So you're a little bit older and a lot less bolder than you used to be,
So you used to shake 'em down
but now you stop and think about your dignity
So now sweet sixteens turned thirty-one
You get to feelin' weary when the work days done
Well all you got to do is get up and into your kicks
If you're in a fix
Come back baby
Rock and roll never forgets
- Bob Seger
My old friend Philip Price has been remastering the songs I recorded with him a very long time ago on his old 4-track cassette machine, back when I was eking out a blissful bohemian existence in Vermont. I had become interested in singing but I hadn't done much about it yet. It's wonderful and bizarrely haunting to listen to my voice on these tracks again.
(I was primarily a clarinetist at the time, so that's me on the clarinet, but this track is also the only surviving evidence of my brief, sad career as a bass player…who knows, now that Rock Band is finally teaching me how to separate my hands, perhaps I'll give it another shot!)
Misinterpreted by Philip Burke Price
Cover art for the cassette tape. The band was Feet Wet, album title Tender Skelter.
Velveteen by Philip Burke Price
I have such incredibly fond memories of working on these songs, and it has me wondering how many classical and "legit" vocalists first fell in love with singing through listening to and performing popular music. A quick survey on Twitter turned up colleagues and students with rock 'n roll origins, including Susan Eichhorn Young who says she "started in pop - and punk!!"
Even for those of us who have never wrestled with a Fender, pop music plays such a significant role in our creative and personal lives. And while there are certainly some singers who are drawn to classical music from a very early age, I suspect that most of you first identified more with the singers you heard on the radio, at parties and dances, on film and television soundtracks. For many of you, the music you listen to for leisure and the music you perform may have little overlap.
Most of you love at least one style of popular music. Do you ever sing it yourselves?
It often happens that one of my classical students is called upon to sing a pop tune for one reason or another. And in most cases, they are at first completely freaked out by the whole idea!
Classical music is so highly structured that it's easy to get overly invested in "getting it right" – delivering a perfectly accurate performance of the notes, rhythms, dynamics, and diction. But in pop music, this kind of accuracy is far less of a priority than coming up with your own personal interpretation of the material. You have to let loose and express yourself – if your rhythms are too accurate and your diction too precise, it will just sound wrong.
But of course, getting to the point where you can let loose and express yourself is just as important for classical music.
Working on a pop tune can be a great way to reclaim real spontaneity in your singing. Your first attempts at pop ornamentation or R&B-type flexibility might expose some stiffness that is also keeping your classical singing from being as free and expressive as it could be. But stick with it, and getting some skill with the style will in all likelihood translate to greater flexibility and spontaneity in your Handel and bel canto rep as well. It's also a fantastic opportunity to sing in colloquial English. Experiencing the kind of naturalness that goes with this will show you how much more naturally you may be able to communicate when singing in stylized English or in any other language.
I don't think I could ever be nearly as good a pop singer as I am a classical singer, but I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to sing with Philip back when I had no concept of what the differences even were!
I still love his music as much as ever. His band, Winterpills, now has the benefit of far better recording technology than that old 4-track, as well as the wonderful voice of Flora Reed.
Winterpills sampler by Winterpills
(My favorite at the moment is "You Don't Love Me Yet")
Philip claims that somewhere he has a recording of me singing Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting with the cover band we put together when we were particularly desperate for money one Christmas.
If he ever digs that one out, sorry, I'm not posting it here!
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