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They can certainly make a huge difference. But a lot of it is stage presence and confidence/interaction with the audiance rather than just their singing ability.
I have to say though, I smoke like a very smokey thing thats smoking while it smokes and you can most certainly hear me over the guitar. I'm also pretty sure that Richie Sambora smokes like 600 a day and he is a monster singist.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Lowest common denominator
Fuck that quite frankly. I want to make art, not a product. No, the two aren't mutually exclusive, but there is certainly a correlation between doing something to please yourself as a musician and the resulting being an artistic expression, and then doing something to please the audience and the output being something that isn't entirely true to yourself. Balls to the audience. Most of the time they don't know what they're talking about.
We played The Willow Festival this year. With the best will in the world, your average punter at those kind of places does not care about the music regardless of whether you have a vocalist or not, and regardless of whether the music is actually any good. Most people want to hear the same old shit - Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Oasis... whatever it is that they were listening to from their youth. They want to hear a passable version of it, and they want to drink beer. They don't care if you're pouring your heart out, or coming up with lofty concept albums, or even writing music about your dead dog that you really really miss.
So given that, we quite simply don't make music for those people. They are absolutely not on our radar. Consequently, playing TWF - whilst a very enjoyable experience - was completely pointless financially and exposure-wise for us, and I doubt we'll do it again.
We did our first album instrumental. Not really out of choice, but because we couldn't find a vocalist we liked. Our second album had vocals on it for three tracks, because they were the ones that actually needed and benefited from vocals.
The general malaise about live music in the UK has nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with not enough vocalists, and nothing to do with not enough venues. It's all tracable to peoples choices and the things they choose to prioritize in their lives.
I'd rather have 10% of the people who see us be blown away by the sound we create, and buy a CD on the way out, than I would 90% of them go "oh wow... that singer was great, he could really swing those hips" and then head to the bar for another bacardi and coke.
In any case, I don't think it is anywhere near 90% of punters. It probably is a majority of them that are uncultured bafoons that just lap up any old shit that is given to them. But I'd say it's closer to 60%.
People respond to sound, and it doesn't have to be a human voice for them to get it or enjoy it. People don't go clubbing because they want to hear vocal trance. They go clubbing because they want to experience the massive thump of an 808 bass drum, and the squiggy feeling they get in their chests when the bass drops.
Maybe you guys just go to way too many crap gigs??? When I go see a band, I am way more interested in the music than I am any sort of frontman antics.
As well as charisma, stage presence, interaction, confidence etc a good singer also can adapt to the song each time you play it and this is vital. If you play it that bit faster and they go with it an sing it with bit more umph as well as the extra speed it can really spice things up. As a band you play a better more engaging set when your singer is dynamic enough to interact with how the rest of the band are playing each song that particular time, as opposed to a sung recital. Some of our best gigs are when our singers voice has been shot at the end of the night and he is really going for it - it rubs of on the rest of us guys and we put a better show on for it which in turn gets a better response from the audience.
Having said that the ability to sing in key and hold a melody is priceless!
Drew - for instrumental stuff - knock yourself out. More power to you, but I think you're in a different place to song based music.
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When the Stones came out, they sounded like nothing else out there. Part of it was Jagger and his vocals. But a bigger part of it was the sound of the band. The same can be said for bands like The Doors, Pearl Jam, and many others you could care to name.
A song is comprised of multiple layers and often times if you take any of that away, it loses impact and interest. You could take Paint It Black and turn off the vocals, and it would indeed lose something. Likewise if you had just drums and bass, it would suck. Vocals can be important, but they are not the only reason to listen to music - which I feel is what is being implied here.
And I don't accept that most people think like that. It's just that cognitively it is easier to recognise and explain what you like about vocals (ie; another human making a noise) than it is to explain what you like about something as otherworldy as electrons shooting down a cable, or vibrations coming off a drum skin.
Equally, a god-awful vocalist can totally ruin a band. Where I think I can probably agree is that for a song to have any kind of interest or appeal, a "hook" is required, and most often in popular music that *is* the vocals. But it certainly doesn't have to be.
As for "song based music" - lol. Thanks for the back handed slight there Jal!!
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.