Looking for an understanding of different lyrical styles

[MOK19]

Hey all.

First off, well, bluntly, I don't quite like lyrics. Never have. Sometimes I actively dislike them.

No, not specific lyrics, I mean all lyrics. They're a distraction from what actually evokes my feelings in music - Chords, rhythms, hooks, melodies and all that. But nope, usually there's some wanker who shoves all the good stuff aside and is all like "stopstop look at MEEEE now!"
Annoying.

So it's pretty uncommon that I find myself really loving a song specifically for it's vocals, even while so many songs, on a purely vocal level, create an excellent melody, harmony, rhythm, hook, whatever. So often, the singer themselves get in the way, with their 'poetry' and 'leadership' of the music. Not always, but often. I have felt this way since I was a little kid.

...And yet, there's this one song that stands out for me in an usual way. It feels different. Whatever the heck the singer is doing, she's doing it right for me. And it doesn't bare resemblance to the vocal/lyrical performance with most other music, as far as I can tell. I don't know what the heck she is doing, trend-wise, category-wise, but for me it's stylistically cohesive in a way I'm unfamiliar with, and it really works for me.

Here's the tune -

I can listen more to this vocalist, sure, but that doesn't address the larger issue I have with vocals in general. She's merely highlighted a new option for me - that there's perhaps some styles I like, vocals I find evocative and musically synergistic. And what if I wanted to put vocals into my tune, but wanted to increase the chances that I'll like the vocalists output? Or maybe even to even communicate to a vocalist this rough lyrical style that I want? Whether or not that's practical or reasonable, I'm interested in the idea of it. I need to figure out how to find more vocals similar this, or maybe understand a particular dominant trend that's been souring everything else for me.

So the question:
How can I find out what style this is akin to? Or others?
Or will categorization be as non-optional as the category-phobic auteurs often claim?

By whatever means, I want to find out how to enjoy lyrics more, probably by understanding their variety better and understanding how to read the boulders in the hills to prospect the gold.

Thanks for considering this odd, confused rant by an uninformed but highly opinionated person.

[harryupbabble]

Speaking of odd, confused rant by an uninformed but highly opinionated person... here's a babbly and probably indirect and even wrong answer to your question.

In order to not be bothered by the rendition of any vocalist... why not, for now, just use a really good karaoke software to present your lyrics and music. If a song doesn't suck in karaoke form then most likely it won't suck when a really good vocalist, backed by a really good band, performs it?

A really good song should/will retain its musical strength(s) even in muzak form or lyrically in karaoke form. No? I wonder what, let's say, Motorhead's The Ace Of Spades, would sound like "elevatorized".

Maybe real vocalists and real musicians are not always going to be as needed. Seems like technology might replace them or at least rival them soon. In the near future maybe one can tweak some high quality voc-software, creating one's own human-like computer-vocalist, all to one's specifications and liking. Isn't that probable?

I mean even now with the current technology the average listener probably can't tell if a, let's say, bass part, was played by a bass player or if that bass part was inputted by a non-musician into a DAW like Cubase or Pro Tools or whatever and DAW-played using high quality bass samples. So if that can be done now with a lot of traditional instruments then most likely that can/will be done artificially with vocals too, eventually? If you can't wait for the future then I don't know. Bear and grin it, I guess.

But in terms of now or maybe even anytime... what is being performed (as in substance) should be primary. And performance (human or machine-wise) should be secondary. Not saying performance is irrelevant, just that it should be secondary. But secondary is still way up there.

[MOK19]

Well, I gotta give you kudos for thoroughly confusing me. I have no idea what you're talking about, but you're definitely talking about something specific. And it's definitely unrelated to what I'm attempting to drive at.... I think?

In case my presentation was simply bad, by analogy with poetry forms, which I know pretty much nothing about:

I know basically what a haiku is going to look like and sound like, and it has a cohesive style to it. Alternately, you can hear a Shakespearean play, and see all the patterns, and this style also has a name. Or I can look at limericks, and hear their cadences, timing, structure, topics. They're styles, each of them, and I might choose I like one more than another.

But what if I'd never heard the term, 'limerick' or 'haiku,' and never had context to associate them with, or where I was never alerted to their patterns and differences. Where I'd hear these poems one by one, and assess them individually as if there simply were no patterns or categories assigned to them. I'd nonetheless decide on which one's I liked, and within that set, a pattern would likely emerge: I like limericks! Except I'd never heard that term in my life, all I could do to convey this real preference was to cite a string of individual poems, as if they had no connective tissue between them. And if I wanted to find more poems I liked, too bad: I have no means of differentiating between poetry, and finding limericks.

This is the sort of situation I wonder if I'm in now, with regards to vocal performance. There are some stylistic elements of the prior linked song, when she sings, when she stays silent, how long her lines are, how literal or figurative the words are, when her parts are melodic and non-verbal, how it's structured overall....

At present, the only thing I know to describe to that particular vocalist is: she favors soul vocal traditions. But this is insufficient, because the element I'm really noticing here isn't the soul element. It's mostly within the structure. Whatever it was, it wasn't random, and I highly suspect that if I heard a different vocalist mimic some of that structural style, I'd notice it there too, and might really like it. But I don't know for sure because I'm not certain I've ever heard a vocal structured in quite that way.

My suspicion is that it didn't blink into existence as this uniquely anomalous style, and that it has some heritage. This is what I'm interested in finding out.

[harryupbabble]

Oooh, I hadn't slept properly for a couple of days now and I guess I slipped into a semi-coma for a few hours there hence the late reply. But I'm less sleep-deprived now and judging myself in this state I would say I am a bit semi-coherent now compared to before.

But/so in the name of bawls of confusion... let me possibly keep on confusing you.

Okay here goes... I had the impression that to you, this particular vocalist that you mentioned was doing something that nobody else does and if you wanted your song sung then only she would do. But I thought that it would be unlikely that she might bother singing your song and I further thought that "well maybe in the future, someone like you would not need a human singer to do what you wanted, you would just need a high quality vocal software and you can program it to do your specific vocal styling needs". In other words, maybe in your lifetime, down the road, you can create your own lyrical styles using advanced technology and not rely on some unique vocalist's styling.

But I guess what you are saying is that you want to know now, and not in the future, about how this vocalist that you mentioned is doing her stuff so that you can emulate her lyrical style and apply it to your own creations? Existing analytic software might be able to do that now. But sometimes I get the feeling that these kind of software are not known by the average lazy "producers", like me, and maybe nor to you, who knows, I need more information about you to label you properly/improperly.

I can't believe I just labelled myself a "producer" because really I'm not. Not in the usual sense, at least, because, firstly, I'm too amateurish producer-wise to be called "qualified", and secondly, I can't afford those probably-expensive software even if I become aware of them.

Well, you asked, and I guess any fool, sleep-deprived or not, could answer, too. So uh, hahaha, maybe never mind, and pardon me. Maybe somebody else, a non-fool perhaps could answer you properly. Fool out. For now. Okey dokey. Buy. Er bye.

[chaosWyrM]

So the question:
How can I find out what style this is akin to?

its funk...been around forever.


or more specifically to that song...soul house, which as the name suggests, is just funk/soul vocals sung over house music:


or am i not understanding the question?

[MOK19]

I had the impression that to you, this particular vocalist that you mentioned was doing something that nobody else does and if you wanted your song sung then only she would do. But I thought that it would be unlikely that she might bother singing your song and I further thought that "well maybe in the future, someone like you would not need a human singer to do what you wanted, you would just need a high quality vocal software and you can program it to do your specific vocal styling needs".

No, I think you're getting a cue from some bad wording from my first post. I went very slightly tangential, and misled you from my intention.

My intention is not primarily to produce a lyrical outcome, to get some kind of result in a song of mine. Instead, my main goal is to identify patterns of pre-existing lyrical styles. If that's possible. My goal is to answer the question, "What style is that?" In this song, and potentially in other songs. If I wanted to find more singers who composed like that, or to describe what kind of music I liked, I'd need to use labels in this way. But I don't know any labels or categories within the realm of lyrical composition, per my prior post's poetry analogy.

its funk...been around forever.


or more specifically to that song...soul house, which as the name suggests, is just funk/soul vocals sung over house music:


or am i not understanding the question?

mmm, no, you're not misunderstanding, I don't think. But you tap on a major point of ambiguity for me, the matter of granularity.

In other words, am I zooming the microscope in too far for descriptive style to be meaningful anymore? Like, am I looking at it too close, to the point that it's purely down to personal style, and what I'm noticing is really something that's unique to this vocalist, Danielle Moore? Or am I simply ignorant of the more detailed world of a singer/songwriter's craft?
Well, the latter is likely true in either case... But is there further coherent styles and traditions nested within the subset of, for example, funk music or soul music? I really suspect there is.

That's what I want to find out. But I know that this is pretty high degree of detail and granularity.

Now, I make house music, I love funk, soul, soulful house, etc etc etc. Have loved this section of music for a good 15 years. I know the ins and outs of these styles to some decent degree. Admittedly with a blind spot to lyrical composition.

But I see something different here. She's not really using anything like a verse/chorus structure. And what passes for a verse is more like a fragment, just a few words. 8 beats later, she gives another fragment. And again, and again. Usually aligned to end with the broader musical phrase. It just trickles in, in this sorta lazy, kinda off-kilter way, sneaking in from the side each time, but very consistent. And it's mixed in, like 50/50, with some really effective oohs/aahs that sound more like an MC or hype man's timing. Mostly devoid of substance, neither boosting the broader harmony, nor delivering any message, it's just style flourishes.... But really effective nonetheless, and with great timing. So for me it's primarily about timing and structure here.

This sort of timing is starkly at odds with, for example, anything in that house set you linked(thanks, I haven't listened to a set in a while). More typical lyrical composition seems, to me, more broad and extended. Long lyrical sections, predictable timing... I don't know just all the shit I'm used to hearing from vocalists since forever. The sort of vocals that sits on top of music, instead of weaving into it. Like, in my opinion, that song manages.

As for it being funk vocals... I don't know, maybe. I can sorta hear connective tissue in Aretha's timing. Maybe? Or maybe not, I don't know.

Either way, thanks for the reply, at least it's a place to start investigating. I suspect I'm gonna be doomed on this question though; this is probably the sort of detail reserved for some kinda professor of poetry or some shit.

[bluedad]

just wondering if the other remixes of this song affect you the same way.

[MOK19]

Good question. To my knowledge, there's only 2 versions. .

The timing and compositional result of the vocals is just about the same, and makes a similar effect. I can still pick up on her style here, the remix didn't really distort it. But I notice the vocal style more in the remix, maybe because I'm more attuned to the remix's musical style, and love the music beside it.

Of note, the remixer is a member of the band, and one of the composers of the original's music.

So I guess this raises the question of whether I'd have been able to notice the vocal style when it's in a different musical context. Or a song whose music I didn't care for. And that I don't know. This is the first time I've ever noticed this set of vocal composition choices.

[bluedad]

Maybe I'm not following you, but this seems similar to me:

[MOK19]

Huh. I don't see the similarity.

There's clear verses and chorus in the Donna Summer tune, and neither chorus nor verses are brief snippets scattered over time. Instead, they're condensed into normal length verse phrases, A/B sections. The timing element I mentioned earlier doesn't come into it either, as there's not enough empty non-vocal space to allow it. She's singing nearly continuously, as most vocals tend, making no room for notable start/stop timing. That continuous quality results in vocals that sit on top, and do not weave in, I think. In most pop styles, the Donna Summer tune included, breaks of silence tend to represent a transition between sections, or the start of a whole new verse phrase. At least, that's what I'm used to hearing.

But in the Crazy P song, what might pass for an individual vocal section has lots of empty space between most of the 'verses' or utterances, most of whom are brief, and barely finish a thought. All that empty space allows for novel start and stop timing, and gives a lot of breathing room for the music around it. For me, that makes more of a synergy between lyrics, vocal performance, and the music around it compared to most popular music. It doesn't compete, it cooperates.

[Functional]

I think that you're quite correct in that you're trying to zoom in too close in this matter. I'm going to cast my doubts on whenever anyone can meaningfully help you with your problem. In part, it also sounds like you're appreciating possibly the production choices made in the music style, which really makes it impossible to just isolate the vocals from the context and be put into a "vocal style". When you zoom in with such ambiguous terms, you'll just end up isolating things so much that you'll only have one track which fits into everything. And I've been there way too many times. Just to give you a couple of examples;



I love this track and especially the vocal parts in it. Now, there's plenty of deep house with male vocals, right? But when it comes to male vocals, only a handful actually seems to sing anything meaningful. Then there is this particular tone that this singer has, which would make probably a small fragment. And then the rest of the track also have quite a distinct feeling to it (production choices, structure etc), so we're just narrowing this down to this particular track. I sincerely doubt that I would find anything that gives me similar "vibes".

Let's give another example.



Oh, a long time favorite. Wonder if there's more like it? Well, it's Deadbeat. Deadbeat does mostly dub techno, yet this song seems to be somewhere there between dub, dub techno and reggae. You can pretty much pick any one of those three and it'll be unlikely, that you would ever find vocals in this spirit in them. This might be the only song in dub techno which has female vocals (if we accept that as the style).



Yeah, I'm not going to even try and explain what's happening here. And I know that I don't need any kind of explanations to safely say that I'm not going to simply find "more music like this".

On a sidenote though, I learned through Andy Stott (and in particular, singer that he employs, Alison Skidmore) the gift of appreciating opera singers. The example below should clarify why.

[MOK19]

What a great reply, thank you.

In part, it also sounds like you're appreciating possibly the production choices made in the music style, which really makes it impossible to just isolate the vocals from the context and be put into a "vocal style".

I can definitely acknowledge the intertwining that can occur, here. But I don't agree that they cannot be separately recognized, and individually consistent in their effect.

For example, in the Deadbeat tune, if I were to roughly point at a vocal style to associate with that female vocal, I'd think: "lounge jazz," roughly. I feel I've heard something akin to this sort of movement and structure in that context. And I suspect if I heard a minimalistic jazz tune laid beneath those vocals, I'd feel the same evocation that the vocal's composition accomplishes in the Deadbeat song. Now, that doesn't erase the unique evoking product of Deadbeat + vocalist, here, but I think the ingredients can be separated while still retaining their overall individual effect.

When you zoom in with such ambiguous terms, you'll just end up isolating things so much that you'll only have one track which fits into everything.

Apologies for such loose language and ambiguity. I'm tryin my best here, but it's something I know little about.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this here sounds too binary to me, in regards to how strictly or loosely we actually use categories. *If* it's possible to identify a sub-style here, it'd be a messy collection of loose association, and not clean inclusion. Which is normal in larger categories anyways, like 'techno.' How do you define that? You can certainly formulate a serviceable and useful guideline, but even the best one will be pretty messy, with no real rigidity at all.

Now I could be real finicky and picky and petty about formulating a sort of imagined descriptive guideline, that would work to encompass this vocal, and make clear what it is. But I don't think that sort of focus is necessary in this case. There's enough going on here that's highly different(... I think...) that it would not be that hard to get some level of agreement between people about it's most significant differentiating qualities. Over the course of this thread, I've managed to describe what I thought were some of the most defining, differentiating features in such a way that I'll bet a vocalist could compose another vocal such that it would get a good handful of the same effect/result. But still with tons of difference wiggle room nonetheless. That's what we would usually see between different works within the same style.

But all that's predicated on the notion that this vocal is actually that different, in a significant way, and that I'm not imagining things. *shrug*

I sincerely doubt that I would find anything that gives me similar "vibes".

Well shucks, I had hoped I've been more specific in it's qualities than to boil it down to vibes. =/

Deadbeat does mostly dub techno, yet this song seems to be somewhere there between dub, dub techno and reggae. You can pretty much pick any one of those three and it'll be unlikely, that you would ever find vocals in this spirit in them.

Here you're not separating the vocal style from the musical style. Perhaps by accident, or perhaps you believe they cannot be separated, as it sounds like you're saying. But in hearing this song, I believe they can be separated while retaining cohesion. What I'm seeing as a lounge-jazz-ish vocal style is inflecting an otherwise dubby, moody track. But not in a way that removing one would make the other fall apart, in terms of how we'd identify it's style. They'd still have much of the same feel on their own.

So rather than this vocal being something unique(unless I'm overlooking the broad-stroke differences she creates), I think we could find other individual vocals that express many of the same qualities - her timing, phrasing, note choice tendencies. Whatever qualities that would normally identify a vocal style.

Country, for example, it's got it's patterns. If you listened a country accapella, you'd know it was country. You'd hear the patterns, and you'd have a name to associate with that constellation of habits. Or gospel. Metal for sure. etc.

I also think there's room for notable, usefully distinct differentiation within a higher tier style. For example, what if we listened to a dozen gospel choirs in, say, Georgia, and then we moved up to listen to gospel choirs in New York? Would we see patterns associated with the regions? Probably. And would they both still sound like Gospel despite their differences? Yes. Thus there's some room for finer style differentiation that is useful, and does not need to be strict to the point that it excludes nearly everything.

This is the tier of style differentiation I'm looking for, which I suspect my target song might lie within. Maybe it's higher tier is soul or funk. But that alone, I hope I've previously illustrated, is insufficient to account for the significant difference in feel that it evokes, as a result of specifically identifiable, yet flexible structure/timing moves.

Yeah, I'm not going to even try and explain what's happening here. And I know that I don't need any kind of explanations to safely say that I'm not going to simply find "more music like this".

On a sidenote though, I learned through Andy Stott (and in particular, singer that he employs, Alison Skidmore) the gift of appreciating opera singers. The example below should clarify why.

I will totally agree that situations like this make the endeavor fall apart. But that doesn't mean that it blows apart the endeavor for other music. Existing style differentiations prove that, I think.

So there's a gradient of degradation to this categorization project. I'm not going to try and draw the line to where that is. But at least on a singular basis, it's possible to do it for many vocals.

Last note - Part of what drives me here is knowing that this sort of categorization exists in poetry to an extent(again, something I otherwise know nothing about). Even in cases where a poem might not lie within the guidelines of one defined style, someone familiar with poetry's ins and outs can see the relationship and heritage of an outlier poem to other style traditions.

And in the case of music, so much of what we make is dependent on what we've heard from others in the past, and some extent of emulation, even if we're giving zero shits about categories. More often than not, someone's art will have a heritage. Maybe Dannielle Moore's is Aretha Franklin, or something like that. To me, this represents one part of seeing and describing real patterns, and therefore actual sub-styles.

In the end, I suppose I'll be content if I can find any other vocals that exhibit a similar structure and timing, rather than a definite tradition.

Kind of makes me wish I was more of a singing guy, I'd take the baton and take off where Danielle Moore left off, in this track. Enough details are there to do it.

[deastman]

I'd be curious to get your reaction to this one:

[MOK19]

Somewhat similar! Good call. Classic, to boot.

Doesn't go to the extent of the Crazy P track, as his phrases are effectively half-time, by comparison. Takes some 3-4 seconds to finish an utterance. But there's still a lot of breathing space between mostly minimal fragments, which is a defining element, I'd say. It gets a similar effect as a result, I think. And I get more of a weaving in/out result rather than the typical 'sitting on top.'

You'd also be hard pressed to assign it a straight A/B pattern, similar to the other track. So it too eschews normal structure.

However the silent phases can get really long, tipping it a bit more toward an instrumental track, relative to the other. So the continuity feels different.

It's also got a different feel since it plays it really straight with quarter notes and 8th notes, no syncopation. I'm now noticing that the other had lots of swing. But I'm not sure if that's important, except insofar as it assists rhythmic novelty.

But all in all, I'd say they're rather related. They mostly accomplish what seems like the same goal. Yet it's interesting that I feel this way, even while one's musical genre is cleanly funk/soul, and this one is... uh... well, Karl Hyde.

[sig-ex]

For the posted "Never Gonna Reach Me" I could mentally replace the vocals with a saxophone and it still sounds nice. The "oohs" and "ahhs" are of course used as they are. But the ability to have the vocals replaced with another instrument and still be fine is not limited to this song, and applies to many others that are not rap (or the like). The other thing unique about the song is the sparseness of the lyrics... you might have probably liked it because there is relatively less lyrics?

Thinking about lyrical sparseness, if you did replace an average song's vocals with just one instrument, it easily becomes too much and probably boring especially when the different verses now sound redundant. A practical joke I used to play at gatherings is to bore the audiences by playing the 12 Days of Christmas instrumentally on guitar...