10.22.12 Five concerts in Japan Feb 2013

I have enjoyed Adam's many takes on WWFM. The green tornado on Idol was just unforgettable. I loved also the recap on EW about Adam's performance that night. I forget who the writer was, he was usually pretty snarky about every thing, but he GUSHED over that performance. I seem to remember him just repeating that he could not believe Adam's voice and how wonderfully it sounded during that performance.

The song I heard today, on my Trespassing CD that I wish had done better was Better Than I Know Myself. That song sounds easy when he does it, but I bet there are very few people who can do it justice as well.

I absolutely adore the Jay Leno performance of BTIKM, I am so glad I downloaded it. When I do watch it, I have the hear the last 30 seconds of the song repeatedly. What a voice!

Well, there is "simple" and then there is simple in Adamland. Adam's songs routinely span about an octave and a half from low to high. (And it is not unusual to hear Adam cover two full octaves in the same song.) That's the range of The Star Spangled Banner, arguably the world's most difficult national anthem to sing. When a song gets much over an octave from low to high, most people will not be able to sing all the notes in their chest voice (which is the only way many untrained singers know to sing). The highest notes have to be sung by switching to your head voice. Alternately, you can lower the key of the song to be able to hit the high notes, but then you can't reach the lowest notes. So, practically all of Adam's songs are going to be difficult for an untrained singer to sing well. (For many popular songs, the majority of notes are within a five note range, which most folks can reproduce. )

Another thing that makes Adam's songs challenging is that they tend to jump around in pitch. It is easier to go up or down one or two steps at a time. Adam's songs often jump up or down five, six or seven notes, and more. Imagine playing tennis. It is easier to hit the ball when it keeps coming back to roughly the same area of the court. If you have to run to the back right and then up to the left front to return the balls, it is much harder.

Adam's melodies also tend to have notes in them that are a bit unpredictable and harder to hear and reproduce. And that is just talking about the notes and the range, not the wonderful things he does with phrases and interpretation. So, yeah, Adam's "simple" songs are anything but.

You know, the common myth is that anybody can sing. It's the most natural thing in the world. Just open your mouth and the sounds come out. It's not like learning an instrument where you have to learn precisely how to place and move your fingers, control your breath and mouth position to blow into the instrument, coordinate your hands which may be doing two very different things at the same time. NOT! Singing WELL, singing in a way that sounds effortless, singing in a way that moves and touches people, and singing properly so as not to damage your vocal cords is very challenging. Once, when talking to Angelina about the nonsense some folks have spewed about Adam not being a REAL musician a because he doesn't play an instrument, Angelina exploded (well, as much as she does), "But we have to work so hard to perfect our voices we don't have TIME to learn another instrument!" Amen to that, sister.

Yes, you are right, it was Radio Energy in Berlin, where he painted the picture! And he also painted another one of himself at BIG FM Radio in Stuttgart one day before!