Canadian Musician - January/February 2019

VOCALS Scott Henderson is the founding member of The EarthTONES (five top-20 hits and two Juno nominations) and the current lead singer and chief songwriter for the funk/soul group Souls in Rhythm. Scott also co-runs The SHOW in Calgary and is an in-demand vocal and performance coach, producer, and songwriter. For more information, visit www.soulsinrhythm.com and www.theshowco.ca. By Scott Henderson Do You “Indie Voice?” Part 1 I t’s a phenomenon, and while it’s been around for quite a while – even at the forefront of the mainstream for many years – it is now absolutely ubiquitous in pop music. Our own Canadian sensations Alessia Cara, Shawn Mendes, and Jessie Reyez have it perfected. I’m talking about “indie voice” or “hipster singing,” as it is most often referred to. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you either don’t listen to the predominant new music of the day, or you listen to so much of it that this mode of singing is just “singing” as far as you’re concerned, and are perhaps unaware that there’s any other way to do it. Thus, my motivation for writing this article: I want you to decide what kind of vocalist you want to be. There have been many other articles (and parodies) on this subject over the years. At one point, it seemed that this trend would be more of a fleeting fad, but now, it seems to have tipped over into the absolutely inescapable. I’m not a hater of these types of singers; I love current pop music and respect any vo- calist that has the talent and tenacity to earn a thriving career. The current Billboard 100 is overwhelmingly dominated with indie voice singers (and mumble rappers), with Halsey and Post Malone being prime examples. Even out- standing vocalists such as Ariana Grande, Adam Levine, and Selena Gomez employ elements of this vocal style. What Is Indie Singing? Notable vocal coaches and the public alike have analyzed this significantly. The most common technical characteristics include turning words with vowels that are monoph- thongs into diphthongs. That means taking a word with one vowel sound and adding a second vowel sound to it, turning a word like “trust” into “truh-eest” (say it quickly) or taking “good” and turning it into “goo-eed.” It’s now fairly common to hear some singers even cre- 32 • C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N ate triphthongs from one-vowel words, like turning “just” into “joe-uh-east” (say quickly as “joist”). While that may sound ridiculous (and it is – not to mention a laborious way to vocalize), it is the way things are right now. Singers are embracing it, and audiences are elevating hits with these sonic qualities en masse. Indie singing can also include additional qualities such as accentuated vocal fry (Ariana Grande), little movement of a closed jaw that leads to slurred articulation (Lana Del Rey) , and extreme breathiness (Justin Bieber). More recently, it’s also taken on other quali- ties: quick onset forced vibrato on most held vowels, and hyper-affecting consonants as well. These include the dropping of Rs and Ls in words ending with those consonants (door = doh, or trouble = trub-oh) or even turning “hold” into “hode” and heart into “haw-eet” (as an example of the now common word manipula- tion of also adding the extra vowel). It also can involve pronouncing Ds and Ts less with the tip of the tongue and more by articulating these consonants with the tongue farther back a bit. It’s not the way we speak; in fact, this recent evolution of the indie voice sound with these elements (of consonant ma- nipulation) is indicative of how toddlers – who haven’t yet mastered nuanced vocal mechan- ics – speak. Some mainstream singers are even starting to use the arch in the middle (rather than the tip) of the tongue to deliver an S sound as well. (Are you trying it?) Singing in a way that you don’t speak is singing with an accent that you don’t have. You may recall some mocking of Scott Stapp from Creed, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, and other male vocalists of the ‘90s for an over-stylized and seemingly similar vocal delivery (which included an over-pronunci- ation of Rs within words – or even the addition of the letter in words where it doesn’t exist). It even earned a term for this style of singing: “yarling.” Throughout the history of popular music, there has been criticism of some Caucasian singers for adopting an exaggerated African- American vocal delivery when the same white singers don’t necessarily speak that way. Every genre has its own nuanced sonic “lan- guage” or code, and sometimes, singers who love a particular style of music pay too much homage to it. That said, the saturation of the indie voice phenomenon in today’s new music far sur- passes the degree that these other examples reached at the height of their use. It’s now firmly entrenched in pop and indie music, and has also infiltrated current R&B, folk, hip-hop, and EDM. Its saturation of the music industry is now complete, and it might be more of a challenge to identify top-40 singers that don’t employ this style than the ones that do. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so what now? With the thorough entrenchment of this vocal style in mind, if you’re an aspiring singer, developing vocalist, or even an estab- lished artist, how should you navigate your vocal sound? We’ll discuss that question more in part two in the next issue. INDIE VOICE VIDS Here are some examples of interesting and humourous videos on YouTube that explore the trend of indie singing. Check out: MrSkinnyJeanz3 – “The Truth About Unique Voices” (2018) Chrish – “Indie Girl Introduces Us To Her Kitchen” (2015) Manon Mathews – “Delilah Is So Indie” (2017) Manon Mathews – “This Is My Real Voice” (2016) Polyiris – “Impressions – How To Be Ur Fav Indie Singers” (2017) Madeline Roberts – “How To Hip-Sing” (2013)

Canadian Musician - January/February 2019 | Page 32