Roger Waters (12,110 views)

[Bink]

so... what do we think of the thresholds, I would like more opinions on this before we start making changes

[IhateMana]

C3 my brother

[EddieCheivz]

Aug 7, 2024 3:53:18 GMT IhateMana said:

C3 my brother

I'm not totally opposed to this idea but I think I could go either way with it.

I'm still not seeing that D3 section really redundant or something and it actually has a decent amount of notes as example of a common/constant used low note.

[Hennessy Macklemore III]

PerhapsXarb gave this really strong analysis of Waters' evolution as a singer in the forum Discord last night, and it got me thinking about how the vocal roles in Pink Floyd shifted with the development of his technical abilities enough to want to continue the discussion in here.

I think his technical ability did improve, maybe a bit to do with getting over Gilmour's more commercial sounding voice but his confidence clearly improved a lot. He couldn't sing Have A Cigar well enough in 75, which is why he gave it to Roy Harper, and in the next few years he started doing way more stuff above that area (i.e. long held G4s in that song). Idk if he took lessons but his consistency in his upper range definitely improved for a good 20 years at least, I could not see him doing anything like The Trial in 1972

This got me thinking about how when the band first started out, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright were really the main lead vocalists of the band, and then after David Gilmour replaced Barrett, it became Gilmour and Wright. On most of those pre-Wish You Were Here albums, Waters was really more of just an occasional singer, who usually only did lead vocals on 1-2 songs an album tops, and also probably had the least developed range/technique of the bunch.

It was only around 1975 when he started to come into his own as a vocalist enough to handle co-lead vocal duties alongside Gilmour, which seemed to coincide with Wright getting pushed out of the picture as a vocalist, as Wish You Were Here was one of the first Pink Floyd albums that he did not sing lead on any tracks for. Then by 1977, Waters had developed his signature belting/wailing style, and really started to showcase that on Animals. Around that time, he really started to take over as the dedicated lead vocalist of the band, as evidenced by the fact that he sang on all 5 tracks of that album, and Gilmour only shared vocal duties on one.

Gilmour did get some of his standing back as a lead vocalist on The Wall, as he had "Goodbye Blue Sky", "Young Lust", and "The Show Must Go On" as his dedicated vocal performances, and did co-lead vocals with Waters on a decent number of tracks, but then The Final Cut returned to the format of Waters singing lead on everything, with "Not Now John" being the only track that Gilmour shared vocal duties with him on. Suffice it to say, after that the band dissolved and then eventually returned with Gilmour in charge, and Waters went off to pursue the solo project that he basically had been treating Pink Floyd as by that point.

So what do we think - did Waters' technical improvements as a singer around the mid/late '70s play a part in his takeover of the band, and also cause the shift in the band's vocal dynamic to having him as their primary lead vocalist instead of Wright and Gilmour? Would love to hear some additional thoughts on this, cause Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands to analyze the history of, and I find it really interesting to study how the events that happened over the course of their time as a band impacted the way their music came out sounding.

[PerhapsXarb]

Aug 21, 2024 21:52:04 GMT Hennessy Macklemore III said:

PerhapsXarb gave this really strong analysis of Waters' evolution as a singer in the forum Discord last night, and it got me thinking about how the vocal roles in Pink Floyd shifted with the development of his technical abilities enough to want to continue the discussion in here.

I think his technical ability did improve, maybe a bit to do with getting over Gilmour's more commercial sounding voice but his confidence clearly improved a lot. He couldn't sing Have A Cigar well enough in 75, which is why he gave it to Roy Harper, and in the next few years he started doing way more stuff above that area (i.e. long held G4s in that song). Idk if he took lessons but his consistency in his upper range definitely improved for a good 20 years at least, I could not see him doing anything like The Trial in 1972

This got me thinking about how when the band first started out, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright were really the main lead vocalists of the band, and then after David Gilmour replaced Barrett, it became Gilmour and Wright. On most of those pre-Wish You Were Here albums, Waters was really more of just an occasional singer, who usually only did lead vocals on 1-2 songs an album tops, and also probably had the least developed range/technique of the bunch.

It was only around 1975 when he started to come into his own as a vocalist enough to handle co-lead vocal duties alongside Gilmour, which seemed to coincide with Wright getting pushed out of the picture as a vocalist, as Wish You Were Here was one of the first Pink Floyd albums that he did not sing lead on any tracks for. Then by 1977, Waters had developed his signature belting/wailing style, and really started to showcase that on Animals. Around that time, he really started to take over as the dedicated lead vocalist of the band, as evidenced by the fact that he sang on all 5 tracks of that album, and Gilmour only shared vocal duties on one.

Gilmour did get some of his standing back as a lead vocalist on The Wall, as he had "Goodbye Blue Sky", "Young Lust", and "The Show Must Go On" as his dedicated vocal performances, and did co-lead vocals with Waters on a decent number of tracks, but then The Final Cut returned to the format of Waters singing lead on everything, with "Not Now John" being the only track that Gilmour shared vocal duties with him on. Suffice it to say, after that the band dissolved and then eventually returned with Gilmour in charge, and Waters went off to pursue the solo project that he basically had been treating Pink Floyd as by that point.

So what do we think - did Waters' technical improvements as a singer around the mid/late '70s play a part in his takeover of the band, and also cause the shift in the band's vocal dynamic to having him as their primary lead vocalist instead of Wright and Gilmour? Would love to hear some additional thoughts on this, cause Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands to analyze the history of, and I find it really interesting to study how the events that happened over the course of their time as a band impacted the way their music came out sounding.

There's people who have researched the band's trajectory faaaar more thoroughly than me, but from what I've seen, I would say his vocal improvement is definitely more a side-effect, or something he began working much more intensely on as he began writing for his own voice. From 1968 - 72 or so, Roger was already the most prolific songwriter of the group (look at the credits on "More" from 1968), and was seemingly content with writing songs/lyrics for Gilmour and occasionally Wright to sing (Wright sang and wrote more of his own stuff then), and this continued through Wish You Were Here (I don't think Gilmour wrote any vocal melodies on that album). But around that time, Gilmour and Wright were getting less creatively motivated and caught up in personal issues (e.g. coke). From their perspective, Roger was becoming more domineering and somewhat changed by their commercial success since DSotM, but from his perspective, he was making more conceptual albums and losing interest in his less visible instrumental role, so why not sing the stuff he was making? He wrote SOYCD at the top of his comfortable range at the time (he had sung occasionally in that range before, like around F#4 - B4 on Point Me at the Sky, but IIRC he had a more acoustic/folk background and didn't seem very interested in rangewanking), but it took effort for him and he clearly started putting way more work into that part of his voice as he began envisioning himself as a frontman. And then he got a bit carried away with it, but damn if he didn't have some great performances along the way.

Btw, when it comes to vocal type, I thought "Pretentious" was perfect. Waters is a bit more on the baritonal side, but his voice is pretty light and not that low-sitting and "pretentious" captures his style better than either of the two arbitrary categories. And yeah C3 is probably fine for his low threshold

[Bink]

honestly I'm going to have a slight different view on this whole debacle. I reckon Waters always had that type of tone and technicality to his voice, considering the fact that the man was keep in mind, still dishing out sometimes mid-fourth octave belts in his earlier years. He just started giving less of a fuck on if he sounded right for it.

Such as "Have a Cigar", there was a demo recording of that song where all things considered, he sounded very similar to how he did on say "The Final Cut" or "The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking". He had less of a role as a singer in the earlier days but as his confidence (and ego) grew, he decided sure I'll do it myself. Especially since all things saying, even in his best vocal performances he still sounds self-taught and quite abrasive in the grand scheme of things. I do not think it was a matter of skill, more so a matter of where he fit his role within Pink Floyd

Oh yeah and btw, I feel like a few people missed my point on the threshold things, I wasn't really thinking of moving him down to C3 but rather getting rid of E4, considering the seeming redundancies it currently has for how he was as a singer.

[Homelander]

Aug 7, 2024 3:51:23 GMT Bink said:

so... what do we think of the thresholds, I would like more opinions on this before we start making changes

I think D3 and E4 is fine, but it feels a little weird that his low section is bigger than his lows. (But idk, I don't listen to Pink Floyd)

Edit: Also, that bold F4 sounds challenging enough for him that I wouldn't put the thresholds any higher than E4.

[PerhapsXarb]

Aug 22, 2024 1:55:17 GMT Bink said:

honestly I'm going to have a slight different view on this whole debacle. I reckon Waters always had that type of tone and technicality to his voice, considering the fact that the man was keep in mind, still dishing out sometimes mid-fourth octave belts in his earlier years. He just started giving less of a fuck on if he sounded right for it.

Such as "Have a Cigar", there was a demo recording of that song where all things considered, he sounded very similar to how he did on say "The Final Cut" or "The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking". He had less of a role as a singer in the earlier days but as his confidence (and ego) grew, he decided sure I'll do it myself. Especially since all things saying, even in his best vocal performances he still sounds self-taught and quite abrasive in the grand scheme of things. I do not think it was a matter of skill, more so a matter of where he fit his role within Pink Floyd

Oh yeah and btw, I feel like a few people missed my point on the threshold things, I wasn't really thinking of moving him down to C3 but rather getting rid of E4, considering the seeming redundancies it currently has for how he was as a singer.

To an extent that may be true, although doing that higher singing more consistently takes stamina that requires a lot of practice, and his early belting sounded a bit weaker/thinner even if his tone didn't ultimately change that much through the years. You'd know more about this type of thing than me though

PS The Trial should DEFINITELY be up there on his 10 best performances list

[EddieCheivz]

Aug 21, 2024 21:52:04 GMT Hennessy Macklemore III said:

PerhapsXarb gave this really strong analysis of Waters' evolution as a singer in the forum Discord last night, and it got me thinking about how the vocal roles in Pink Floyd shifted with the development of his technical abilities enough to want to continue the discussion in here.

I think his technical ability did improve, maybe a bit to do with getting over Gilmour's more commercial sounding voice but his confidence clearly improved a lot. He couldn't sing Have A Cigar well enough in 75, which is why he gave it to Roy Harper, and in the next few years he started doing way more stuff above that area (i.e. long held G4s in that song). Idk if he took lessons but his consistency in his upper range definitely improved for a good 20 years at least, I could not see him doing anything like The Trial in 1972

This got me thinking about how when the band first started out, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright were really the main lead vocalists of the band, and then after David Gilmour replaced Barrett, it became Gilmour and Wright. On most of those pre-Wish You Were Here albums, Waters was really more of just an occasional singer, who usually only did lead vocals on 1-2 songs an album tops, and also probably had the least developed range/technique of the bunch.

It was only around 1975 when he started to come into his own as a vocalist enough to handle co-lead vocal duties alongside Gilmour, which seemed to coincide with Wright getting pushed out of the picture as a vocalist, as Wish You Were Here was one of the first Pink Floyd albums that he did not sing lead on any tracks for. Then by 1977, Waters had developed his signature belting/wailing style, and really started to showcase that on Animals. Around that time, he really started to take over as the dedicated lead vocalist of the band, as evidenced by the fact that he sang on all 5 tracks of that album, and Gilmour only shared vocal duties on one.

Gilmour did get some of his standing back as a lead vocalist on The Wall, as he had "Goodbye Blue Sky", "Young Lust", and "The Show Must Go On" as his dedicated vocal performances, and did co-lead vocals with Waters on a decent number of tracks, but then The Final Cut returned to the format of Waters singing lead on everything, with "Not Now John" being the only track that Gilmour shared vocal duties with him on. Suffice it to say, after that the band dissolved and then eventually returned with Gilmour in charge, and Waters went off to pursue the solo project that he basically had been treating Pink Floyd as by that point.

So what do we think - did Waters' technical improvements as a singer around the mid/late '70s play a part in his takeover of the band, and also cause the shift in the band's vocal dynamic to having him as their primary lead vocalist instead of Wright and Gilmour? Would love to hear some additional thoughts on this, cause Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands to analyze the history of, and I find it really interesting to study how the events that happened over the course of their time as a band impacted the way their music came out sounding.

Here goes the opinion I have always had about the dissolution of Pink Floyd. 

I don't feel that the development of Roger's vocal technique is what really influenced to contribute to the dissolution of the group. Actually, rather, I think it was how he gradually assumed (perhaps on purpose or perhaps not) the role as main composer.
Although it is true that as main vocalists on the first albums we can highlight Syd Barrett and Richard Wright, the fact is that as composers they all contributed a lot to the band from the beginning, in fact I would venture to say that Roger Waters is perhaps the PF member who contributed with more experimental ideas for the definitive development that would guide the band's horizon (not the only one of course).

From what can be seen judging the audiovisual material that exists (this could be maybe a hurry forward thought mine) it would seem as if he were somehow the one who does best trying to make different ways of achieving sounds, using strange ways of playing instruments as can be seen in live at Pompeii 1972 playing "A Saucerful of Secrets" for example, or the entire collage of bird noises that he recorded and mixed to give shape to a "Several Species of Furry Animales... ... ...", the footage where we can see him creating what would later be the main structure that gives shape to "On the run", or his characteristic style vocalization screaming in songs like "Careful with that Axe Eugene" or "Candy and a Currant Bun", etc. All this is just to proove he actually contributed a lot to the composition before too.


However, I am more than convinced that the reason why Pink Flyd separated was precisely because of a discrepancy of ideas between Roger Waters (who little by little began to impose his compositions more and more on political, left-wing and social issues) and the other members of the band, who judging by the band's past and the compositions/themes they focus on through albums, did not really seem interested on it a lot.
Gilmour, like Wright, was always more inclined towards soft themes, with non-controversial lyrics, but rather about the delight and development of life, common sense, or human analysis. And of course many ballads too.

I really think what happened here is that, Waters (a member who had always contributed a lot to the compositional side of Pink Floyd along with Gilmour and Wright) little by little was taking over the organization and decision of almost all the compositions, because precisely in that action-space he had he started to introduce his ideas and contributions starting with them to fill Pink Floyd's panorama little by little with his political and social issues (which ones til this day almost 50 years later, he has not stopped to use them). It is no coincidence that although today they are no longer angry with each other, Roger still responds specifically that he does not plan to write music with Pink Floyd again. And thinking the fact that the other members did not seem particularly happy with the new turn that the band had taken and that Waters was also already very arrogant (like when he expelled Wright) and in control of things, I think they simply did not want to continue working together and they took their own path.

It is no coincidence that when the band broke up, instead of each member take their own solitary career as usually happens, the whole band got back together, excluding Waters.

EDIT: Just realized you never asking for Floyd's dissolution actually lmaooo.
Well however, if someday you'd want to my opinion about that one, that's it lol.

[PerhapsXarb]

Aug 22, 2024 19:03:29 GMT EddieCheivz said:

Aug 21, 2024 21:52:04 GMT Hennessy Macklemore III said:

PerhapsXarb gave this really strong analysis of Waters' evolution as a singer in the forum Discord last night, and it got me thinking about how the vocal roles in Pink Floyd shifted with the development of his technical abilities enough to want to continue the discussion in here.
This got me thinking about how when the band first started out, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright were really the main lead vocalists of the band, and then after David Gilmour replaced Barrett, it became Gilmour and Wright. On most of those pre-Wish You Were Here albums, Waters was really more of just an occasional singer, who usually only did lead vocals on 1-2 songs an album tops, and also probably had the least developed range/technique of the bunch.

It was only around 1975 when he started to come into his own as a vocalist enough to handle co-lead vocal duties alongside Gilmour, which seemed to coincide with Wright getting pushed out of the picture as a vocalist, as Wish You Were Here was one of the first Pink Floyd albums that he did not sing lead on any tracks for. Then by 1977, Waters had developed his signature belting/wailing style, and really started to showcase that on Animals. Around that time, he really started to take over as the dedicated lead vocalist of the band, as evidenced by the fact that he sang on all 5 tracks of that album, and Gilmour only shared vocal duties on one.

Gilmour did get some of his standing back as a lead vocalist on The Wall, as he had "Goodbye Blue Sky", "Young Lust", and "The Show Must Go On" as his dedicated vocal performances, and did co-lead vocals with Waters on a decent number of tracks, but then The Final Cut returned to the format of Waters singing lead on everything, with "Not Now John" being the only track that Gilmour shared vocal duties with him on. Suffice it to say, after that the band dissolved and then eventually returned with Gilmour in charge, and Waters went off to pursue the solo project that he basically had been treating Pink Floyd as by that point.

So what do we think - did Waters' technical improvements as a singer around the mid/late '70s play a part in his takeover of the band, and also cause the shift in the band's vocal dynamic to having him as their primary lead vocalist instead of Wright and Gilmour? Would love to hear some additional thoughts on this, cause Pink Floyd is one of my favorite bands to analyze the history of, and I find it really interesting to study how the events that happened over the course of their time as a band impacted the way their music came out sounding.

Here goes the opinion I have always had about the dissolution of Pink Floyd. 

I don't feel that the development of Roger's vocal technique is what really influenced to contribute to the dissolution of the group. Actually, rather, I think it was how he gradually assumed (perhaps on purpose or perhaps not) the role as main composer.
Although it is true that as main vocalists on the first albums we can highlight Syd Barrett and Richard Wright, the fact is that as composers they all contributed a lot to the band from the beginning, in fact I would venture to say that Roger Waters is perhaps the PF member who contributed with more experimental ideas for the definitive development that would guide the band's horizon (not the only one of course).

From what can be seen judging the audiovisual material that exists (this could be maybe a hurry forward thought mine) it would seem as if he were somehow the one who does best trying to make different ways of achieving sounds, using strange ways of playing instruments as can be seen in live at Pompeii 1972 playing "A Saucerful of Secrets" for example, or the entire collage of bird noises that he recorded and mixed to give shape to a "Several Species of Furry Animales... ... ...", the footage where we can see him creating what would later be the main structure that gives shape to "On the run", or his characteristic style vocalization screaming in songs like "Careful with that Axe Eugene" or "Candy and a Currant Bun", etc. All this is just to proove he actually contributed a lot to the composition before too.


However, I am more than convinced that the reason why Pink Flyd separated was precisely because of a discrepancy of ideas between Roger Waters (who little by little began to impose his compositions more and more on political, left-wing and social issues) and the other members of the band, who judging by the band's past and the compositions/themes they focus on through albums, did not really seem interested on it a lot.
Gilmour, like Wright, was always more inclined towards soft themes, with non-controversial lyrics, but rather about the delight and development of life, common sense, or human analysis. And of course many ballads too.

I really think what happened here is that, Waters (a member who had always contributed a lot to the compositional side of Pink Floyd along with Gilmour and Wright) little by little was taking over the organization and decision of almost all the compositions, because precisely in that action-space he had he started to introduce his ideas and contributions starting with them to fill Pink Floyd's panorama little by little with his political and social issues (which ones til this day almost 50 years later, he has not stopped to use them). It is no coincidence that although today they are no longer angry with each other, Roger still responds specifically that he does not plan to write music with Pink Floyd again. And thinking the fact that the other members did not seem particularly happy with the new turn that the band had taken and that Waters was also already very arrogant (like when he expelled Wright) and in control of things, I think they simply did not want to continue working together and they took their own path.

It is no coincidence that when the band broke up, instead of each member take their own solitary career as usually happens, the whole band got back together, excluding Waters.

I don't think the lyrical content, at least pre-Wall, was a big deal to Gilmour at least. He has said he and Roger had similar political views at that time, and he wished he had the lyrical skill to write about societal issues in the way Roger did. But at The Wall and TFC, Roger got much more personal writing than societal (at least, looking through the lens of his own traumas and experiences to explore his perceptions of society), and I think this started to lose Gilmour and Wright a bit (Gilmour called it "whingy" apparently). Gilmour's more "McCartneyan", for lack of a better term, lyrical style doesn't really mean he disagreed with an album like Animals that much (he is/was, at the very least, a social democrat). Roger's increasing control and arrogance would probably have annoyed any bandmates notwithstanding his lyrical focus, which became more self-absorbed over time, at least from their perspective. As well as Roger's compositions becoming less intricate/interesting and more bombastic (i.e. "prog rock" --> "art rock") without Gilmour and Wright's contributions. At least on The Wall he gave Gilmour quite a bit of freedom in instrumentation and arrangements, which he did not on TFC.

Also I was looking at a live vid of Have a Cigar (new 12tone vid!), and found this (likely nonmelodic) falsetto E5 www.youtube.com/watch?v=05cwot-WVso&t=125s