Shine your light and let the whole world see
after 2 years of closely 'studying' the Hillsong team and their songs, i always marvel at how they sing the songs in the Live/United Albums that can cater to the all the singers vocal range. i was always puzzled how can a 2 people of completely different vocal range sing the same song and it sounds nice...
well, lets leave the sound equipment the musicians use out of this post for now, because with the amount of equipment they use just for an Album, its insanely huge.
but lets go back to the vocals. so yes, i marvel at how the writer and musicians craft their songs in such a way that a Bass singer and a Tenor can sing the song. but after countless time of listening over and over again, i got the answer and it was pretty obvious from the start if i had paid a little more attention.
well you see, it basically depends on what key the song is being played. lets start with the male vocals. i noticed that usually the key of the songs they sing are in C. well, for a high tenor, that shouldn't be a difficult key to reach. and for a low bass singer, thats easily able to reach when the singer sings one octave lower. as such, when you put a bass singer and high tenor together, they can sing the same song on the same key. i realised this middle of this year when Hillsong Live released their first video from the 'A Beautiful Exchange ' video where Jad Gilles, my favouritest singer, sang the song Forever Reign. after a few days while browsing through youtube, i found another vid of the song, Forever Reign, being sung by David Ware. and i felt it strange because Jad is a (EXTREMELY) high tenor and david is a bass singer and they were singing in the same key!
another song which made me realise was You Hold Me Now, also sung by Jad on the Faith+Hope+Love Live Album. on the album, Jad sang the song in C.. however, during the Hillsong Conference 2009/2010, Reuben Morgan, a bass singer sang it in C too. but its amazing how the Hillsong craft their songs such a way that their music suits different singers.
for the female lead singers like Darlene, Brooke, Annie Garret and Jill, they tend to sing in the keys of G, A & B.. singing in C would be too high & too low for them. for one thing, even singing in A would be too high.
[okay side note, i always had the impression that females have a higher vocal range than males, i was terribly wrong. good thing someone pointed that out to me]
right so anyway, i guess this can be a learning point for you and your band if you have one. if you have one bass singer and one tenor who are in the same band, craft your songs in a way that both of them are able to sing. and even better thing is to compose your own songs too. but i feel when you compose your songs, you should keep in mind who do you think is capable of singing the song and try to arrange your song within the means of the singer's vocal range.
oh & to end, Hillsong is releasing a new series of Live Albums called Hillsong Chapel. & they're releasing a new Album 'Yahweh' this coming tuesday, 26th Oct. the aim of this CD is to help church worship teams or bands to sing or play the song not being so up-beat and rah-rah, they have arrange their songs to have a more acoustic feel to it. i've heard the preview of the songs, you should get one copy when its released :)
10/24/2010 04:50:00 PM
