 - E4
Baritone G2 - G4
Tenor C3 - C5
It is not uncommon for singers to be able to sing in more than one vocal range. Baritones cannot sing up to E5 in full chest voice.
The next step is to look at the singer's Passaggio or Bridge. The Bridge or Passaggio is the point where the singer's voice transitions into Falsetto. This is perhaps the most foolproof way to determine Voice Type. We can look at an example of where Freddie Mercury's voice, broke into Falsetto.
Freddie Mercury's second passaggio was at G4. Lyric Tenors and Spinto Tenors have a second passaggio of G4.
The third indicator is the Tessitura. Tessitura, is the most comfortable range for the singer. The Tenor Tessitura sits around F3 - G4 in full chest voice. Freddie Mercury mostly sang in the comfortable range of the Tenor, live in Full Chest Voice. Freddie Mercury rarely sang lower then D3 live. Most Queen songs are firmly in the Tenor range. Freddie Mercury wrote 99% of his own music in the Tenor range.
According to Freddie Mercury's Vocal Range, Passaggio and Tessitura he was a Tenor.
Now we can take a closer look into the indicators. The Weight and Age of the voice can give you a more specialized idea of the Voice Type. Lyrical voices are light, bright and agile. Most Tenors within popular music are Lyric Tenors. Heavy Voices are rich, emotive and powerful. Freddie Mercury have displayed both, a light voice and a heavy voice. This is why age can sometimes become an important factor. Heavier voice takes more to develop. In opera, heavier voice tenors such as Spinto Tenors, Dramatic Tenors and Heldontenors are generally not used until they reach the age of 35.
The last two factors in determining Voice Type is Colour and Timbre. Lyrical voices have a bright and youthful sound, with a high pitched timbre. An example is Goin' Back by Larry Lurex (Freddie Mercury) 1972. At the time he had a youthful sounding voice, with a lot of high pitched frequencies. Heavier voices have darker, thicker sound, they usually have a lot of lower frequencies. An example is Who Wants To Live Forever from Queen's A Kind Of Magic album in 1986. Here you can hear a more majestic, darker voice and powerful voice, with a lot of low sounding frequencies. Freddie Mercury's voice changed through the years, he started off as a Lyric Tenor. He transitioned into a heavier voiced tenor, from the age of 33 in 1979.
There were always some clues that he was meant to be a heavier voiced tenor. Freddie Mercury was always good with low notes right from the start. Heavier voiced Tenors are good with low notes, because they have more lower frequencies in their voices naturally. Freddie Mercury always had a very distinctive sharp pitch in his voice. Some obvious examples where you can really hear it, is The White Queen live at the Hammersmith Odeon 1975 and Is This The World We Created? live at Wembley 1986.
In opera it is known as cutting or metallic sound. It has been described as a laser pitch.
This is a very specific sound that is mostly associated with Spinto Tenors. Spinto Tenors have heavier and bigger voices then Lyric Tenors. Spinto Tenors can sing lighter, lyrical parts, and they can sing some heavier and more dramatic parts. An example of Freddie Mercury displaying both dramatic and lyrical singing is in The Golden Boy - Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe 1987.
Some more information about Spinto Tenors from some sources;
theoperahousegazetteer.blogspo...
completesingers.com
www.themodernvocalistworld.co...
www.quora.com/
Opera singer Rosalind Plowright describes a Spinto sound as sometimes having a tonal quality one fach lower then their own. In other words, a Spinto Tenor can have some similar tonal qualities to a Baritone. Spinto Tenors and other heavier voiced Tenors are often incorrectly classified as Baritones.
Where does the confusion arise with Freddie Mercury's Voice Type? Some confusion comes from a scientific study that was done in 2016. The study used Freddie Mercury's speaking voice in one interview to determine his Voice Type. Using only speaking voice alone, to determine the Voice Type is incomplete. You need more data and analysis to determine the Voice Type. The study only used one interview There are many interviews where Freddie Mercury spoke in a higher voice. - Hudba
Freddie... My eternity love... Baritone or not, he had the most beautiful voice I've ever heard ...
Freddie Mercury was a genius.
He was the music himself!
Her body is her soul and her voice!
He could handle his voice like no one else!
His original voice was baritone, but he sang mostly in a tenor and was able to produce beautiful absolutely high-pitched sounds.
Freddie’s sound training and singing technique was quite fantastic!
Her voice was overwhelmingly strong and she exuded a wonderful beauty.
".... that so you ,....that only you..."
Whatever he had, doesn’t matter! His voice is the greatest ever! He can sing anything! 😉
He was a tenor in the studio. In live performances, he was a high baritone. He was basically a natural baritone who extended his voice to hit tenor high notes in the studio.
Oh God No.
he was a high tenor who was very inconsistent live because he never developed a proper mixed voice.
Wanna hear what a fully developed baritone sounds with a chesty mix sound like?
listen to John Legend.
Unless your assumption is John is a bass, there is no way in a million years Freddy is a baritone of any kind
That's like saying Luther vandeross was a baritone because he sung low sometimes. Heck prince has a similar range to mercury and he's a tenor
@@nightmare4eVerr1 Великая Монсеррат Кабалье говорила о том,что у Меркьюри баритон!Вы не доверяете её мнению,как профессионала???
@@nightmare4eVerr1 Montserrat Caballé (the soprano he sang Barcelona with) said he was a baritone and said he didn't use his real voice because he felt like he'd be betraying his audience. Her interview is on CZcams.
@@nightmare4eVerr1 Вам до Фредди Меркьюри всё равно,как до Луны пешком,так что не утруждайте себя лекциями,вы всё равно НИКОГДА так не споете???
Freddie's response to this would be "It isn't important dear. Just listen to the music."
Its still interesting and worth discussing. Any determination on vocie type or range is not going to suddenly erase the quality of his work
It’s also very unnecessary trying to apply unscientific classical music terms to contemporary music
His tone was bright and healthy even belting a high D5 so he was definitely a tenor.. low notes can be developed with a lot of factors such as smoking or drinking which he regularly did, If you think he's a baritone you should listen to 'under pressure' by him and Bowie now that's a good demonstration of a tenor and a Baritone
I agree that Bowie's and Mercury's voices and their respective ranges sound very distinct from one another on the studio recording of 'Under pressure'. But keep in mind that Freddie would sing all of Bowie's parts in live performances with ease, while he usually would omit the higher parts he did on the album version, which, I assume, supports the idea that Bowie and Freddie were in fact in the same register naturally and Freddie trained to reach higher notes in the studio, don't you think? But I'm no expert in such matters tbh.
As many have analyzed before, it seemed like Freddie actually had increased and improved his range over the course of his career. Which means he has had to earn a. bit of his ease on the higher end. Roger Taylor is a primary example of the kind of tenor who you know is a tenor by the simple fact that he just sings the note period. No intense build, up no shaking the ground as you ready your entire body for a belt, Zero effort, he could easily sing another one bites the dust by himself in order to give Freddie, a guy who in live contexts would cop out of any extreme tenor range passages, a break. During Wembley he told the audience he couldnt go any higher than an A#4 which is by and by still a whole tone away from the place where a tenors chest voice should max out. I think Freddie was fully aware he couldnt pull up his chest voice up to the tenor range the way an opera singer could, and that is why he told Cabelle that he didn't want to show his listneres the extent of his limitations,as expressed in Cabelles last interview, there were things "Freddie would've wished to be able to do(vocally), many of which he was capable of." Even before the excess of parties and vices plus maturiy made his voice a lot richer and boomier, Freddie was like most other masculine voices a light voice, often invoking falsetto or light mixes with a range that could still barley manage to cross the thresholds of a tenors second passagio, as evidenced by his struggles to get that C5 in Borap for example, while blookes like Roger Taylor practically lived in them seamlessly.. I think Freddie was simply a guy who was able to manage his finer vocal muscles for mixed voice configurations in a controlled enviornment while out on stage a baritone belting his balls out with passion to songs he was clearly uncapable of handling live, something both Lambert and Martel don't seem to struggle in, since both of their voices barley strike the punch and force mature Freddie possessed
Tenors waking up groggy one morning be like "Damn im a baritone" XD
Contrary to Freddie's belief that his extra teeth gave him that powerful range, it was actually a second set of vocal chords, that helped him rise and fall, create a tremolo effect, etc. I play alot of his music on piano, and it is not for kids! I was classically trained and still amazed at the depth of the music. The four extra incisors had nothing to do with his range-it was found after alot of study and experts listening endlessly, that finally found that he reached much more than a baritone, thru falsetto- He really defied all the study in regards to his voice--But than again, Freddie Mercury was made in Heaven..
Dude
..c'mon
What is this nonsense
Indeed, the notion that teeth have anything to do with the flexibility and musculature of the throat and. vocal cords is absolutley ridiculous. But the only thing the false cords achieve is the same healthy alternative to singing with grit, all vocally healthy rock singers utilize. No human being actually has 2 sets of vocal cords.Its his distortion apparatus, and has nothing to with range. He sings in the mask forward, this is the real reason he has rich undertones, and the shape of his vocal tract in unison might ocassionaly create a secondary fundamental, also mistaken in the media with turban throat singing which Freddie didnt do. Just by hearing hiim speak, and how he employed head voice and a fluttery airy chest voice throughout the 70s place him as an unmistakable tenor, unlike real baritone voices like John Legend, Buble, Nat king cole or Johnny Cash
The consensus in the replies to this comment seems to be that you are full of shit
lol that misconception is quite funny
Just stumbled upon your channel. Being only a 'music appreciator', won't even try to understand the correct classifications. Applause, applause for your obviously diligent work here and the video which I enjoyed. All the best.
Thank You!
Such a fantastic & informative video!
Thanks!
Thank you for doing this. I’ve been trying to say this for ages now
Thank you, that was very informative.
This was a great and well written analysis.
It's crazy how he could do E5 in a chesty-dominated mix. If I tried that, I would kill my voice.
The highest I can do safely in a chesty-dominated mix would be around F4/G#4 and I'm nobody's Baritone. If I were to do the loudest scream without straining my voice it lands around an F4.
Somewhere around F4/F#4, I have to start modifying my vowels.
I have a "vocable compass" of G2-G5. The range that I can produce the notes with the best qaulity is between B2-C5. However, I like to do most of my singing around C3-G4/A4.
I like most of the notes in the songs I sing to stay between, E3-E4, or F3-F4.
i think deeper voices tend to have more natural range
I'm a tenor since my vocal range in full chest voice is C2 - E5.
Great analysis! Thanks 🤘🤝
Hey my dear Zenobia, good to see you. I subbed. Looking forward to this
Freddie Mercury was a SPINTO TENOR - A tenor with an extensive vocal range and a heavyness to his voice, similar to a dramatic tenor. Sometimes sounds like a baritone. But baritones can't reach these high notes with such ease.
I think the reason most fans, most of whom don't have classical music training, believe he was a baritone, is because, in his memoir, Jim Hutton mentions that Freddie was a baritone, but made the conscious decision to sing in the Tenor range, because he believed it cut through the mix on the radio better. Since Jim was not a musician, we can only assume that he was probably repeating what Freddie himself had told him.
People who say Freddie Mercury is a baritone don’t know what the f**k they’re talking about. They’re going based off of the fact that he could hit a few low notes and that he sang really heavy during live performances. First off, most tenors can sing low in the baritone range, but it sounds weak. If you listen to Freddie singing those low harmonies during bohemian rhapsody, you could tell that they were throaty and gutteral. He was struggling to project those low notes. A true baritone would be able to sing those notes with much more ease and resonance. As for Freddie’s heavy sounding voice during live performances, he had overdriven his voice because he couldn’t hear himself. They did not have feedback monitors. The only way he could hear himself was by making his voice sound bigger and fuller, but it wasn’t his natural voice. You know what ended up happening from him singing this way? He developed nodes. Tenor voices cannot handle that much extra weight night after night. The nodes ended making his voice sound even lower, which may have given it a more baritone like quality. But again, thst wasn’t his normal voice.
The way he sounded in the studios was more akin to his natural timbre. He wasn’t pushing or straining to hear himself. He wasn’t artificially making his voice heavier the way he did live. He was singing with ease and comfort.
Backing vocals are not supposed to sound like the lead vocal. The backing vocals were made to sound good when layered together. This was one of Freddie's strengths - his backing harmonies. However, a lot of the lower harmonies used to be done by May, so maybe you could give some specific examples. Also, BoRhap was recorded about 1975 - he was very young. He matured as a baritone in the 80's. Freddie's low notes down to at least Bb2/A2 were good quality in the 80's (eg on the Barcelona album) despite the fact that he didn't sing in the lower range often. And I think it is exactly the opposite with when you are "natural" and when you are pushing your voice to be something it is not: you tend to be "natural" in a live performance. But of course, without access to the subject for a couple of tests, we will never know for sure because the subject is unfortunately dead. My guess is that Freddie WANTED to be a tenor. That's why he was avoiding lower range, and he loved singing really high as a countertenor, and he pushed his voice to sound like a bright tenor in the studio. But his natural timbre was closer to a light baritone than a tenor.
Excellent analisys and conclusion.
A tip from a reflected opera student: Always aim at a big voice. No matter what voice type you are, you should aim at developing a big voice, or else you will have no voice at all.
Young singers who have big voices are usually told to sing softer or slim their voice. This is not healthy for the sound. If you want them to have a future as a singer, tell them to sing loud and big. If they are lyric, they are lyric and if they are dramatic, they are dramatic. Nobody can slim their voices. That makes the voice develop slower and is a big waste of time.
It is also harder to hear voice type, like tenor or bass, than fach, like lyric or dramatic. If a baritone would sing this repertoire, they would sound like a mezzo.
Yes, yes! I do agree. I think it is a higher frustrating practice how singers are taught to sing with lighter voices. Opera has really suffered in the last few decades. Dramatic voices are always more rare then Lyric voices, real Dramatic voices have been pushed aside for a lighter and lighter sound. There are no almost more proper Dramatic Tenors left for example. But I do think they can be difficult to train at times, I have often seen that some Dramatic voices will start off as Lyric voices, they can't pushed to sing bigger then the voice they have at that time. Personally, i like Dramatic voices the most.
@@ZENOBlAmusic
At high school, I was trained first as a baritone, singing lieder, untill my mew singing coach wanted to train me into a leggero tenor. When I went to a folk-college for a year, my singing coach said; stop this! You are bass-baritone and started to give me bel canto bass arias. My new coach said to me «I think you should sing Wolfram von Eisenach in Tannhäuser. (Yes, I am a female with a male voice. It is rare, but we exist)
Strange, I've heard it backwards - that it is actually harder to sing more quietly, and that if you learn how to fully control your voice by singing quietly then it is a higher achievement in your development than just singing loud ;)
But then again, you are an opera STUDENT and not yet the professional opera singer, so you might still change your opinion in the future..
@@dennisthemenace8168 The strategy you mentioned has ruined many great voices. The voice must be released and free. That thought of controlling it, will make it stiff
Thank you so much for clarifying this! I love Freddie, I really do, but him being a baritone is something I just can’t agree with. An average trained baritone could sing up to G4-B4 at most while Freddie was not trained in any (useful) circumstance. He would often sing in the C4-B4 range live on a good day. Mercury was able to hit an E5 in CHEST! Definitely not a tenor. I do somewhat believe that he might slightly, very slightly, be somewhat of a baritone due to the fact that he seems comfortable singing and talking in his baritone range. Overall I do believe he was a tenor, possibly a low tenor
Freddie was pretty good with low notes but he wasn't as good with them as some people believe. Compared to a Lyric Tenor he was very good. Lyric tenors are the most common tenors, that is what people think about when you discuss the Tenor sound. In my latest video I compared 3 different Tenors, Chester Bennington as the Lyric Tenor, Freddie as the Spinto Tenor and Bruce Dickinson as the Dramatic Tenor.
Dramatic Tenors have the heaviest Tenor voices. Bruce Dickinson's lower notes are definitely better then Freddie's lower notes. A Spinto Tenor also falls under the heavy voiced Tenor categories, but when you compare Freddie's low notes against an even heavier Tenor voice, his low notes are not that good anymore.
Chester Bennington vs Freddie Mercury vs Bruce Dickinson Vocal Range and Voice Type Comparison:
czcams.com/video/4RqxHKsyFfU/video.html
Analysing singing is not always a concrete science. I think people often make comparisons in signing with the wrong parameters. What I mean is, yes Freddie's low notes does sound better then a normal Lyric Tenor, but his low notes become more ordinary if you compare them to a Dramatic Tenor. You can get a different picture if you use different comparisons. Freddie very rarely sang low notes live, and the low notes he did live were not as convincing as some of the studio recordings. His voice is louder and more powerful when he sings high notes.
People in general don't have much of any exposure to the sound of Baritones singing low notes, Baritones often tend to sing high notes, it is a middle voice type, not a low voice as many people think.
We have even less exposure to heavy voiced Tenors. The only place you will really find more of these Tenors are in opera, they can have quite deep and powerful voices.
Tenors with heavy voices have weight on their voices, it might perhaps sound lower because they do have lower frequencies in their voices, but these guys are still Tenors, they have high voices, they are good in their middle and upper register.
Again if I use the comparison video between Chester Beninngton, Freddie Mercury and Bruce Dickinson as an example, it is interesting to note that even as heavy voiced Tenors, Freddie Mercury and Bruce Dickinson are far more comfortable in their higher ranges then Chester Bennington, who is really the lighter or "higher" Lyrical Tenor. Thinking about heavy voiced Tenors as low Tenors is not always applicable. They simply have heavy, dark and dramatic voices, and because people are not used to these voices, since they are very rare, people often don't realize how deep a Tenor voice can be.
Check out this example of a Heldentenor, they have the heaviest voices of all the Tenors:
James King - Nessun Dorma czcams.com/video/xevroVC9sTc/video.html
That is a far heavier voice then Freddie's voice, and it is still a tenor.
It is the same with Freddie's speaking voice, he generally spoke in a high voice. There is somewhat of trend for people to speak lower, a lot of women use vocal fry when they speak to sound lower, it is an unconscientious action. All male voices in general can sing in the second octave. The problem within opera (where the Fach system comes from) is loudness or volume. Tenors can sing low notes, but their voices are not loud enough to project that sound over a big orchestra without a microphone, it is only Dramatic Spintos, Dramatic Tenors and Heldentenors that are able to project some of their lowest notes loud enough over an orchestra. The reverse is also true, there are Baritones who can sing higher notes, but they often lack the volume and power to project those higher notes without a microphone.
In speech people will either speak low or high depending on a lot of different factors. Your normal speaking voice is not used to determine your voice type, but it can sometimes give you an obvious clue, you can especially see this with bass voices.
Here is an example of Freddie speaking in a high voice:
czcams.com/video/S5UVkxp6SS8/video.html
Here is an example of a youtuber who is really a Baritone, listen to how different his voice is when he speaks:
czcams.com/video/50Wrhx9DhbM/video.html
@@ZENOBlAmusic I'm a low baritone with a range of A1-C5 in chestvoice And I can project a fair loud low notes for about C2-A2 in bass range and I can produce a very loud slightly-heavy tone in in the baritone/tenor range D4-B4
@@jeromem.evardome10_kr15 A1 in chest??!! C5 chest??!! Do you have video proof? Sorry but that just seems unbelievable. Even most basses can’t manage a B1 in chest and lots of tenors can’t hit a C5 without years of practice.
@@thechangeofyes8179 Yes I have an audio proof since I recorded it on my phone
@@thechangeofyes8179 do you have a discord account since that's where I am socially active.
According with the 2016 scientific study based on 6 (not just one) interviews, he was basically a Barítono that could reach tenor notes when he desired. And Monserrat told Freddie that he was a Barítono and he answer that he didn’t think that their fans could recognize his barítono voice……so as I understand, he knew he was a baritone but preferred to sing with a tenor voice….What a voice he had and was able to command it as he pleased……
He wasnt listen to his interview voice tone
Speaking voice is not used to determine voice type. The problem is people's speaking voices can fluctuate a lot. All male singers can sing in the second octave or reach low notes. People tend to speak in lower voices then what they sing in. It would have been far better if they had compared Freddie's speaking voice to the speaking voices of real Baritones. If you do that you will quickly hear that they sound quite different:
Here is a Eddie Vedder a known Baritone:
czcams.com/video/BVADR4A3ARE/video.html
Here is a CZcamsr who is a Baritone:
czcams.com/video/oCzAEiV5mac/video.html
If you listen to the real baritones speaking voices, you will quickly notice that their voices are quite a lot lower then Freddie's voice, and the way they speak is different, their voices sounds far deeper.
This scientific study used another singer to copy Freddie's style, in order to try and understand what Freddie did. That is not very scientific. This study also said that Freddie only had a 3 Octave vocal range and that his highest note was the A5 in Under Pressure. Do you also agree with the study that the highest note Freddie ever did was an A5 note?
Montserrat Caballe is one of the best opera sopranos of all time. But she did not have much experience with contemporary singers, and she was not a vocal coach. Even within the best opera schools the heavier voiced Tenors are often classified incorrectly. Franco Corelli was one of the best opera tenors of all time, he was classified as a Baritone at one point, he classified himself as Baritone as well in his younger years. The same thing happened with Lauritz Melchior, he started his opera career as a Baritone because of incorrect classification, he was one of the best Heldentenors. It is extremely common for even opera experts to classify voices incorrectly.
We have a lot more access to this type information these days with the internet then what they had in the 80's. When you compare Freddie's lower notes to a Dramatic Tenor such as Bruce Dickinson, you will notice that Bruce Dickinson was able to do better low notes then Freddie, and he is also a tenor:
czcams.com/video/4RqxHKsyFfU/video.html
@@ZENOBlAmusic Agree, it's so stupid to use speaking voice to know a person's singing vocal type.
@@KillberZomL4D42494 True, when I speak normally my voice sounds like a teen who ate a chipmunk and add a bit of subwoofer in it but when I sing it'll all disappear and I would sound like Elvis Presley,(my idol) but with a deeper tone.
I would like for you to look at Avi Kaplan's Full Moon, for you comment "baritones cannot sing up to E5 in full chest voice". Also you should listen to the Barcelona album with Freddie and Monserrat, La Japonaise in accopella, and Ensueno.
Excelente artículo . Siempre tiré de ironía para decir que si Fredi era baritono entonces los demás somos todos bajos . Lo único que yo agregaría que era tenor ligero . Los tenores líricos de opera no cantan re 5 de pecho ni el do 5 . Ya se desvelo que son de mixta . Por caso Juan Gabriel era tipificado como tenor ligero pero no llegaba a los tonos de Freddy con esa voz mixta . La clasificación de voces no viene de la voz hablada sino cantada . Saludos
Of course not! He was a dramatic tenor🤘 with large vocal range.
His chest voice was F2-F4, notes higher than F4 he was singing in mixed voice.
No, he did sing up to E5 in full chest voice, but obviously he it is not something that happened a lot. Check out video from vocal coach Chris Liepe (on youtube) where he discusses Freddie Mercury's vocals on Another One Bites The Dust, he states the E5 was done in full chest voice without mixed voice.
Is it even possible to sing E5 in full chest voice? Where did you hear him do that? I don't think I've ever heard any male singer sing beyond D5 in full chest voice. As for Freddie specifically, he sang consistently in high quality chest voice up to Bb4 I'd say. B4 and C5 were relatively rare, at least in the material available on YT.
Freddie Mercury was a musical genius.
He could handle his voice like no one else.
Her speech was also pleasant and very sensual
very interesting. It'd be great to have a video about other debated (e.g. Bruce Dickinson: bariton or tenor? I'd say drammatic tenor)
Thank you Zenobia. I’m not an expert simply a fan of Freddie since the very beginning. I love his voice and can hear him when they
all sing at the same time. He had the most unique voice and I always think I Hear what he’s Feeling …?? There are a lot of good singers
and I have those I like but nobody sounds even similar to Freddie… it’s uncanny. Thank you for your comments… always.
Yes, Freddie also had very unique expression which no one else really has.
According to Monserrat Caballè, he was a baritone. But apparently he sung as tenor. In fact he had vocal cords problems...
Montserrat Caballe as no expert.
@@ZENOBlAmusic as amazing as she was as a soprano, she was clearly biased towards Freddie's real range. He had a thick voice but definitely closer to what a low tenor is supposed to be.
very interesting video
Thanks for watching!
Actually, there's a demo called "Yellow Breezes" where Freddie hits a F5 and a F#5. It could be full chest voice.
The minute are 1.54 (F5) and 2.13 (F#5).
F#5 FALSETTO F5 i don't no...
Thanks for that, I have forgotten about this song. I would say it is mixed voice. So it would be classified under chest voice, but not under full chest voice.
@@ZENOBlAmusic Thank for the information.
Can I ask you another thing? Listening to "Hammer To Fall" acappella I heard a similar note at the minute 3.18. What is it for you?
)
@@me8797 I am going to check it out!
Who cares? He was the best singer and front man with the most wonderful voice ever.
discussing and apreciating someone's voice is not bad. You make it sound as if the video was criticizing him.
He was a High tenor. The only thing is he was more comfortable in the studio than live so he hit some of his highest and lowest notes there but whether live or studio-ed. He was a high tenor that no one should EVER deny.
No that's not true sorry
@@mattlance5208 But it is? Please give me facts why He’s not a Tenor?
@@whitneyhouston1122 because he didn't sing the tenors high notes comfortably. Have you ever listened the live shows ? His highs were so forced. I'm a baritone and I can sing high notes as well in the tenor range, but they're super forced. Maybe a high baritone, but a high tenor definitely no.
@@mattlance5208 U do remember he does have polys or something dangerous on his vocal cords right causing it to be harder for him right? And most likely then, if u hit the notes in the studio you could probably hit them live because autotune wasn’t a thing. I like to compare Freddie with Mariah… Their both very similar, both have vocal injuries and both are raspy both do their best singing in the studio and both are more confident and creative and free in the studio yet Mariah’s a soprano who thinks she’s an alto💀.
@@whitneyhouston1122 people can develop high notes regardless of classification type. it's not that if you can hit a C 5 then you're necessarily a tenor... you comment on Freddy as a tenor just because he played a few high notes in the studio, that's why you're wrong, that's not how a type of voice is judged. I have heard baritones reach C5, even very well trained basses !
i don’t have knowledge about voice type or tone or what to call it😅🤭 i just love his voice whatever it is even he’s crack voice. i can listen to his voice singing or talking everyday 😍
thanks for this wonderful explanation zenobia💛 Good work💛
Thank you! You are ultimately correct. Freddie's voice, tone, creativity and personality was so great that it is practically impossible not the love every sound he made.
I don't have this knowledge too. I know only one thing. This voice turns your soul inside out. The only thing that matters.
Yet people think #luismiguel is a baritone yet he sings in tenor range. Luis Miguel = Freddie Mercury & Elvis Presley of Latin America 🇲🇽🇲🇽🇲🇽🎤🎤🎤 LM = a monster vocalist
i agree but there are some errors in this video. an adult male hitting an E5 in “full chest” is simply impossible. by then they would have flipped into their head voice mechanism although the added support turns it into a “head mix” which can sound chesty.
I think it depends on how you think about or use the terminology. Obviously all singers have two registration points, where the voice switches over. For Tenors that first registration point is around D4, the voice switches over into a lighter configuration. The voice is already lighter at the first registration point of the passaggio. But that section between the first passaggio and the second passaggio is still full chest voice, from my perspective at least.
A singer's voice will naturally switch over at the first passaggio, but it not always the case for the second passaggio. This is usually the place where singers tend to struggle especially if they are untrained. Sometimes new singers will just sing up to the second passagio, and they would think their range ends there. Or they will just naturally switch into falsetto. Singers often have to be trained to be able to mixed voice. It is natural point to switch over into falsetto for male voices. It is not a natural point to switch over into mixed voice. There are still a lot of vocal coaches who does not even recognise that men have mixed or head voice. Some vocal coaches will just call it falsetto, men have falsetto and women have head voice.
So I guess it depends on what you would call the voice after the first passaggio, do you think of that as full chest voice or as mixed voice? As far as I know this is a debatable subject.
You do get some singers who will just sing past the second passaggio with the same voice register that they use after the first passagio. It is also often called pulling up chest voice, vocal coaches will of course strongly advise against this type of singing. Vocal coaches just teach everyone to sing in mixed voice from around F4.
From my perspective it depends on what type of register you think is used during the the first and second passaggio. If you think that is mixed voice, then you can say that Freddie was using too much chest voice in his mix.
If you think of it as was chest voice, then he is forcing his full chest voice past the passaggio.
I know people think about this topic differently sometimes.
Here is a vocal coach Chris Liepe, he also says that Freddie did the E5 note in Another One Bites The Dust in full chest voice:
czcams.com/video/K-0I0ej0Roc/video.html
5:19 Could you tell me which page is this information from? It is very interesting and I think it can serve me
Thanks for watching! This is where I got it from:
www.classicalvoicestudio.com/how-to-determine-your-voice-type/
@@ZENOBlAmusic Oh thank you very much! I was looking for a complete article with good information, I would like to know what my voice type is but I am very confused by my range, my age, my tessitura, etc and I am still trying to guess what type of voice I have :(
@@Idk-ub2yw I am going to guess that you are a women. Most women tend to be some type of a soprano. The thing to understand or to take into account with voice types is that you need to have some experience as a singer. Voice types were originally invented for very well trained voices. It is often new singers who starts to wonder what their voice type might be. Most women in popular music these days are basically just Lyric Mezzo-Sopranos. Range is usually important, you can use full chest voice and a strong head voice to determine your range. Notes that you will be able to repeat generally. Singers are often tempted to add notes to their range, that would be really impossible for them to sing most of the time. The ranges in opera is meant to be sang and repeated, whenever possible. The passaggio will also give you a good indication.
The passaggio is that break or place in your voice where you switch over from chest voice into head voice, it is the easiest to use the second passaggio. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passaggio
A place with some good information is Quora. There are often professional musicians and singers who answers questions.
@@ZENOBlAmusic Thanks for the information, here are some information about my voice (it should be noted that I have never trained my voice professionally.)
I am a woman, I am fifteen years old, my vocal range is A2-C6, I feel comfortable between an A3 and a B4, in C5 I am already starting to use my head voice and I get to C6 without using falsetto. Below a C3 my voice becomes weak and tends to sound airy, but above this note my voice is still stable and loud. Some artists who have a fairly comfortable repertoire for me are: Dionne Warwick, Shania Twain, Adele, Freddie Mercury, Frank Sinatra (except for their too low notes), Celia Cruz, Thalia and Jennifer Lopez. I think that's all I can say about my voice :)
I love his voice♡ i love singing but never took a lesson, so i don't really understand all of these words but the ones in Italian haha
The second passagio is termines by low volume scale singing in chest voice without thinning out or belting. He is belting on every note below that G4 aka yelling notes with good chord closure which is not damaging. ..baritones do that in fact all baritones even the lightest ones break at G4 which is quite interesting…I include myself in that list.
LMFAO so you’re a mediocre tenor who thinks he’s a baritone, good to know. Completely making up some BS when baritones have a passaggio at eb4/e4
Hell I didn't I knew you had a channel
Psd: I don't really know much about voices (to say nothing) but the video was great
Thank you!
@@ZENOBlAmusic fred was an spinto tenor even in Magic or works tour ?
So who was the baritone that came in at the end of "How Can I Go On" in Freddie's live duet with soprano Monterrat Caballe. The camera was too far from the pair to allow us to see whether Freddie was producing the deep tones. But as they finished the camera moved closer and Freddie was singing as a tenor with a voiceover adding notes in baritone. ???
That wasn't a live performance, it was lip synched because Freddie was too sick at this point his voice inconsistent. Freddie does some lo notes here, but they are in the studio, he rare sang these notes live. Tenors can also have deep voices.
@@ZENOBlAmusic Thanks. Deep? But as low as the voice featured at "How Do I..."'s ending?
I have a question. Many people say that Freddie used mixed voice (even live), if it’s true, why couldn't he sing like Robert Plant or Rob Halford, I mean, those high metal screaming notes of 2 octave. If you compare for example C5 of 3 singers then it will be the shortest in Freddie with a noticeable effort on the voice.
Freddie did not really sing in mixed voice live. He sometimes did it, but very rarely. (An example of quick use of mixed voice is Under Pressure live at Montreal 1981, in one section he quickly uses mixed voice and jumps to a D5). He often used to pull up his chest voice. He had a extremely well developed chest voice. Chest voice is far more powerful then mixed voice, but you obviously cannot sing that high in chest voice. Freddie did use mixed voice much more in the studio. He basically used his voice quite differently then a Robert Plant, Steve Perry or a Rob Halford. Freddie also had a very different style, he really did not use screaming or screaming vocals very often. And that can also be quite difficult. Of course it can be very tricky to do high screaming effectively. But it can also be quite difficult to sing high notes clearly without screaming or distortion. What you will find with a lot of rock singers is that their high notes or highest notes are really these high screaming notes.
It is quite difficult to sing full words or sentences high. The higher you go the worse and more difficult dictation becomes. A lot of singers, will sing words in a more normal range, and add high pitched screaming or long 'ah' sounds or notes, at the end of their words.
This is a different approach that Freddie Mercury shows against many other contemporary singers. Freddie used to sing whole words and sentences quite high. This is perhaps not as noticeable or as obviously spectacular as a high pitched scream, but it is actually really difficult!
A great example of this is the short song, The Hero from the Flash Gordon soundtrack. The whole song is just sung around C5 and C#5, that is really difficult even for a studio recording. This is a problem or a difficulty in many Queen songs. The Show Must Go is difficult not ecause there are D5 notes, but because you constantly have to sing at B4 with perfect dictation. Interestingly, another singer who is also good in this area is Bruce Dickinson, although he uses just mixed voice. He also sings actual words and sentences quite high. He did some screaming, but he generally shows a very clear sound especially for a metal singer. Michael Jackson could also sing words quite high.
Just reaching high notes alone is a very basic way of looking at the difficulties or complexities in singing. Look at opera singers for example they do not sing nearly as high as contemporary singers, but they face many other more difficult challenges in singing. A great example of this is the aria, A Te, O Cara from the opera I Puritani. This is an aria, for the lightest and highest tenor voices, you need an exceptional breathing technique, phrasing and a smooth unbroken line of voice to sing this aria well. The aria must flow as if you are singing it in one breath, and there are a few high C notes well. Even if you have the right voice, and the necessary high notes to sing this aria, it does not mean that you will sing this aria successfully or very well.
Obviously Pavarotti sings a very good version of this aria, you can check it out, A Te, O Cara - Luciano Pavarotti. czcams.com/video/SLk_9TJXxbg/video.html
But one of the greatest versions of this aria comes from a surprising source, a singer with a dramatic tenor voice, who on paper would not be suited to this type of singing at all. His voice was about 5 times the size of Pavarotti's voice, it a was a heavy and dark tenor voice, but his version of this aria is so impressive because he was somehow able to mould and bend this big, heavy and dark tenor voice into this very delicate aria. Check out, Franco Corelli - A Te, O Cara. czcams.com/video/ixEz4ta3u78/video.html
(BTW, Franco Corelli had a more similar voice type to Freddie Mercury).
Lets just say that there can be many different types of challenges in singing, hitting high notes is really the first and most basic obstacle. But once you get more into the craft of singing there are many other challenges, that can sometimes be more difficult. Freddie often excelled at some of these more detailed challenges.
I agree with you that it is probably true that that he was a spinto tenor.
People say but “live” when this accounts for everything not just live. Look at that studio stuff, insane.
his vocal range does not match that of a baritone
Yes, indeed!
His vocal range spans both baritone and tenor but had a tessitura of a tenor.
He sounds like a lyric tenor with great lower extension.
He was lyric too, it demends on the song. But he could be very dramatic...Think of Who wants to live forever. That is the tremendous drama of Life and Love.
His voice was Given By God, so not to be able to be categorized in tones. It was a force of nature.
Excellent comment xx
It is very interesting what you said here.
Freddie Mercury had a wonderful voice.
He was able to move his vocal cords in an extraordinary way, and there were extra tapes as well.
He had very elastic bands.
(Freddie's body was also extreme.)
Freddie could also sing and speak in a very deep voice.
Monserrat Caballe praised Freddie's voice very much.
Freddie had the basic tone on the baritone - but he didn't really use it.
Freddie Mercury was an extremely special, complex, and very intricate man.
He was a genius!
Thank You Very Much 🌹
Great comment
@@dianecourtney2724 🌹
The string is not defined only by the highs or the lows that you can achieve. What defines your tessitura is your "center". And all the melodies of Queen (not to mention those of Freddie's solo albums), are characterized by having a fairly high center. That is to say, the "easy" part of the songs, the zone of the verses always start in a high center zone, which would not be the zone of greatest performance, (the one used instinctively when starting to sing something), of a baritone. Who knows what Mercury meant when talking about his "real" voice.
Speaking tone was a baritone but I guess most singers voices they sing a little higher than that naturally cause it’s a little more comfortable and flexible🙂
His speaking voice as not baritone, but even if his speaking as bass, you don't speak with your diaphragm. You sing with your diaphragm. It is not the same function at all.
@@ZENOBlAmusic could be a chance he could be a baritenor, I think his voice was more of a tenor in early years but later years closer to the 90’s he was more of a baritone but still had the tenor capability
Freddie Mercury was & still is the one, the only & the greatest of the great xx RIP Freddie will love you forever xx Beautiful in every way xx thank you for everything you gave us, we are blessed xx
Sería lindo si hacen este vídeo en su títulos para los hispanohablantes que no sabemos mucho inglés y así comprénder mejor las ideas. Ya que no me quedo clara la conclusión. En fin.
Tenes razón
Xd Freddie Mercury F5 actually high note chest Voice) Vocal range: B1-E7 )
Thanks for watching! Yes, Freddie obviously has more range. This video was just about voice type alone. The F5 from All God’s People, you are referring to was done in mixed voice. Mixed voice or head voice is a combination of chest voice and falsetto. I probably should have explained it a bit better, but I wanted to keep the video simple as well. Voice Types or the Fach system comes from opera. In opera volume is very important, opera singers have to sing without a microphone. In order to produce all of that volume opera singers use a different technique from pop or rock singers. They use Bel Canto. The idea of the Fach system is the determine where a singer’s voice is at it’s absolute best and loudest. Because of that and the Bel Canto technique you don’t just use the full range of the singer’s voice to determine voice type. Every note you produce will not be loud enough to be heard. In pop and rock, a singer can make any sounds, they have microphones that will amplify the sound. The closest method to Bel Canto singing for pop and rock singers, is full chest voice, without mixed voice or head voice. Full chest voice actually fits in with the vocal ranges of the Fach system. In the more detailed description of the Spinto tenor. It is a heavier voice with a similar range to a Lyric tenor. They can sometimes sing up to D5 and higher. That works for Freddie who’s full chest voice was up to E5, however in live settings he only sang up to D5 in full chest voice. The description also says that these tenors can sing a few notes below C3. This also works for Freddie who sang resonate low notes down to G2. He could sing F2 notes but these notes were never resonant. In live settings Freddie mostly only sang down to D3. He very rarely did any notes lower then C3 live. So as you can see that corresponds extremely accurately to the Fach system.
Yes but C#2 interview
czcams.com/video/RV1kIO6u1mM/video.html 12:57
@@ZENOBlAmusic czcams.com/video/kgLmYaRPrGE/video.html 21:10 NO falsetto Voice F5 to F#5 falsetto??
21:11-12
Hello friends. Listen carefully to this video until the end. I was impressed by the voice of Freddie Mercury here speaking.: m.czcams.com/video/F0W9jEjrv4I/video.html
And right at the end, at minute 2:10 the deepest voice.
And I bring you these two videos of Freddie. The first one without a microphone, right at the end of his live career: m.czcams.com/video/q08iYImJfTk/video.html and This is the second video of an impressive improvisation: m.czcams.com/video/irUALvh4zps/video.html
Could Freddie hit notes from C5 to E5 consistently/regularly in his live performances? NO he could not. Those notes are not part of his range. Range is supposed to cover what you are able to sing consistently and is not defined by what a singer can sing after attempting it many times in the studio. Freddie’s comfortable range was up to around G4 in almost every night of the 80s and in the early 80s maybe you can extend it to Ab4. But no further than that. He was clearly a baritone and that makes of him a more amazing singer because he managed to sing songs that were not within his comfortable range for more than 10 years night after night.
I am only referring to full chest voice, with no head voice, no mixed and no falsetto voice. This is only full chest voice alone. No. Freddie could not hit a E5 regularly in full chest voice. But yes, he could and did hit C5 notes regularly in full chest voice. His full chest voice was high enough that he basically did not even have to use mixed voice or head voice. He just basically belted everything in full chest voice. Sure he could not regularly sing an E5 in full chest voice, but who can actually do that? I have never seen anyone sing that high in full chest voice.
A lot of tenors cannot even sing C5 notes in full chest voice. They have to use mixed voice.
Buno Mars also likes to sing in full chest voice, he can sing up to D5 in full chest voice.
@@ZENOBlAmusic regularly? Sorry man but he could not sing anything higher than B4 consistently. Many times he decided to dodge some Bb4s and even A4s because he doesn’t feel comfortable at the moment to go for them, and that happens way more frequently with C5s. Just choose any C5 in the studio that you like and try to find more than 6 times Freddie hit it live. Some of them, like the C5 in Play The Game, he never even attempted them.
@@SafiRo00 when he was at his peak (between 1978 and 1982) Freddie regularly reached c5 and even c#5. He literally reached these notes more than ten times during the performances of Somebody to love, there was even a performance when he hit three C5s in the same song.
@@Vosraider he barely attempted notes higher than B4 in 1978. In 1979 he would attempt the most C5s of his career but they were still not the rule as he dodged many other C5s and some lower notes like Bb4s or certain A4s. I am not saying he wasn’t capable of hitting those notes. I am just saying he could only attempt them with a lot of confidence and in very good nights and they were still risky notes to perform. That’s why, in my opinion, they are not part of his vocal range throughout his career. Edinburgh 1982 triple C5s in STL are just exquisite though
@@SafiRo00 the real fact was he was untrained. He pushed too far on chest voice with no support and used too much distorsion and compression, it damaged his voice, even more than the nodules, and that's why he had troubles to hit the high notes in the 80s (plus the smoking and too much touring of course).
What is wrong with you people ? Can you not take time to appreciate the voice of Freddie Mercury and the range, whatever that may be ? Do you feel superior dissecting every note, every tone ? If you enjoyed and delighted in listening to his voice no matter what he was singing, you should be aware that Freddie Mercury's greatest pleasure was to entertain. If he could bring a smile on a sour face or a little bit of enjoyment to someone's day, that was what made Freddie happy.
There is no need to dissect his voice when you don't know what he could have achieved if he had lived longer than his 45 years. Lover of Life, Singer of Songs. 🎼 #RIP Freddie Mercury ❤️
Great comment 😂
I wish I had said all of that. It's exactly what I feel every time I see something like this. Thanks for saying it so eloquently!!
@@nanaprn7809 Thank you for your kind reply, I don't know why people think they feel the need to tear him into sections of what they think he was. He was Freddie Mercury a great voice and one hell of an entertainer ❤️
@@dianecourtney2724 thank you 😊
@@glyniswhitbread5417 When you enjoy something you can also try to dissect and understand it better. It is best to learn and understand more about a subject that you really love, like Freddie Mercury’s voice for example. I made the video because I have seen many young up and coming singers, who try to sing like their heroes, but they often fail and quit. Because they often don’t understand the technical side.
That's very accurate I believe. Guys, could you tell me if my voice is Baritone, Spinto Tenor or Lyric Tenor? If I record my voice and post on my channel?
Record you voice and I say if you are Tenor or Baritone
Definitely a tenor. If you think he's a baritone you're mad. His timbre is very bright and it's clear that his higher range was more where his voice was comfortable. Most untrained male singers regardless of voice type or Fach will struggle with notes around Ab4 - C5.. even classically trained tenors may or may not sing in that range Hence why those are called the "money notes".
Also his lower notes don't have the typical strength or resonance that a baritones would have. Yes he "spoke in baritone range" cos most men do. He's a tenor and his inconsistencies live can be put down to relentless touring, smoking, drinking, sleep deprivation, dehydration, vocal nodules etc and whilst Freddie had a good vocal range it was his charisma and stage presence that won everyone over regardless of his vocal or physical health. RIP Freddie
The people here who say if his falsetto started on G4 means he's not a tenor do not know how passagios work. The highest tenors second passagio is b#4 and that were speaking of countertenors. Anything above that is mixed. I'm a leggiero and although I have colourful baritonal low notes even down to C2 my first passagio is in E#4 and the second is A4. Which puts me in the leggiero tenor. My full voice can go to a decent G5 as far as I know but I do have some whistle notes or super head voice starting around C6 but I haven't explored that part of my voice yet since I like to play it safe. Passagio is literally the most fool proof technique to know. Nothing else matters.
I personally think he is a tenor since i doubt a baritone can hit high notes like A4-Bb4 regularly live for hours and we are talking about him on ok days
On good days it went till C5
Baritones can hit high notes - being able to hit high notes does not disqualify you from singing in baritone voice. I wish people would stop talking about ranges - range is one small aspect, yes if your range is eg, sadly, only from A2 to A3 than you can never sing tenor roles but still your voice can have a tenor timbre within your very limited range...and being ABLE to sing A2 will not make a baritone from you.
@@PhantomdeOpera-qb2ok yeah it wont but the difference is
its easier to see the strain on that person
a baritone cant go that high except exceptional cases
if u look at freddie earlier voice he was clearly a tenor
@@Shicomogs His voice certainly did get darker with age, yes. Strain can be fixed with technique, and also I'm personally sometimes not sure how to distinguish straining from being dramatic. I find Pavarotti sounds really strained often, but probably that's only in his later years. I wouldn't exclude that Freddie could have trained as a tenor. Perhaps he could have been like an inverted Renato Zanelli.
Baritones can sing high notes and I'd not say it's rare but I have not stats; I know a little about these things because I do have formal musical training and I also sang in a choir; but yes baritones singing in tenor range may sound strained, I agree - but honestly, Freddie's B4 (H4 in Europe) and C5 do sound strained later in the 80's in live performances (which I think has a lot to do with his chronic vocal chord injury and frequent throat infections). Samples of famous operatic bariones singing say C5 are hard to find because obviously their roles don't normally have them. My key point is that range doesn't have much to do with fach classification.
@@PhantomdeOpera-qb2ok i never heard pavarotti straining
he was effortless in the starting days and had to try harder with age and i agree with that
for freddie he did strain but that was because of lack of technqiue
i am still surprised he didnt struggle as much as others will considering he got no vocal training which plays a big part in
hitting notes without pressure on your vocal cords
@@PhantomdeOpera-qb2ok Yes I've heard baritones with a chest D5 but it does not sound even half as strong and full as when a true tenor does it. There are even dramatic tenors who struggle with D5.
Yes!!! Barítono/ tenor.
He was definitely a tenor people who say he was a baritone don’t know anything about voice types. Baritones sound much more lower than that. If you listening to singers with a baritone voice you will hear that their voice is much deeper. He started as a lyric tenor and then with time it developed and he became a much lower tenor.
No, I know baritones that have a really light voices. If you compare the vocal range with the speaking voice you don't know what you're talking about. They're not necessarily connected.
No I meant if you hear a baritone sing their voice is much lower than that! Freddie Mercury was not a baritone he was a spinto tenor and spinto tenors have heavier voices than lyric tenors and can actually sing a few low notes good.
@@mattlance5208 It is interesting that you understand that you do get very light baritone voices. So why don't you think that is also very heavy tenor voices? They do exist, these are dramatic tenors. Chris Martin is a very light baritones, his high notes are extremely light. Here is a nice example that can easily show you how tenors can have quite heavy voices. Listen to this song from Elvis: czcams.com/video/4M3R3CEZ_mI/video.htmlsi=0xRDhmafj40AgxVp
Everyone knows Elvis as a baritone.
Listen to this version, it sounds like a baritone in the verses, even more so then Elvis, but once you get to the chorus you can hear it is a tenor: czcams.com/video/AZZMP_KnAyU/video.htmlsi=riuXYQCwjF_vmx1w
(This an extreme example because I am using an opera tenor, but you can get the idea).
What is the difference between light baritones and dramatic tenors? They have opposite voices, dramatic voices and lyrical voices are complete opposites. Dramatic tenors sing with declamation (similar to belting), these are huge and powerful voices. Lyric voices are light and flexible, they sing with legato (smooth singing). I have actually made a whole separate video on this topic if you are interested:
czcams.com/video/Z-14JY5kN6Y/video.htmlsi=-7nFA6BVAlU4hz5K
You have to think about here the most power or weight within the voice lies, for Freddie it was in his upper register (from E4 and higher).
@@ZENOBlAmusic I know Franco Corelli, a beast. I know him because I'm Italian but as you can see Franco can reach a high C5 really relaxed live, you can hear that in many videos. I've never hear Freddy reach that note comfy sincerely. Btw opera has the coperto voice and tenors voices sounds obviously darker that rock or pop singers.. that's why Corelli sounds darker first and that's because he started his career as a baritone
check out the exercise in free love please....and ....greetings from Chile
I know Exercises in Free Love very well. It is really beautiful! I did not use it here because it is done in falsetto. It is nice seeing someone from Chile!
Isnt his sustained projection in Under Pressure his highest range?
No, it isn't. You get different register of the voice, and you can sing higher or lower depending on the register. The Under Pressure note is a glissando from A4 to A5 done in falsetto. That is not Freddie's highest falsetto note, his highest falsetto notes are around C6 - F6. His highest mixed voice note is F#5, his highest full chest note is E5.
Да баритон он, у нас в России есть певец Евгений Трофимов так он от баса до тенора поёт
People often overrate Freddies abilities. These myths about turban throat singing which were just him placing his voice correctly forward to achieve brightness, false cords which every rock singer has ever used for achieving grit correctly, ,a four octave range which was largley unused due to his lack of range live and the false myth that teeth have anything to do with range are often giving people false impressions of how good Freddie was. He was incredibly uncontrolled and subdued live. A shadow of the singing quality he had the potential to achieve.
When he is in a controlled enviornment, able to hear himself, and take concious of his bodily instrument he does wonders in the studio, but besides that when Freddie tries to bring that quality on stage he fails tremendously. Vocal cracks left and right straining, shouting, limited range, unnecessary volume, a total lack of the finer muscles that could help him hit high notes. Its incredibly painful and can only be subverted by his charisma and stage prescence. People often confuse him as a baritone due to the switch in placement he adopted to make up for the lack of upward range he had, combined with his increasingly harmful habit of smoking. Hes a full on tenor who smokes, making the harmonics in his naturally light, androgynous and almost femenine voice darken, but this does not change the nature of his voice, which he's been using since the 70s. The beautiful pristine headvoice falsettos and paper thin flexibility of his vocal cords up in his mix is something that characterizes the tenor voice.
Hear John Legend, Buble or Nat King Cole. These are voices that from the moment they speak their placement is low, and they are naturally resoannt and dark without force. Freddies has had to conciously place his voice and verticalize his embochure to darken it, and even then it is obvious his voice thins out the higher he goes, his voice does not stay resonant above an A4 which other than being a Tenors deal is also indicative of a voice that needs to leave the grit of a baritone in order to ascend naturally as it always had on his records. If he were to call you on a regular day you might even confuse him for a british lady.
What is most insulting is people thinking that he was anything like an opera singer. He could verticalize his embochure and place his voice to achieve brightness and vibrato, and of course singing in a baritone range meant he wouldnt struggle since they were notes comftrable to him, which is what probablly confused Caballiere when she made her assesment of him,but every actual opera singer in existence has had musical and vocal training but these things do not an opera singer make. The ignoramus' in the internet mistake him titling one of his records with the word opera, and his mock-opera bohemian rhapsody as some sort of signifier that Freddie had some sort of vocal association with the world of opera. He did not and knows it, which is why he praises people like Mons as people who can "actually" sing.
There is no such thing as a natural opera singer. Freddie could pull enough faculties to be a popified version of an opera singer and his control over vocal placement is part of the reason why his records ooze with expressive perfection, but make no mistake, he's a rock tenor who smokes and chokes out his highs by doing a lot of things wrong in stage. He couldnt expand his fach like the male organ as he pleased.
Well he had vocal nodules and also in some of those live performances he was sick and overused his voice a lot.
Everyone has their own taste, perhaps you are not a fan I get it. But I do think you missing some details. Tenor voices sometimes change during their 20's and the 30's. Freddie Mercury started singing very late in life, at the age of 23, so he was a very inexperienced singer. Freddie Mercury's voice simply changed with time. You can hear the gradual change starting in 1974, by 1977 his voice had a lot more weight then it had in 1974, by 1979 his voice again gained a lot of weight, this was when the biggest change happened. His biggest changed happened before he started smoking. There were always signs that he was meant to have a bigger tenor voice, then a light lyric voice.
The most obvious clue is that his voice always had a lot of metal. It is the metal within a bigger voice that makes it really loud. here is an obvious live example that shows the metal (sharpness, laser pitch or cut in the voice).
czcams.com/video/riwDo7_GxjM/video.htmlsi=yQzMX6SslL-VaPc5
That metal in the voice is a sure sign of a spinto tenor, and he always had that. This not something you hear very often in contemporary music. Technically Freddie Mercury sang better in the 80's then he did in the 70's.
You are looking at the situation in hindsight. No singers sings all of the notes they record in the studio live. That just doesn't really happen, even in opera singers transposes music. Performing live is not about perfection, it is about providing entertainment, Queen certainly understood this concept very well. These were different times. There was no internet or youtube full of vocal coaches. Vocal coaches for contemporary artist were practically non-existent. Queen was one of the most hard working and touring bands. They rarely took time off, they were always working in the studio or touring. Freddie was naturally inclined towards singing in his powerful chest voice, your chest voice alone is not such a high register but it is your most powerful register. Most tenors will sing with in mixed voice. At the end of Freddie's life, he had lost a lot of power in his chest voice, he lost so much power in his chest voice that he had to sing everything on Innuendo in mixed voice.
I will add some more perspective here, live bootlegs were a big business in the 70's and 80's. Queen's bootlegs were the best selling out of everyone. These are raw live recording from the audience. Freddie was one of the most consistent live singers of his age. Queen also did some of the least editing on their releases. Some bands such as Led Zeppelin rerecorded practically whole the concerts and pretended that it was live. Michael Jackson started doing lip synching at quite a young age. In today's age live performances can sometimes be very manufactured, even singers with years of study such as Dimash uses backing tracks live, some of his stuff is lip synched. I actually appreciate the fact that Queen even left the odd voice crack in their official releases, that is closer to live reality. (Of course these days Queen has also fallen into this trap of trying to perfect everything.)
But Freddie was also the type of singer who sometimes added voice cracks on purpose. And this is what you perhaps do not understand, Freddie Mercury has some of the most incredible expression you will ever hear from a singer, and he had that live as well. There are perhaps two opera singer who I can add who had similar expression. Because in opera, expression and interpretation is very important, and it is something that is given a lot more attention then in contemporary music. Freddie had communication skills within music that is far beyond most singers. That is the essence of art, music and singing. A singer is there to relay the message of the music.
Freddie Mercury was an absolutely astonishingly great songwriter, that is something that is often completely ignored, in some areas he is actually underrated.
Freddie Mercury never pretended to be an opera singer at all. You are assigning something to him that he never in his life aspired to be or thought about himself. He did not want operatic training. He knew opera, he knew very well that he wasn't an opera singer. When he recorded with Montserrat Caballe, he wrote music where he sang in his normal rock voice and Caballe was able to sing in her soprano voice. Caballe had her own problems, she was past her prime at this point, and she was never one of the most consistent singers.
Lets try to set one thing straight. Opera singers are not necessarily vocal coaches or vocal experts. They are experts in their own voices but they often don't understand other voices. Female opera singers sing mostly in head voice. That is vastly different from male opera singers who sings mostly in chest voice. Being an opera tenor for example, certainly has a whole host of different challenges to being a soprano. Male singers mostly begins as baritones, because they have to learn covering, which is different from mixed voice.
Freddie Mercury actually showed incredible understanding of opera. He never tried to record any opera aria. He wrote and created his own mixture of classical and contemporary music, that shows incredible insight from him. There are many singers who sings opera arias, Nessun Dorma has been the most popular choice. These singers are really just singing Nessun Dorma or other arias such as E Lucevan Le Stelle very badly. Everyone from Bocelli to David Phelps are constantly butchering operatic arias. Freddie Mercury obviously understood this very well, he never attempted any opera arias unlike these singers, he created his own music.
Yo creo que Freddie era tenor
En el año 1969 hasta 1982 después por fumar y beber demasiado en 1984 hasta 1988 la voz de Freddie parecía más a la de un barítono ligero
En 1991 volvió a tener una voz más ligera como la de un tenor
Non è proprio così.. Ha sempre avuto alti e bassi
He was a fkn Legend. Enuff said?
It doesn't really matter what type of voice he had because he was a contemporary singer. But it's okay to assign fach to contemporary singers in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with it. Others may disagree and say that the fach system doesn't apply at all to contemporary singers. But either way, I do agree with you that he doesn't sound like a baritone to me. Speaking voice does not equal singing voice, and his low notes just weren't quite as powerful as what a baritone's low notes are usually expected to be like.
Not only that, but an analysis of his vibrato determined that his vocal chords simply vibrated faster than others. Mercury’s vibrato moved at a whopping 7.04 Hz, whereas the typical Western classical singer has a vibrato somewhere in the range of 5.4 Hz to 6.9 Hz - and this is just for classical singing.
The ultimate vibrato would be that of a perfect sine wave, at the value 1, which opera singer Luciano Pavarotti very nearly hit. Mercury’s vibrato waves had a value of 0.57, indicating his vocal chords were modulating at more than one frequency. This means he sang with an irregular, and therefore highly unique, vibrato.
It’s always been hard to deny that Freddie Mercury was one of the most iconic rock vocalists of all time, and it’s even harder now with scientific data showing us just how beautifully uncommon his voice was.
Faster doesn't mean better.
(But his vibrato was beautiful and unique. He had a good control, he could "switch it on-off" well. )
True.
14:55 well I heard she called him a high baritone, thats the same thing I said because I wouldn't think of him being a tenor but me as a baritone I know that he wasnt just a baritone. Great Video, loved it.
I do understand how this confusion develops. In some regards, especially in range a Baryton Martin and a heavier voiced Tenor can be very close. That is why you have to look at passaggio as well. A big problem is that male voices can really develop for quite a long time. A distinguishing feature between the two is the weight and colour of the voice. Baryton Martins and Lyric Baritones are Lyrical voices. These voices are very light, fast and agile. Something they can also have a warm quality. Heavier voiced tenors have Dramatic voices. These voice are rich, powerful and dark.
But the age of the singer is a very big and important factor. The problem for the heavier voiced tenors - Spinto, Dramatic and Heldentenors, is that their voices takes far longer to develop, and they can develop until the age of 40. Roles for Spinto, Dramatic and Heldentenors are really only given to 35 year old men and up, and it is often even older for Heldentenors.
That means there are many years where these types of singers can easily be classified incorrectly, and it happens quite often.
A very famous case was for Franco Corelli, he was enrolled at Conservatorio Statale di Musica Gioachino Rossini. A very well established musical school for opera singers. Franco Corelli was incorrectly classified as a Baritone.
A lot of heavier voiced tenors do start out as Baritones. Of course being a Spinto Franco Corelli could always sing a few low notes very well:
czcams.com/video/QRBiZw5BX7M/video.html
Even the most experienced and trained people can make some mistakes, Someone like Montserrat was used to working with very well trained voiced. She did not really have much experience with pop or rock singers. She asked Freddie how many songs are usually on an album, it seems like she might not have known a small detail like that. Montserrat Caballe was truly amazing but contemporary singing was not in her line of experience.
Freddie had a lyrical voice when he was young. His voice was light, bright and high pitched. His voice was also very agile when he was young, you just have to think about a song such as Stone Cold Crazy which he often sang faster then the recorded version. He was either a Lyric Tenor or a Lyric Baritone in his younger years. When you start thinking of Freddie's voice from say 1984, it was really not that agile anymore, his voice became darker and heavier. His voice also basically started becoming darker in 1979, even before he started smoking, so the smoking did not have anything to do with it. So that means he had more of a Dramatic voice in the 80's. That would imply that he was either a Dramatic Baritone/ Verdi Baritone or a more Dramatic Tenor. He was very obviously not a Dramatic Baritone. You can compare the sound of Freddie's voice from around the middle of the 80's to someone like Meat Loaf he is an known Heldentenor. He had problems with his voice because he tried to sing to big early on in his career when his voice was not developed enough.
www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2012/10/meat-loaf-cant-sing-anymore/
It is fascinating how much male voice change in their 30's. Although there are also some male voices that does not change a lot. Some examples of singer's voices that changed:
Elvis is an example, people at first though he was a tenor:
Tutti Fruiti - Elvis Presley:
czcams.com/video/Q45g2wJs8hs/video.html
Frank Sinatra's voice was far lighter when he was younger:
czcams.com/video/RyEdD3izAw4/video.html
Lauritz Melchior started off as a Lyric Baritone, he had to be retrained to become a Heldentenor.
But all of these things are also subjective to a degree. I can understand if you don't agree.
@@ZENOBlAmusic No there is nothing to disagree with. Seems pretty logical. I'm still very interested how my Voice will change since I'm pretty young. I'm definitely a baritone thats more on the very light, fast and agile side, though I wish my voice was richer in general. A Voice like Howard Jones is pretty special, his normal talking voice is very deep but when he sings in tenor range he sounds so rich its crazy. Anyways the only question I got left is, so as we all know Freddie started off with a light Voice and started to become more heavy. So why did his voice around 1988 get more light again? it became more thin, it was still as powerful but he just got a thinner voice, especially you can hear it in ''the show must go on'' its very powerful but thin. You said his smoking did not have anything to do with his voice becoming darker which makes sense, but why when he stopped smoking did his voice get thinner?
@@ben1ben You always have some good insights and good questions! I don't mean that all of the cigarettes, alcohol and drugs never had any effect on Freddie's voice. It obviously must have had some effect. I just meant that his voice already started to evolve before the smoking, so it was always meant to happen. (BTW I have read some stories that Freddie was super surprised to find that Montserrat Caballe smoked as well).
An interesting aspect about Freddie is that he never really had to use his mixed voice or head voice too much. During the 70's Freddie's chest voice and falsetto sounded very similar. That is a big advantage for a singer, it meant that Freddie could mostly just sing in chest voice and falsetto.
In the 80's the range of Freddie's chest voice increased. His voice also became more powerful with added depth. His chest voice and falsetto sounded less similar. Although Freddie's falsetto still had a very strong sound, his falsetto was stronger then some people's head voice or mixed voice.
Something interesting to note, as an overall explanation, in opera everyone basically uses Bel Canto technique, however you can learn further techniques depending on your voice type. There is an older technique that Spinto, Dramatic and Heldentor are often taught. It is called chiaroscuro, it is basically a technique that teaches Spinto, Dramatic and Heldentors to use more chest voice by for example covering certain vowels.
In these voice types the middle register is very important. The voice is the strongest and most powerful when using chest voice. That is also the best attributes about these heavier voices. The concept of chiaroscuro comes from the idea that it is easier for these tenor voices to use chest voice. Because the chest voice is so powerful and strong, it takes a lot more effort to use a lot of chest voice. Heavier voiced tenors does have the power and energy to use far more full chest voice then Leggiero and Lyric tenors.
As I said in the video, full chest voice without mixed voice or head voice corresponds far better to the fach system, because full chest voice is much closer to Bel Canto. What you often find is that in full chest voice a lot of Lyric and Leggiero tenors can only sing up to A4 or B4. Often their voices simply don't have the power and energy to use much more full chest voice or to constantly sing past the passaggio. Their voices are made for mixing or for head voice. It is also easier for these tenors to learn how to use mixed voice. They basically mostly have to use mixed voice to be able to sing C5 or D5 notes and up.
That might sound like a long useless story. But it does connect to Freddie in his final years. Basically for most of the 80's as Freddie's chest voice range increased, he also did not have to use much mixed voice, he could simply use the power in his chest voice to power past the high notes.
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Your immune system deteriorates due to Aids, so you often have lung and throat infections.
Basically all of these problems caused Freddie's chest voice to lose power.
For the first time Freddie had to use a lot of mixed voice and head voice. His chest voice simply did not have the energy and power to be used as much past his passaggio. As you noted his voice was much lighter, that is because of mixed voice, he was not using full chest voice as he the normally did during the 80's, mixed voice is just not as powerful as full chest voice. He suddenly sang higher then he usually did, that is because he was using mixed voice. It is far easier to higher with mixed voice then full chest voice.
You also noted he had a lighter tone, but he could sometimes use some power in his voice. That is basically a Lyric Spinto tenor. They have Lyrical voices but they push their voices into dramatic climaxes.
Before this change Freddie was a Dramatic Spinto. The one quality Freddie kept through the years is that laser pitch. It is only Spinto tenors and Spinto Sopranos that have that laser pitch.
This is partly why it is easy to tell apart, Freddie's voice against Marc Martel, he does not have that sharp pitch in his voice, he is probably a Lyric Baritone, he has to sing all of his high notes in falsetto.
In opera the laser or metallic sound is developed into squillo. All opera singers needs to use squillo in order to be heard without a microphone. Squillo is a very sharp and loud sound, Spinto voices has the most squillo of all voice types in opera, because it is a voice that already naturally has a sharp pitch.
Listen to the squillo between Pavarotti (Full Lyric Tenor) and Franco Corelli (Dramatic Spinto), and Dramatic tenor Mario del Monaco:
(Lyric tenors only have squillo on their highest notes such B4 and C5, Spinto and Dramatic Tenors have squillo in their middle and upper register, but the full Dramatic Tenor has less Squillo and nuance and warmth then the Spinto, they are known for a trumpet like metallic sound):
Vesti La Giubba;
czcams.com/video/Z0PMq4XGtZ4/video.html
czcams.com/video/RaOtgD0xxy4/video.html
czcams.com/video/QZ-vxjM9czA/video.html
E Lucevan Le Stelle:
czcams.com/video/TU5roitYI1s/video.html
czcams.com/video/Zzb9uwfgD1w/video.html
czcams.com/video/0R-F4RmeKK0/video.html
There is one other known Spinto in popular music and that is Michael Bolton:
czcams.com/video/bv5vMJKBAbo/video.html
(This is an incredibly cheesy video)
That is my theory. Do you mean Howard Jones from Killswitch Engaged? Yes, he does have a pretty good voice.
Your own voice will definitely change if you think you are a Baritone. It is lower, darker and richer qualities within the male voice that takes the most time to develop properly. Baritone voices seem to change the most, it can either become Heldentenors or Kavalier and Dramatic Baritones and sometimes even a Baritone - Bass. Bass voices also becomes more mature with age.
@@ZENOBlAmusic I see where you’d said many heavy tenors do start out as baritones. Was this Freddie’s case in your opinion? Also, you’d pointed out that Freddie’s speaking voice that was used in that 2016 study was from only one interview...that there were others they could’ve sampled from but didn’t. That there were other factors that needed to be taken into account that weren’t. That said, what is your professional opinion of Jim Nabor’s voice? He is listed as a baritone but his speaking voice is in the tenor range. He sang mostly opera but has done some gospel and had appeared on a Pink Floyd record according to Wikipedia. Here’s how I remember him to sing tho: czcams.com/video/bHrqrlZYsDA/video.html Would you say he was a dark tenor or full baritone?
🙋🏾♀️ Hiya @@ben1ben 😘! Hope you don’t mind me asking @**Zenobia** a question on your comment thread.
ЭТО, ничего не меняет!
He's definitely a tenor it's where he felt most comfortable. I'm a tenor and sing in a similar range only I have a lighter tone. Also Freddie smoked so maybe that lowered his voice
Marc Martell is not a dram tenor I think. His voice still not so dark, like Freddie had to Ennuende
No he is not. His voice doesn't have any metal. Freddie's voice was full of metal. (Metal refers to a sharp, laser quality in the voice).
Freddie was pure baritone as Monserrat Caballe said to him
All inexperienced male opera singers are classified as baritones. That is just the standard default until they receive some training, because most men are baritones, it is a safe middle range to start with. There are many different types of tenors, some of them have deeper voices then even some baritones. If you are more interested in the subject, check out my video, Different Types Of Tenors perform Nessun Dorma. Listen to how deep some of those tenors voices are.
@@ZENOBlAmusic Montserrat would know who a baritone or tenor was. Freddie Mercury was a natural baritone who extended his voice to reach tenor notes, especially in a recording studio. You want to know who a tenor is? Roger Taylor. He's a tenor. He had no problems hitting C5 and above in live concerts. He was a natural tenor and for him to hit those notes, it wasn't impossible. For Freddie, to hit C5, or even a B4, it was a struggle live because as a Baritone, it was much harder for him to hit those notes. So yes, Freddie in the recording studio could hit tenor notes, even up to E5 but he could never do it live. Remember, an operatic tenor's JOB is to hit tenor high notes which includes C5. If he can't hit those notes, he's not doing his job. Freddie could never handle a Tenor role which required him to hit C5 on command. Only in a recording studio. He was a natural baritone who extended his vocal range to hit tenor notes in the studio.
@@darksword1 Montserrat was not a vocal coach or a vocal expert, female opera singing is very different from male singing. All singers are baritones until they learn to sing past the passaggio. In contemporary music mixed voice is used to sing past the passaggio, it makes the voice lighter and softer. This is not used in opera, in opera covering is used, to sing past the passaggio it makes the voice louder. It is a technique that can take some time to learn. Female singers especially sopranos never even have to think about their passaggios. So these are very different voices. Good opera singer are experts in their on voices, but they most often don't know other voice types.
no one says hes a britone his lowest note was only like F2 and he can only sing decent low notes down to G2 hes a tenor hes destorys the 4th octave range and can do the 5th octave range and even has some 6th clean octanve range singing
I do agree. But you would be surprised how may people Freddie Mercury was a baritone because of a terrible so-called "scientific" study that was done on his voice.
@@ZENOBlAmusic bruh they dumb
@@ZENOBlAmusic it’s like saying Ariana grande was a bass
He always was a tenor in studio and live
For example I'm going Slightly Mad? Lol...
he also smoked which probably was what changed his voice more than anything
Quienes siempre creyeron que Freddy era barítono es por qué no tienen ni idea de música ni mucho menos de canto.
Mucho Google y poco conocimiento real
Freddie not hitting C5 and B4 in bohrap in the bowl
1:58 It is a d4 or a d flat 4
For me, Full Lyric Tenor. His voice was loud and rich, but wasn't big enough to be a Spinto or Helden/Dramatic.
I guess you have a point but I still think of him as a spinto.
I guess for most of his career he was a full lyric tenor, but he sounds like he ended up as a spinto.
@@bradycall1889 Yes, he always had a lot of metal in his voice. That steely quality that you associate with spinto. Not many contemporary singers have that quality.
@@ZENOBlAmusicHello. Listen carefully to this video until the end. I was impressed by the voice of Freddie Mercury here speaking.: m.czcams.com/video/F0W9jEjrv4I/video.html
And right at the end, at minute 2:10 the deepest voice.
And I bring you these two videos of Freddie. The first one without a microphone, right at the end of his live career: m.czcams.com/video/q08iYImJfTk/video.html and This is the second video of an impressive improvisation: m.czcams.com/video/irUALvh4zps/video.html
Era supermeraviglioso 😍💕❤👄👄
Quindi la Callas quandi cantava l'aria della Carmen era un contralto??? Di che parli?
Finally someone who knows thst he wasn't a baritone.
Mercury era un baritono alto como dimash y mercury o Alejandro Fernández que son confundidos con tenores
Doesn't it make a difference whether he a was baritone or not? At least you should listen to the " Barcelona Album' once.Interesting under this aspect" Ensueno" and " Exercises in free love" You can really hear his vocal range
who signs the post? I would like to know your musical training. The article is very interesting but to contradict Montserrat Caballé's criteria, it would be interesting for the person signing the article to include a review of her profession and musical training. In any case, I liked the article and I still have my doubts on this subject. My conclusion: Freedie Mercury defies all the norms of science
I do understand your concerns, I don't have formal training. I have just studied the subject a lot in my own time. I have the highest respect for Montserrat Caballe, she is one of the best opera sopranos of all time. But Montserrat herself was also not a vocal coach, she worked in opera from her early teens, she did not have that much experience with contemporary singers. She did not spend that much time with Freddie. Even within opera singers are often classified incorrectly. There are some of the best opera schools that have classified singers incorrectly. Franco Corelli was one such a singer, who was classified as a Baritone, by (at the time) the best opera school in Italy. He did not stay at the school for long, because he did not have enough money to the fees. One of his friends was training as a tenor, this friend basically translated all of the lessons he was receiving to him. Franco Corelli has sung some of the best C5 notes, he is one of the best opera tenors of all time, he is known as the Prince Of Tenors, and he was classified incorrectly by this prestigious school. Lauritz Melchior is known as one of the best Heldentenors of all time, he was not only classified incorrectly he received training as a Lyric Baritone (High Baritone). He was part of a production where the Tenor did not show up, he stood in for the Tenor, and everyone realized that he could sing high notes well enough to be the Tenor.
Opera is full of these stories, of especially heavy voiced tenors being classified incorrectly, by some of the best experts.
Here is an opera soprano, who is also a vocal coach, and she says that Freddie is a tenor:
czcams.com/video/Fh1lWazxdQc/video.html
The big difference in sound between a Lyric Baritone (High Baritone) and a heavy voiced Tenor is that one is a light, warm, agile and lyrical voice, and the other is a heavy, powerful and big voice with weight. A Lyric Baritone sounds closer to a Lyric Tenor then to the other Baritones voices within the Baritone Fach. These voices are light and agile:
Here is an operatic Lyric Baritone performing coloratura passages;
czcams.com/video/AZLAeUDLnxs/video.html
Freddie could have done that in his younger years, but his voice became heavier and less agile over the years.
This is what a Spinto Tenor sounds like in opera:
czcams.com/video/Zzb9uwfgD1w/video.html
he has a heavier, darker, deeper and more powerful voice then the Lyric Baritone.
This is what a contemporary Lyric Baritone sounds like pop:
czcams.com/video/OxYC3Etx6pg/video.html
This is a very light and lyrical sound, this is a sound closer to a Lyric Tenor then the rest of the Baritone Fach. But as a Baritone he can only sing up to G4 in full chest voice.
Compare that to a contemporary Dramatic Tenor, Tom Jones:
czcams.com/video/MIIU9xkGAMs/video.html
This a far bigger, deeper, heavier and darker sound, this is a voice with weight. That is how a Dramatic voice sounds. He is singing higher in this performance then the Lyrical Baritone was singing. You just might not realize it at first glance, because his voice has weight and depth. I don't know how high Tom Jones could sing in full chest voice, but he sang up to B5 in mixed voice.
Freddie mostly sang in the comfortable range of the tenor, G3 - F4, he could sing past a C5 in full chest voice, he rarely sang any low notes, his second Passagio is at G4, the Passagio of a Tenor. He wrote songs in the Tenor Fach. He had a heavier voice with the most power and volume on high notes. At some point all these variables will points into a certain direction. But of course music can be subjective, so if you want to think he was a Baritone it is fine. It does not matter that much in the big scheme of things he was great singer that entertained a lot of people.
Perry was lyric, Mercury was spinto and Jackson was dramatic.
Are you referring to Michael Jackson? He had a very light voice, he was a Light Lyric Tenor. You get Light Lyric Tenors and Full Lyric Tenors. Dramatic Tenors are actually very rare. Tom Jones is a dramatic tenor. People have referred to Meatloaf as a Dramatic Tenor.
@@ZENOBlAmusic MJ was never a natural light lyric.
Perhaps it is easier to explain with opera, since everyone has the same bel canto singing style. In contemporary music people can modify their voices more. Every voice type goes from light - the highest, to heavy and deep - this is slightly lower then the other tenors and far more dramatic. Tenor is the most extensive male voice category (just like Soprano for women). Tenorino is you highest, lightest and most agile voice. Heldontenors have the heaviest and darkest tenor voices. Obviously both of these types of tenors are very, very rare.
After Tenorino the next highest voice is the Leggiero Tenor.
Juan Florez (Leggiero Tenor):
czcams.com/video/iIv_0Kj9Gfw/video.html
This is very a light, agile and bright sounding voice, this is a higher voice then a Lyric Tenor.
Alfredo Kraus (Light Lyric Tenor)
czcams.com/video/O3rVmE0Jubo/video.html
Lyric Tenors have warm voices. They are agile and bright but not as much as Leggiero Tenors. Yet it is still a very agile voice with more warmth and depth then the Lieggiero Tenor.
Fritz Wunderlich (Full Lyric Tenor)
czcams.com/video/m1nJT5z7W5E/video.html
Also a warm voice with a slightly fuller or bigger sound then then the Light Tenor.
Giovanni Martinelli (Lyrical Spinto)
czcams.com/video/zCQsLMyusLw/video.html
A voice between a Lyric Tenor and a Dramatic Tenor. Same range as the Lyric Tenor but a bigger heavier voice. They can sing lyrical parts and dramatic parts.
Franco Corelli (Dramatic Spinto or sometimes it is also known as a Lyric Dramatic Tenor)
czcams.com/video/RaOtgD0xxy4/video.html
This is far closer to the heavier dramatic sound, but as a Spinto there is a more dynamic nuanced sound with more flexibility then a dramatic tenor. There is also a very strong metallic, laser or cutting sound. You can hear something called, tears in the voice.
Mario Del Monaco (Dramatic Tenor)
czcams.com/video/plY6DzkES1g/video.html
These are big and heavy voices. The heavier voiced tenors have to sing over far bigger orchestras. Their voices are slightly lower then Lyric and Spinto Tenors, because it is so big and heavy. This is not a voice with a lot of dynamics, nuance or agility. But it is a strong, rich, powerful force of nature.
James King (Heldontenor)
czcams.com/video/1Av1PRFcRG0/video.html
This is also a Dramatic Tenor, but they have a more baritonal sound. It is an even darker and richer voice then a normal Dramatic Tenor.
If you compare the sound of a Leggiero Tenor to the sound of a Heldentenor, you will quickly notice that they sound completely different, even though they are both Tenors.
The Baritone Fach works exactly the same, you start with light baritones like a Baryton Martin until you reach the darkest and lowest baritone, the Baritone- Bass voice.
@@sophiamoe7783 I am aware that he had a more manly speaking voice. But he still sang with a light voice. It is impossible to sing with a very light voice or a very heavy voice for a long time if it is not your natural voice. You would damage your vocal folds. What type of voice do you think he had?
@heci_qafarov_91His passaggi were D4 and G4.
He's a baritone. My chest voice is D2-E5. I can comfortably sing most of his songs but will have a hard time singing tenor songs that have lots of high notes. The fact that his voice "broke into falsetto" on A4 proves that he's not a tenor. Tenor should be able to sing A4 better than that. A good example is Bruno mars. Dude can sing G4-C5 endlessly and he does.
Are your full chest voice D2 - E5? I am referring to full chest voice without mixed voice, without falsetto and without head voice. Most baritones can use mixed voice to easily hit a few E5 notes, but they can’t do it in full chest voice. Chris Cornell for example was great at using his mixed voice to sing in the tenor ranges. Tenor and Baritone are only a few notes apart. Most tenors cannot even sing C5 notes in full chest voice, they use mixed voice.
Anyways, that is why range alone is not really indicative voice type, because it depends on what registration you use to hit those notes. The same is true in reverse as well, you might be able to to hit B1 or A1 notes with vocal fry, that does not mean that you are a Bass singer.
Perhaps you can look a bit more into information about the passagio or the registration points within the voice, that is where your voice naturally switches over into mixed voice or head voice, the tenor passagio is between F4 - A4. I only showed where Freddie Mercury’s natural passagio lies, with that example of where his voice broke into falsetto. His second passagio was around G4, that is where you will find the passagio of Lyric Tenors and Spinto Tenors. Freddie Mercury always sang higher that that A4 note and higher in full chest voice. But when you push your full voice past your registration point regularly, especially with a lot of touring, it will sometimes break into falsetto.
You do get different types of tenors, you can look up Mario Del Monaco, he is known as one of the best operatic tenors of all time. He was a dramatic tenor and he barely ever sang C5 notes.
It can sometimes take a combination of different factors to determine your voice type. Freddie Mercury sang 99% in the comfortable range of most tenors which is around G3 - A4. Tenors do not just sing high notes all of the time, in truth most tenors and tenor songs, rarely even goes beyond F5. Usually in rock these higher notes are often screamed or sung with a lot of distortion. I have gone through the discographies of a few tenors including Steve Perry, Michael Jackson, Bruce Dickinson and Chester Bennington. All of these guys, and Freddie Mercury included, basically sings in a similar comfortable range around G3 - A4, Steve Perry was perhaps the only one who had a slightly higher comfortable range. And it makes sense the lowest note he has ever sang is a C3.
If you are interested, you can look at my last video where I compare Chester Bennington, Freddie Mercury and Bruce Dickinson. Bruce Dickinson has a heavier, more of a Dramatic Tenor voice, his low notes are better then Freddie’s low notes. He also often sang in a slightly lower comfortable range, but he does have a few spectacular high notes as well, and his mixed voice technique is really good. Both Freddie Mercury and Bruce Dickinson have heavier and deeper tenor voices then Chester Bennington, but they sing high notes far easier then him. Okay, you might not necessarily see all of that information from that video, because I focus on specific notes in the video. But this is what I observed by listening to all of their songs and by looking at every single note they sang during these songs.
Another interesting example, is of course touring. Look a video by Riccardo Solda, Freddie Mercury- Hot Space Tour Vocal Range. Freddie Mercury did the whole Hot Space tour and he never sang lower then D3. That is not something a Baritone will do for months on end, D3 is in their comfortable range, not their lowest range.
Basically, I would say that Freddie Mercury’s full chest voice was very well developed. It was so well developed that he hardly ever had to use mixed or head voice. He lost power in his chest voice voice near his the end of his life in 1990. He suddenly sang higher on the Innuendo album, then he usually did. That is because he actually had to use mixed voice or head voice. His full chest voice did not have the power to sing as he always did previously.
Bruno Mars is a very light tenor, he is either a Light Lyric Tenor or a Leggiero Tenor. There are differences between light lyrical tenors and heavy voiced and more dramatic types of tenors. But even so, the highest note Bruno Mars has sang in full chest voice is a D5, that is still one step lower then Freddie Mercury.
Of course I will add as a disclaimer, that this is not a perfect science, there are many factors to take into consideration, and even the best music schools and opera houses very often gets it wrong, so of course I could be wrong as well. I am willing to investigate any evidence that might help to further my understanding of the subject matter.
You yourself might not even be a Baritone, what is your second passaggio?
@@ZENOBlAmusic i'd say chris cornell is on the border but he does sound like a tenor to me IMHO.
@@muslimmetalman Some people thinks he sounds like tenor and some people thinks he sounds like a baritone. Perhaps he was a Heldontenor. Something I've read about Chris Cornell is that he sang in a whispery, very quiet or soft voice. It might point to him being a baritone, singers are often taught, or they discover by themselves, that the more soft falsetto you can include into your mixed voice; the higher you can sing. If you make your voice lighter and softer you can sing quite high as a baritone. But in truth I have not looked into Chris Cornell's whole discography from start to finish, so I cannot say with 100% certainty.
@@ZENOBlAmusic heldentenor specifically is what i was thinking. in his more nasal voice and drawl he sounds like he could be a baritone but he doesnt have the bass in his voice i know baritones from. conspicuously Brendon Urie is also certainly a heldentenor but nobody remotely accuses him of being a baritone.
“Baritones cannot sing E5 in Full Chest Voice” well there’s no such thing as a chest-dominant mix my friend, there is only chest and head voice and a lightened chest voice is still considered chest voice in my opinion. I’ve heard an operatic bass sing up to B4 in chest voice but it was very brief and he didn’t sustain it of course. After all, basses and tenors are totally different categories.
freddie Eb2 barcelona
Era un tenor,yo siendo tenor tengo el mismo rango que freedie mercury
People can develop high notes regardless of classification type. It's not that if you can hit a C5 then you're necessarily a tenor... You comment on Freddy as a tenor just because he played a few high notes in the studio, that's why you're wrong, that's not how a type of voice is judged. I have heard baritones reach C5, even well trained basses !
A bass can sing a C5 in falsetto. Yes, range alone is not the only factor. But the register used does matter. Freddie Mercury especially live mostly sung in his full chest register. That is the core of the voice, but also your lowest register. There is a limitation to the chest voice, there are actually many tenors that cannot sing C5 notes in full chest voice. There are baritones that can sing a C5 in full chest voice, they do exist. Extreme notes is not very representative of a singers' voice. There is the tessitura, Freddie Mercury sang in the tenor tessitura. This is what baritones would struggle with, it not so much about single notes, it is about consistently singing higher or lower. (Singers sing 80 - 90% of the time in the tessitura or comfortable range). It is about consistently singing higher. The tenor tessitura is F3 - G4, Baritone tessitura C3 - D4. There are many apps that measure notes, use such an app and follow along with a few songs, and you will quickly see that Freddie Mercury sings in the tenor tessitura. A C3 note a not a very comfortable note for him, it is not a note he sang very often.
@@ZENOBlAmusic a bass can reach a c5 even in chest voice, there are many examples on CZcams. The register depends on the "prima voce" the notes where you're comfortable to sing. Doesn't depend if you reach high notes or low notes. Each register can reach low and high notes
@@ZENOBlAmusic by the way to me Freddie was comfortable in a mid range of note, not that higher, regardless of what you've said
How about Bocelli? He has a deep low sound and a powerful high range.
Freddie did not have a naturally deep low sound whatsoever
@@josephf426 I was asking about Andrea Bocelli. What would be his classification?
@@raffaelrameh14 ah. I'm not sure to be honest. a lot of people put vocalists like Bocelli under the "baritenor" label but honestly this is the limitation with vocal classifications as a whole. the human voice is not an exact science and you're always gonna have people that don't fit in with one particular classification. I would consider Bocelli to be one of those people personally. not really a tenor, but also not really a baritone either. but it's up for interpretation I suppose.
@@josephf426 I like what you've said. Perfect words!
@@raffaelrameh14 thank you sir!
Baritone, not tenor; I know that listening to a person speaking does not serve to catalog the type of voice when singing. However, he was a baritone who felt very comfortable as a tenor, due to his elasticity and his physiological characteristics (NOBODY TAKES INTO ACCOUNT THAT HE HAD POLYPOS). He really felt good in the high tessituras, he did it deliberately because he could achieve them and "he abused the use of them", to the point of that he seems to abandon his natural baritone register, which he really uses little, but he did from time to time and in that case his voice flows naturally, it does not seem forced at all. He was a rock star, he had no professional classical training in singing, he was not required to submit to discipline or uniformity, he drank, smoked, did coke and partyed and stayed up all night; he doesn't take care of his wonderful voice. There are many well-informed experts here, which is admirable, however they do not agree with each other. So I give my opinion; I have no technical knowledge at all, don't be too hard on me.
Hearing people speak is actually important in determining vocal fach. The balance of high and low undertones can potentially be decieving, but listening to the notes a person does while speaking normally, will tell you whether or not their voice is probablly used to being placed higher or lower.A voice can be deep, but not low, and if a voice is low it will be especially deep. Freddie spoke like a flamboyant british lady. In his airy flutters and natural knack for falsettoy head voice vocal musculature all throughout the 70s as well as his vocal tendency to ligthen in his belts all make him an unmistakable tenor.This elasticity you talk about only happens and makes his sounds possible when youre talking about a person blessed with the naturally thin folds to produce those sounds. Perhaps if some baritones train hard enough they'll be up to an A4, but Freddie was doing high tessitura A#4s-D5s all throughout his career. He did not abuse his high notes though. In his live career i have seldom heard him go past A#4 with B4-C#5 being either dubbed or avoided completley in almost all his live performances, due to all the vices and lack of monitroing youve mentioned. He just did not have them. As a gateway to make up for it he explored a vertical embochure, combined with his groggy unhealthy habits, made his undertones darker, and his limited range placed him to sound similar to a baritone with a boomy voice in the 80s, but the nature of his vocal insturment did not change as the studio recordings signify, when he had the rest, and monitorning of a studio setting, he still sang as high as a kite up to the last year of his life.
Disagreed. Not a baritone at all.
Does anyone really care, he had the greatest voice ever and played about with it people always disecting his voice. insread of doing that just let's appreciate the genius of this great singer.
Of course not. Who said that? Wikipedia? , he was clearly a tenor.
Yeah, Freddie Forever Was a Baritone
Nope lol. He was definitely a tenor.
Haha, baritone cannot sing up to E5 in full chest voice)) what about David Coverdale, Ian Gillan and other baritone in rock. They sing using mix sound, it's not full chest voice.