Rock Exclusive Series? (26 February 2020)

I had a pretty good time researching for the first two books. To do a rock-themed book, of which the first two books both were, was my first thought and reason to start doing them. I briefly started a 90s time-period theme, but I'm not feeling the same passion. Perhaps making the books exclusively rock-themed, with perhaps an additional metal-exclusive theme eventually really is the way to go. To make decade-specific or other compilations eventually, perhaps at an even cheaper price or as a promotional offer wouldn't be out of the question either, but I'm thinking that rock is the category, be it genre, time-period or anything else that I'm most interested and passionate in researching and finding deeper-voice songs for.

Next Book (90s) Underway (23 February 2020)

As partly said in the previous post, I've decided, weighing up what I think could be a more popular topic with one I'd enjoy doing, and am going with 90s Hits. A question to ask would be, should I borrow a small number of entries from the rock books if the songs are from the 90s and a big enough hit, for instance "Breakfast At Tiffany's"? I think it couldn't hurt as long as I keep cross-entries to a minimum. I'll also start researching for the third (and probably final) rock book.

Next Book and Promo Plans (17 February 2020)

With a third (and perhaps more) rock theme which is definitely forthcoming that would be one passion-project aspect of the series complete, so where to next? If I were to continue the passion-project side of things, I'd probably do a 60s Hits theme. If I were to do be more shrewd, perhaps a 2010s Hits theme. I'm not sure how much demand there'd be for an all-60s karaoke guide, but on a personal level I don't really listen to 2010s Hits, so would feel very little personal fulfillment from researching and writing that.

All up, I'm thinking a 90s Hits would be a fair compromise between a music period I love listening to and may have a wide interest. Alternatively, Duets. This is a long game so I will get to 2010s eventually, but I don't want to lose sight of primarily keeping a passion-project element to it as well.

In other plans, I think posting some YouTube covers where I actually put some of my book into practice and direct people to here + Amazon if they wish would be a wise move.

- Aaron.

10 Surprising/Obscure Songs (15 February 2020)

To show research ie. that I didn't only stick to Johnny Cash-levels of deep voice obviousness (or worse, throw anything in) here are 10 songs across the two books so far that go off the beaten track a little bit. Led Zeppelin was one particular example of having to find the exception within the rule across their first five albums.

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Dead Kennedy's - Holiday in Cambodia

The Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head

The Futureheads - Decent Days and Nights

The Hives - Blood Red Moon

Led Zeppelin - Dancing Days

Marilyn Manson - Coma Black

Nightwish - While Your Lips Are Still Red

Pantera - Suicide Note, Pt. 1

Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)

The White Stripes - You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told)

A Few Clarifications + Technique Talk (13 February 2020)

One small feedback did point out the presence of baritones with wide ranges. Absolutely. My series title + the Amazon descriptions of my books do somewhat generalize in associating baritones with a lack of ability to sing high notes and this is certainly not true in all cases. What I'm mostly talking about however is chest, or belting register, not necessarily total range. Wikipedia says this about baritones:

Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2-F4)

Although this is talking about choral, and not popular music, it's also typical for a baritone's voice around that F4 note or even a bit before to begin to 'break' and lose the ability to keep a 'belted' sound quite as easily. This is where if you haven't acquired the ability to adjust your technique* or don't have a naturally higher belting range than what is typically in parts written for baritones, you'll naturally start wanting to use falsetto (the high, airy sound, used for instance when a man wishes to imitate a woman's voice). I don't actively note-match, but my personal voice break is quite conventional for a baritone, so most of my song choice's notes would fall below that F4 mark.

Of course, some songs, especially of a laid-back, low-intensity nature don't suffer for not trying to sing around this vocal break and embracing a little bit of falsetto use even if original artists don't (such examples are noted in the books) but there are also times keeping a full belted sound is more suited. Take for example Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust". The first verse is reasonably low and easy, the second verse jumps a whole octave and fitting with the lyrics is sung with a powerful sound - for all intents and purposes he's shouting the lyrics at someone. Now imagine if he'd whimpered the whole second verse in falsetto. The effect would be far less intense.

The purpose of my books primarily is to give those who either don't have the time, money, or motivation (any of those reasons is valid) for vocal lessons or otherwise to work intensely on their belting ranges, but still can and want to sing, a range of individual song options where they can most likely sing along with the original artists, belting (and sometimes using falsetto) as they intended in their original recordings.

* Crucially, I also in no way discourage active technical improvement if one wants to go that route, but I also believe those who don't go that route for whatever reason deserve catering to as well. That's where I like to think I come in.

- Aaron

Purchase and Contact Links

Books:

Songbook for Deep Voices: Rock 1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YVJVYVY

Songbook for Deep Voices: Rock 2: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084MLFH88

Email: 

bookfordeepvoices@gmail.com

General Findings So Far (12 February 2020)

The stereotype of the tenor phenomenon holds not completely, but largely true at least in rock-related research so far. I'd say the ratio isn't quite as lopsided as I once thought, but still nonetheless there. Taking a loose framework of a singles-based approach of generally popular bands, there were some relatively easy finds, and ones that I thought of later, but sometimes a dig through album tracks (first of their most well-known, then if necessary other albums) was required to find a song that didn't slip into a more tenor range at least somewhere.

Add to that my format of no repeated artists within one book (and the unrelated task of trying to find something definitive to say about each song in a similar number of words) and the books can take a while to fill up. Also, as sometimes-noted in the books, I found a lot of rock (or metal) singers save their lower-pitched vocal performances almost exclusively for slow ballads or songs that aren't in their usual style, including KISS ("A World Without Heroes"), Black Sabbath ("Solitude") and Pantera ("Suicide Note Pt. 1").

Welcome! (12 February 2020)

I don't love the word 'promotion', but I would like people to know my books exist, so I can deal with it 😀. My name is Aaron, I'm a lifelong music nerd from New Zealand. I'm also a sporadic singer-songwriter with semi-permanent writers block (but that's another blog). The idea for this series came from my own experience as a singer with a deep-ish voice and a general music fan but a big rock fan particularly, and how weird trying to sing along with a lot of that music over the years was, especially, to retell a part of my Amazon book descriptions one night at karaoke I severely underestimated the pitch of a popular singer (Bryan Adams to be precise) and had to sing the whole song an octave down.

The idea would later be born from both that minor reality that had followed me through life and seeing a lack of an in-depth equivalent online despite what I could gauge was a clear present interest in the subject (discussing the popular music tenor 'monopoly', asking what songs baritones could sing at karaoke, etc.) A search of Amazon showed that other songbooks for baritones existed, but weren't focused on contemporary popular genres. A further encouraging sign happened late in January 2020 - shortly before my second book was ready a copy of my first book had sold with no promotion on my part whatsoever. This told me that a possible audience existed for what I was doing. Finally, on the back of one single sale, my first book briefly vaulted to just outside the top 100 on Amazon in the category 'Voice Music'. It's of course impossible to say given the number of books published pre-internet that may not have been carried over, but at the very least I'm sure I'm one of the first to be doing this specific thing in-depth. In this internet day and age, that's a pretty cool feeling.

Writing these I hope to help male singers in various possible ways (these could be used as a guide for selections for live band performances, YouTube or other online covers, auditions etc.) and for my own enjoyment I get to listen to and discover music and bands I didn't know for research, and gathering ideas for future karaoke choices that better-showcase the particular qualities of my voice is also handy for me.

Songbook for Deep Voices: Rock 1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YVJVYVY
Songbook for Deep Voices: Rock 2 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084MLFH88

Just $2.99 US on Amazon's Kindle Store, and the first 10 entries of both books are in the free preview to give an idea of the format.

- Aaron