Even though I create a lot of things myself, I always love finding out how other artists do what they do. I often watch documentaries about how albums come together and enjoy the stories about where their inspiration came from for a particular song. It usually makes me hear something in the track that I hadn’t heard before.
Sometimes artists will even do live workshops at events, like the Amsterdam Dance Event which we just had here, recently. They will teach you their little tricks and spare you a lot of time trying to figure it all out yourself. But several artists have also participated in creating their own masterclass for various outlets and I just happened to catch the masterclass singing by Christina Aguilera, yesterday.
I have tried a lot of courses to teach you to sing, both online, on DVD and in real life. Some follow the traditional techniques to the T and others have come up with their own techniques. It’s like Christina says in her little class: “Technique is just a quarter of singing.” The rest is something else.
In the case of Christina, that is partially a lifetime of experience, which shows in her masterclass. Over the years, she’s created a style of her own. Some feel it’s forced. She explains that this has been a very conscience choice of hers and it’s all down to personal preference. By making every note sound like it’s something you fight for, it gives it an additional emotion that people feel when they listen to it. But just like the current trend of singing (mainly belting really loudly), it’s just something you either love or don’t.
I haven’t watched all that many interviews with Christina. All I really know of her, is her music, but beyond that there’s always been something about her I can’t quite put my finger on. I felt she was always searching. Having seen her class, I actually think she’s very professional at what she does. It’s the job of professional to make things look easy. She makes singing look easy especially when she’s just blurting out a few examples of something. Man, I wish my scales even sounded as good as hers!
In music, clothes and looks, I can’t always appreciate the choices she has made for herself, but her vocal abilities have always intrigued me. I’m glad I got to see a little more insight into how she does it, but have no illusion that I will ever get the hang of it that way.
