Live Performance Of Hit's Often In A Lower Key Than The Recording?

[Budbud]

While watching a video of a certain artist, I noticed that he sings at least one of his hit songs in a lower key than the song was originally recorded in. I googled this and found several sights saying that this is actually quite common. The audience in the concert just sang right along and didn't seem to notice. Is this really a common practice?

[Ogg Vorbis]

While watching a video of a certain artist, I noticed that he sings at least one of his hit songs in a lower key than the song was originally recorded in. I googled this and found several sights saying that this is actually quite common. The audience in the concert just sang right along and didn't seem to notice. Is this really a common practice?

Total guess here (I'm not a vocalist)...

If you are doing a set or entire concert, it is probably easier on your voice to take a few of the songs down a step.

[jsp1979]

Also, as artists get older, their voices can't hit the higher notes....so the easiest thing to do is just lower the keys of the songs.

Pretty common...at least in the live performances of the artists I've seen.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

Indeed, i've noticed this with the band, Loudness. The singer (Minoru Nihara) doesn't sing as high as he used to, and it's a happy coincidence that the guitarist (Akira Takasaki) has taken to downtuning over the years.

Some people call the singer for Deep Purple, 'Silent Scream' because; any more, he goes for the high notes and quite often misses them.

It might be interesting if an aging singer were to drop a full octave (or even 2) from the original, and then either present the material as-is, or use an octaver to get the formerly high notes.

[Ogg Vorbis]

It might be interesting if an aging singer were to drop a full octave (or even 2) from the original

Wow, if aging singers dropped that far, I'd love to hear Getty Lee sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

[psenior]

My wife is a vocalist. I am always urging her to sing in as high a key as possible when recording because it simply sounds better. If she was a touring musician, there's no way she could do so night after night for months on end without damaging her voice. This is very common, as you noticed.