Post by mushymarionette on Sept 22, 2024 14:28:23 GMT
In any case, his range is just one of the reasons why Danny is my favorite singer of all time
Old message but since it pops up first when you open the thread I'm responding to it anyway because I'm sick of this thing still popping up in 2020s...
Being able to sing high (even with tenor's strength) =/= one's natural vocal placement
Elfman is quite an ordinary, averagely placed higher baritone who sometimes gets a Michael Hutchence (also a similar voice) type thing going in his upper chest voice. Nothing in his voice points to a tenor of any kind, he can just sing high with quite nice control but there are numerous singers doing way crazier things way higher with the similar vocal placement to Danny's, the secret is in the vocal technique not the placement. Now I disagree with the earlier comment about 'baritenors' not being a thing, it's a label that means different things to different people but it's a handy way of describing someone whose voice actually falls in the middle of where a baritone voice starts turning into a tenor but these voices are rare (think of people who fall in-between 5'11 and 6 foot, the so-called baritenors being in the middle of the two). I will keep repeating his same thing over and over and over again: being a tenor doesn't magically grant someone secret powers to sing effortlessly (although it can help especially when the voice sits higher than average), it's merely similar to height of a person meaning that the taller you are the higher you can jump and the more easier you can reach higher. A technically skilled high baritone can become almost interchangeable with a lower tenor and there are numerous examples of this from throughout the years, the reason most people don't reach that state is because they use unhealthy technique (forgetting how to support, pulling chest instead of using compressed mix for high notes, not singing with open vowels, not using enough vowels, living unhealthy etc). In Elfman's case, his naturally warm, strong lower and middle range shows his natural placement quite well, his vocal placement is very average.
All of this is precisely why we have started moving away from these labels, they offer insight into generic ideas of what voices can do and how they sound (Stevie Wonder - a high-placed tenor is bound to sound different from Frank Sinatra - a slightly lower-set baritone) but there is still a harmful, extremely conservative idea and a culture that then attaches certain assumptions and limitations on voices because of these labels, unable to think outside of the box so to speak. People seem to get attached to these labels so much so that they forget it's possible to sing well outside of the traditional, conservative ideas of range when the singer has a great vocal technique, whether that's a baritone singing mixed high notes with very little effort or a tenor singing low notes with warmth and strength. They offer general outlines but shouldn't be seen as the limitation which way too many people still do. It's why I wanted to respond to this, this idea of a baritone unable to sing high notes needs to be done with at this point because it's been proven as false time and time and time again.