The Most "TRP" Notes (561 views)

[BAZanine]

You may be asking yourself what I mean by this. What's worse is you may already know exactly what I mean by this. Basically, I'm referring to notes and passages that have thoroughly ingrained themselves in the TRP mythos. That we reference (and nerd out over) endlessly. Bits of singing that have really resonated with us, the dweebs who think of this stuff in terms of range and pitch and all that other nonsense.

I'm not letting anyone else have this one. As far as I'm concerned and as far as I've witnessed, the single most "TRP" note is Paul McCartney's A1 in "The Girl Is Mine":



TRP as a community has been enamored with this note since well before my time, at least as far as I can tell. I don't know when it was "discovered" by range geeks per se, but it seems to have been prominent in TRP discourse since at least the forum's second incarnation, back when I was 3. I don't think I need to explain why this note is hailed as much as it is; it's such an anomaly. Paul McCartney, a pretty standard tenor in many respects (oh no I said a voice type oopsie doopsie), whipping out a strangely strong first octave note, very seldom to explore that area of his range before or ever again. If it weren't for how generally unbecoming this note is of the artist it's attributed to, it probably wouldn't get so much as an occasional shout. But no, this note has found a home with us and seems to have persisted and permeated through all the changes in weather.

This is a note that I reckon had a lot more traction on the forum's third incarnation, but kind of failed to hang on in our discourse:



This C5, I feel, was once one of the crown jewels of our community along with the aforementioned A1. Holy grail-adjacent? I don't know, but people LOVED this note. It hasn't gone anywhere, but it doesn't spark much intrigue nowadays. I think we all kind of accepted that yeah, it's a good note. But then, it's a Tony Bennett high note. It's not too disconnected from the rest of his belts in terms of sheer quality. Not to mention the crew that discovered it and really relished in Bennett's music have largely either flown the coop or kept mum. That is to say, every user who joined after 2019 obviously hates Tony Bennett and everything he stood for. Just the same, this note above many holds a prominent place in our lore and it was assuredly worth the mention.

I'm sure I could scrounge up more examples, but what good would it be if I took all of them? Get back to me, champ.

[Steingrim]

My idea of the McCartney A1 is that it originally became myth because it's on a hit duet from the Thriller album, and it's sufficiently good that it doesn't sound weird in that song. One can also sense a personality struggle between the two tenors in that song and in the duet videos that they did later. It was sort of the normal, manly Paul McCartney versus Wacko Jacko, who was probably in the process of becoming a pedophile with a childlike demeanour. The octave drop down to a line ending on A1 may have been McCartney's way of emphasizing that struggle. They sang equally high, as they typically do in their duets, then McCartney sort of bassed out of the song towards the end. The octave drop is certainly a very surprising element.

[BAZanine]

Absolutely befuddling psychoanalysis of an A1, thanks!

[Electric Mami]

Mike Patton's C7 in “The Omen (Ave Satani)” at Bologna in 2006



After Mike Patton getting range destroyed due to a bunch of notes being passed as questionable or re-pitched for being inhaled or overtones respectively, Goober has been tirelessly researching for Patton's range expansion again… And it paid. He dug through bootlegs so much that I even like to make it a verb for the forum's lore: "To goober: To tirelessly research through any studio or live material from a singer. Ex: They gotta have something higher, imma goober the hell out of this thread.". That is "TRP" as heck because it represents the more "obsessed" of us actually finding genuine gems from their deep researches

[Steingrim]

Sept 30, 2024 20:02:05 GMT BAZanine said:

Absolutely befuddling psychoanalysis of an A1, thanks!

Things got a little bit weird some times. The video for Say Say Say which is from one of McCartney's albums has the 25 year old Michael Jackson in the role of an adolescent who's thinking about shaving. Of course, he didn't start to look really weird until the Bad album four years later.

Michael Jackson keeps getting up to some really good C#5s in chest voice throughout that song, by the way. McCartney's Bb4s are more ordinary, in comparison.

[senatorsenpai]

[Hennessy Macklemore III]

Though its reputation didn't originate with TRP, I think I remember Zedd Squared commenting a long time ago about how the James LaBrie F♯5 in Dream Theater's "Learning to Live" is "probably the most famous F♯5 in modern music" for how much it gets talked about by pitch, which is definitely a very TRP sentiment.


Similar case for the eternally epic AF G5s by Daniel Heiman in Lost Horizon's "Highlander (The One)":


I also remember that back on TRP1/TRP2, a lot of users used to use the first verse of "She Burned Me Down" by Type O Negative as a litmus test of sorts for their low singing. I remember that being one passage (and song, for that matter) that got talked about more on TRP than it seemed to be anywhere else.


Lastly, I would say Axl Rose's C♯2s in "Shackler's Revenge" are another passage and song that have been discussed more on here over the years than I've ever heard them referenced by Guns n' Roses fans IRL:

[Yojojo]

[Steingrim]

Oct 25, 2024 18:06:15 GMT Yojojo said:

The last note (Eb1) works rather well in the harmony.

[mushymarionette]

1.0 Legacy era TRP had a field day with the low notes of this song because we weren't used to hearing AOR tenors doing that growly thing back then, everyone was shocked upon hearing those notes from Gramm. These days they feel a lot less shocking, understanding how that throaty growly low singing works.

[Hennessy Macklemore III]

Oct 28, 2024 18:03:41 GMT mushymarionette said:

1.0 Legacy era TRP had a field day with the low notes of this song because we weren't used to hearing AOR tenors doing that growly thing back then, everyone was shocked upon hearing those notes from Gramm. These days they feel a lot less shocking, understanding how that throaty growly low singing works.

I would still say it feels pretty shocking, considering that we've still never heard Lou Gramm use anything remotely close to that approach ANYWHERE else in his discography. Notewatching aside, that song is definitely still a huge outlier for him as a vocalist and for Foreigner as a band.