7.27.14 Adam News and Info

Dr. Brian May ‏@drbrianmay 2m
@drbrianmay: So ! Folks ! Guess where we are ! Are we nuts ? Bri

With how good he sounded for the rest of the concert, I think it was just a mistake. Pushing the voice a little too hard. He is a high tenor, but he is not an alto or a soprano. He consistently sings at the very top of his chest range, and then a little more. The natural break in his voice is around a G4/G#4. The A4 is pushing it. What does that mean? Notes about the G#4 or A4 are difficult to produce with the chest voice. In order to go higher, one will normally switch to a head voice, and when Adam is singing lightly, he does. Think of the sustained high note in Soaked live. Or the crazy long note in CTMBTM. Or the high note in STL when he sings "toooooooooooooooooooooo love". Those are all sung in a beautiful, ringing head voice.

When he wants real power and oomph for a more rock sound, he sings in full voice, blending chest voice with some of the ringing resonance of head voice. above the natural break point in his range. He sings powerful A4s, B4s, all the way up to E5s in the concert. If he uses too much breath to power out those notes or if he adds too much chest, his voice can easily crack. It is a delicate balancing act. Maybe it is like diamond cutting. You have to hit the rough stone at precisely the right angle with precisely the right force to expose the crystal. The slightest miscalculation and you crack the crystal and ruin the stone.

If his voice is tired or has been strained from overuse, the cords will not vibrate as usual, their tension will collapse and the voice will break.  If the body is tired, the singer may not be able to accurately apply the right amount of air thru the cords and the voice breaks. I don't think either was the case with last night's performance, or he would have backed off a lot of notes, or had a lot more bum sounding ones. I think he was just caught in the moment of trying to encourage the crowd to sing lustily and gave that high note too much push/air.

With how good he sounded for the rest of the concert, I think it was just a mistake. Pushing the voice a little too hard. He is a high tenor, but he is not an alto or a soprano. He consistently sings at the very top of his chest range, and then a little more. The natural break in his voice is around a G4/G#4. The A4 is pushing it. What does that mean? Notes about the G#4 or A4 are difficult to produce with the chest voice. In order to go higher, one will normally switch to a head voice, and when Adam is singing lightly, he does. Think of the sustained high note in Soaked live. Or the crazy long note in CTMBTM. Or the high note in STL when he sings "toooooooooooooooooooooo love". Those are all sung in a beautiful, ringing head voice.

When he wants real power and oomph for a more rock sound, he sings in full voice, blending chest voice with some of the ringing resonance of head voice. above the natural break point in his range. He sings powerful A4s, B4s, all the way up to E5s in the concert. If he uses too much breath to power out those notes or if he adds too much chest, his voice can easily crack. It is a delicate balancing act. Maybe it is like diamond cutting. You have to hit the rough stone at precisely the right angle with precisely the right force to expose the crystal. The slightest miscalculation and you crack the crystal and ruin the stone.

If his voice is tired or has been strained from overuse, the cords will not vibrate as usual, their tension will collapse and the voice will break.  If the body is tired, the singer may not be able to accurately apply the right amount of air thru the cords and the voice breaks. I don't think either was the case with last night's performance, or he would have backed off a lot of notes, or had a lot more bum sounding ones. I think he was just caught in the moment of trying to encourage the crowd to sing lustily and gave that high note too much push/air.