Trevor Rabin (2,821 views)

[ProgBoi]

Trevor Charles Rabin (13 January 1954)
Years Active: 1972 - Present
Member Of: Rabbitt (1972-1977), Cinema (1982-1983), Yes (1983-1994), Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman (2010-2018; Toured 2017-2018 as “Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman”)
Vocal Range: B♭2-B5

While he mostly composes film scores nowadays, Trevor Rabin is infamous for replacing Steve Howe as guitarist for Yes and for influencing the band’s change in direction from prog to pop-rock. Vocally, Rabin is a pleasant-voiced tenor who is mostly comfortable in the upper 4th and lower 5th octaves; his performances on “Changes”, “Make It Easy”, and “Lift Me Up” with Yes as well as his solo tracks like “I Can’t Look Away”, “Something To Hold On To”, and “Promises” exemplify this.

Significant High Notes:
B5 (”Lift Me Up”)
A5 (“Leave It (A Cappella)”, “Owner Of a Lonely Heart”, “Something To Hold On To”)
G♯5 (“Walls” 90124 Demo)
F♯5 (“I Miss You Now”)
F5 (“Hold On” 90124 Demo, “Endless Dream”)
E5 (“Sorrow (Your Heart)”)
D5 ("Cover Up", "Eyes of Love", “Hold On” 90124 Demo, "Hold On To Me", "I Am Waiting", "I Didn't Think it Would Last", “I’m With You” 1982 Cinema Demo, “Looking For a Lady (Wolfman)”, "Promises", "Sorrow (Your Heart)")
C♯5 (“I Miss You Now”, “Lift Me Up”)
C5 ("Changes", "Cover Up", "Eyes of Love", “Heard You Cry Wolf”, “Hold On” 90124 Demo, "Hold On To Me", "I Can't Look Away", "I Didn't Think it Would Last", “I’m With You” 1982 Cinema Demo, “Looking For a Lady (Wolfman)”, "Make it Easy", "Promises", "Something to Hold On To")
B4 (“Do Ya Do Ya Want Me”, “I’m With You” 1982 Cinema Demo, "Lift Me Up", “Pain”, "Promises", "Shoot High, Aim Low", "Something to Hold On To", "Sorrow (Your Heart)")
B♭4 ("Cover Up", "Hold On To Me", "I Can't Look Away", "Something to Hold On To")
A4 ("Changes", “Do Ya Do Ya Want Me”, "Eyes of Love", "I Didn't Think it Would Last", "I Miss You Now", "Lift Me Up", "Make it Easy", "Promises", "Sorrow (Your Heart)", "Walls")


Significant Low Notes:
E3 (“Something To Hold On To”, “Walls”)
D3 (“Slow Dancer” 1982 Cinema Demo, “Something To Hold On To”)
C3 (“Cover Up”, “Endless Dream”, “Slow Dancer” 1982 Cinema Demo)
B♭2 (“Endless Dream”)

..................................................
• Blue denotes falsetto and whistle notes.
• Green denotes harshly distorted notes.
• Grey denotes growl and fry notes.
• Boldface denotes outstanding passages.
• Italics denote non-melodic and spoken notes.
• Underlines denote obscured and background notes.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Notewatched Material}
ProgBoi
Wolf (1981)
90125 (1983) *Remastered version with bonus tracks*
Big Generator (1987)
I Can’t Look Away (1989)
Union (1991) *Partially*
Talk (1994) *Partially*
90124 (2003)

Big thanks to Zedd Squared for help with this back on the old forum. He did a lot of cleaning up with the mess of notes I had.

[ProgBoi]

I was talking to Henny and we were discussing whether the A5 in “Owner of a Lonely Heart” is Rabin or a Fairlight CMI sample; a lot of the sounds during the song were made using a Fairlight and a cassette that reportedly had a James Brown concert on it. I relistened to the track tonight and thought it still sounded like Rabin but I’m not 100%. I checked a few live versions but they either played the sample without the “YOWS!” that are on the studio version...

(You can hear it at 2:11 and again at the end around 4:47)
... or they sampled the first “YOW!” and play that during the pre-solo break:

(Here at 3:14)

The best piece of evidence is here in this Behind the Scenes video with Trevor Horn regarding “Owner of a Lonely Heart”:

So, at 14:25, Horn plays the sample (which was apparently programmed by Alan White!) isolated, and we can hear that the “YOW!”s are not part of the sample. However, the clip stops looking at “Owner” shortly after, so it doesn’t let us know whether the A5 is Rabin for sure. I could buy that the A5 could be Jon Anderson (I feel its a bit uncharacteristic for him), and I highly doubt it’s Chris Squire either, but I’m still not certain that it’s Rabin.

I might move the A5 to a Questionable Notes section because of this. Does anyone think it should stay?

[Zedd Squared]

I mean tbh the way he delivers that A5 sounds believeable as him to me. The sample not having the A5 in it seems a giveaway and he's more the kind of guy to give a good YOW in his music than any other Yes singer.

[ProgBoi]

That’s what I was thinking; Rabin loves himself some good ol’ ‘80s rawk, so it feels like they’d be home. Reminds me of little yelps he does right before the guitar solo at the end of “City of Love” off of the same album.

Also, I have been going through some old demo notes that used to be on the old thread waaaaay back on TRP 2. I managed to find a YT page with some of the old Cinema demos from ‘82, right before Jon Anderson joined and they just turned into a new Yes, and found a couple of notes.


Overall, not a bad performance from Rabin, especially for a demo. Lots of nice higher passages with easy A4s and B4s during the verses, a bit around 1 minute in where he hits nice C5s and a sweet D5 (1:04), and there’s a part near the end where he hits either an F♯5 or a G5 at 4:59 (“Ain’t noboDY”). I’m having a little trouble pitching it; I had it listed as a G5 on TRP 2, but I’m leaning a bit towards F♯5. Also, Rabin gets a cool solo around 3:10. 


This one is a bit less interesting (Trevor trying Blues is a bit like Gary Moore doing blues; I’m sure someone out there likes it, but It’s not for me, lol), but still has some cool singing. Lower passages in the verses touching D3 and C3 (a couple bits dip lower, but I’m not confident that they’re anything more than anacrucis) but there is a bit at 1:07 where it sounds like Trev dips down to a B♭2 then jumps back up to an E5 immediately after.