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Original edition of "Voice and timbre"[edit]

"I have nodules on my vocal cords. My mother says I've had them since I was a kid. That's why I have the high register and the belting register and I can still be husky. A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do; I've learned to sing through my vocal cords. The only thing that really affects my voice is sleep. Sometimes if I'm exhausted, I can't hit the really high notes. My doctors showed me my vocal cords and why I can hit those high notes. It's a certain part of the cord that not many people use—the very top. My natural voice is low. I have a raspy voice. I'm really more of an alto. But my airy voice can be high if I'm rested. [...] When I was little, I'd talk in this really high whisper, and my mom would be like, 'You're being ridiculous'. I thought if I can talk like that I can sing like that. So I started just messing around with it. I'd practice and practice, and she'd be like, 'You're gonna hurt yourself'. I'd tell her, it doesn't hurt. If I were to try and belt two octaves lower than that, that would be a strain."

—Carey on her usage of the whistle register[1][2]

Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range,[3][4][5] and has the ability to reach notes beyond the 7th octave.[6][7] Referred to as the "songbird supreme" by the Guinness World Records,[8] she was ranked first in a 2003 MTV and Blender magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll, "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself."[9] She also placed second in Cove magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists".[10]

Regarding her voice type, Carey said that she is an alto, though several critics have described her as a soprano.[11][12][13] However, within contemporary forms of music, singers are classified by the style of music they sing. There is currently no authoritative voice classification system within non-classical music. Attempts have been made to adopt classical voice type terms to other forms of singing, but they are controversial,[14] because the development of classical voice categorizations were made with the understanding that the singer would amplify his or her voice with their natural resonators, without a microphone.[15]

Jon Pareles of The New York Times described Carey's lower register as a "rich, husky alto" that extends to "dog-whistle high notes".[16] Additionally, towards the late 1990s, Carey began incorporating breathy vocals into her material.[17] Tim Levell from the BBC News described her vocals as "sultry close-to-the-mic breathiness",[17] while USA Today's Elysa Gardner wrote "it's impossible to deny the impact her vocal style, a florid blend of breathy riffing and resonant belting, has had on today's young pop and R&B stars."[18]

Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker adds her timbre possesses various colors, saying, "Carey's sound changes with nearly every line, mutating from a steely tone to a vibrating growl and then to a humid, breathy coo. Her wide vocal range allows Carey to take melodies from alto bottom notes to coloratura soprano upper register."[19] Carey also possesses a "whisper register". In an interview with the singer, Ron Givens of Entertainment Weekly described it this way, "first, a rippling, soulful ooh comes rolling effortlessly from her throat: alto. Then, after a quick breath, she goes for the stratosphere, with a sound that nearly changes the barometric pressure in the room. In one brief swoop, she seems to squeal and roar at the same time."[20]

Her sense of pitch is admired and Jon Pareles adds "she can linger over sensual turns, growl with playful confidence, syncopate like a scat singer... with startlingly exact pitch."[16]

Revised edition of "Voice and timbre"[edit]

(to be developed)

  • NYTimes article from 1991: Goes into great detail about her voice and stylings in her prime.
  • Baltimore Sun article from 1997: Goes into pretty interesting detail on her breathy vocals: "Catching her breath Mariah Carey: She could always belt out a song, but now the pop vocalist is using an airier, more private voice. And her slick, lush sound is getting funkier." is just an excerpt.
  • Slant Magazine article from 1997: "Carey's much-debated "whisper voice." The relatively high and thin register that she sings in when not belting (and that's often) is sometimes cited as a sign of a waning vocal prowess. But it could be the most important of Butterfly's changes, as it marks the first time that Mariah the vocalist seems consistently real. She's not a robo-diva and she isn't even on autopilot. She's utterly soulful. We often think of guttural growling and belted vocal runs as the height of soulfulness (thanks, no doubt, to gospel's values, which gave us the notion of soul in the first place), but when Carey sounds almost hoarse and entirely heady, she's just about tangible."
  • Allmusic review in 2002: "What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. Whenever she sings, there's a raspy whistle behind her thin voice and she strains to make notes throughout the record. She cannot coo or softly croon, nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs. Her voice is damaged, and there's not a moment where it sounds strong or inviting."
  • Allmusic review in 2005: "As good as those Wright-helmed cuts are, they are also the times that the mixes slip and don't hide the flaws in Mariah's voice, and it sounds as airy, thin, and damaged as it did on Charmbracelet, where her ragged vocals dealt a fatal blow to an already weak album. Here, apart from those Wright tracks, the producers camouflage her voice in a number of ways, usually involving putting the groove and the sound of the production in front of the vocals."
  • Stylus Magazine in 2005: "It’s easily the strongest album that she’s made in this millennium, but suffers from the fact that her vocals have deteriorated—a simple fact of the ravages that her voice has undergone in the past fifteen years. Perhaps the best we could have hoped for, Emancipation is redemption and resignation at the same time."
  • BBC article in 2008: Describes Carey's deeper and lower voice throughout her younger years.
  • NY Daily News in 2009: "From the treatment of the vocals, to the strategy of the songwriting, to the use of instrumentation, "Angel" reeks of idealization and self-consciousness. That's most obvious in the way the producers dealt with Carey's signature feature - her voice. Rarely do we hear it clearly. Nearly every syllable sounds like it's been tricked up by a war room full of compressors, echo-chambers, filters, audio-tuners, and God knows what other contraptions too much time and money can buy. Isn't this how producers treat stars who can't sing? Then again, non-singers regularly score big singles these days. So perhaps it was a savvy move for Carey to mimic their style.

Mariah Carey's latest makes every effort to obscure what should be her calling card - her singing. Certainly, it's a cynical move, if hardly a new one for the singer. Carey's last CD, "E=MC2" also applied a heavy layer of gauze to her voice, though a less gloppy one than this time [...] Coupled with the nervous over-correction of her voice, the result makes Carey seem like the proverbial aging actress who's trying so hard to cover her perceived flaws, all she does is call more attention to them."

  • NYT article in 2009: "When exactly did Mariah Carey stop singing? Even when she began flirting aggressively with hip-hop in the mid-1990s she was happy to impose her titanic vocals atop even the scrappiest production. And no matter how grimy her surroundings became — Ol’ Dirty Bastard, anyone? — she remained inexorably Mariah, an impenetrable acrobat of technique. Of late though, Ms. Carey has been whispering, as if newly scared of grand gestures. On paper Ms. Carey shouldn’t need that help, but her collaborators have underdelivered with largely listless arrangements just as she has thinned her voice to a hush."
  • Entertainment Weekly review in 2014: "That Voice has been through a lot, and you can hear it. There are times on The Elusive Chanteuse when she’s trying to power through a note where it sounds like digital technology might be holding her up by the straps of that crocheted swimsuit."
  • Well this is a start. Definitely when including all the recent press from Asia and onward etc.--PeterGriffin • Talk2Me 05:10, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference vinsky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Sicha, Choire (July 8, 2009). "Is Mariah Carey's Voice Just Done For?". The Awl. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  3. ^ Zwecker, Bill (January 22, 2002). "Who Can Carey a Tune?". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved June 16, 2011.
  4. ^ "Roll Over Elvis - Mariah is Here". The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 20, 2008. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
  5. ^ Anderson, Joan (February 6, 2006). "Carey, On!". Boston Globe. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
  6. ^ Harris, James (August 28, 1990). "Her 7-Octave Voice Finally Gets Noticed". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  7. ^ Robins, Wayne (August 12, 1990). "Columbia's New 'Franchise'". Newsday.
  8. ^ James 1998, p. 74
  9. ^ Oleman, Sarah (April 1, 2003). "Princess Positive is Taking Care of Inner Mariah". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  10. ^ "100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Cove. May 24, 2008. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
  11. ^ Hoven, Chris (October 13, 2000). "Separated At Birth?". The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
  12. ^ "New CDs". Times Union. October 13, 2000. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
  13. ^ Dean, Maury (2003). Rock-N-Roll Gold Rush. Algora Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 0-87586-207-1.
  14. ^ Peckham 2005, p. 117
  15. ^ Appleman 1986, p. 434
  16. ^ a b Pareles, Jon (December 13, 1993). "Review/Pop; Venturing Outside the Studio, Mariah Carey Proves Her Mettle". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
  17. ^ a b Levell, Tim (December 2, 2002). "Carey Charm Offensive". BBC News. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
  18. ^ Gardner, Elysa (December 22, 2002). "Carey Sounds Like 'Gold' on 'Charmbracelet'". USA Today. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  19. ^ Frere-Jones, Sasha (April 6, 2006). "Mariah Carey's Record-Breaking Career". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  20. ^ Givens, Ron (August 3, 1990). "Vision of Loveliness". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 1, 2014.

Sources[edit]

  • Appleman, Chris (1986). The Science of Vocal Pedagogy: Theory and Application. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN -0253351103. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • James, Harold (1998). Guinness Rockopedia. Los Angeles: Guinness Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-85112-072-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Peckham, Anne (2005). Vocal Workouts for the Contemporary Singer. Boston: Berklee Press. ISBN 0-87639-047-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Fred Bronson's Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition (ISBN 0-8230-7677-6)
  • Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties (ISBN 0-89820-074-1)
  • Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Nineties (ISBN 0-89820-137-3)
  • Additional information concerning Carey's chart history can be retrieved and verified in Billboard's online archive services and print editions of the magazine.
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