The Bristow Voice Method Blog

American Idol Review – What about singing “pitchy”?

Posted on 06. Mar, 2008 by Per Bristow in American Idol, Performance, Singing

It’s been an interesting American Idol week.

First – the boys:

I must say that I really like the quality of the guys this year.  I also like the fact that they are all very different.

This week I take my hat off (if I had one) to David Cook – a very cool rendition of Lionel Richie’s “Hello”. 

I want to point out an interesting thing when it comes to performance and “hitting notes”.…

You often hear Randy Jackson talk about pitch problems – that the singing is “pitchy”.  Well, last week I wrote about David Archuleta’s rendition of Imagine.  A reader by the name of George posted a very interesting comment and he mentioned the fact that David hit a note that was significantly flat (and, I agree, quite strained).  I agree with everything George said, by the way. I too noticed that when Archuleta sang the word “join” it was significantly flat. However, isn’t it interesting that none of the judges who so often talk about pitch issues never brought it up?

This week Jason Castro sang Hallelujah and in the last phrase when he went for a falsetto note his voice completely cracked.  Hey, it more than cracked – it went totally out on him.  And even though it was the end of the song, none of the judges commented on it.  Isn’t that interesting?

It brings home the important point that missing notes and cracking voices become somewhat irrelevant if we, the audience, become engaged in the song.

So many singers, and even more non-singers, live in fear of cracked voices or singing off key. But realize that when Randy Jackson, or anyone else of the judges, talks about “being pitchy” they are only addressing the obvious result.

Anyone and their uncle can see if Kobe Bryant misses shots, but a coach will notice something else – that he’s not squaring up his hips, or something is amiss in the mental arena or in the legs. Michael Jordan never feared missing a shot although he accepted the fact that he missed many.

The real issue is why the singer is “pitchy”. It is so for a reason, most often because of too much force, tension and resistance. It is these qualities that, not only make the sound go pitchy, but disengages us, the audience, from becoming emotionally engaged.

When David Archuleta and  Jason Castro engaged us emotionally, a “missed” note became insignificant.

And this is a great lesson. You don’t learn to sing on pitch by trying to avoid missing notes. You don’t learn to shoot baskets by trying to avoid missing shots.

In last week’s blog post I wrote about Jason Yeager. This week I felt Luke Menard fell into the exact same trap that I wrote about then. It was telling what he said in the interview.  He said that he had chosen the song because “It was going to show me having a good time on stage”. As a performer your job is not to show the audience anything. It is not your job to prove anything, but to engage the audience and make them have fun. Then you really have fun too. I’m afraid Luke might be leaving although he certainly has a great voice and great potential.

David Archuleta’s performance wasn’t as strong as last week, but his wonderful tendency to focus outside of himself, which I wrote about last week, was noticeable. Once again, he spoke about other people and not about himself. Clearly, this is his way of viewing the world and why he is bound to become a great artist.

Overall, I find the guys to be a strong group of singers.

So what about the girls?

I thought overall they were better than last week, but the tendency remains:  It seems as if they are caught up in a contest of who can sing the high power-note. The problem it that it becomes predictable, and then when they hit the power-note it’s not organically out of passion or out of the context of the song. They all tend to hit it as hard as they can scrunching their faces and closing their eyes – which in truth has been more expressions of effort and acting, rather that true passion. If that was out of pure emotion I would love it and feel chills down my spine (like I did last year with several female singers). I haven’t felt it yet.  I think it might come though – I sense improvements.

My favorite female performance last night was Amanda Overmyer’s

What do you think?  Post your comment

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