Seasoned Vocal Coach Reacts: Chappell Roan-‘Picture You’

this one came highly recommended from you all in my reaction to good luck babe I appreciate the recommendations this is chapon's Tiny desk performance and in particular this is the one song picture you from [Music] it I haven't heard this yet this is first listen my name's Tim I'm a vocal instructor I've been doing this for about 24 years I do this for a living breaking down singing for people here's my website I teach around the Manhattan tri state area subscribe click the little notification to stay up to date all right I'm going to jump right in picture you okay you guys she's got like comedic timing here this is [Music] funny I love the [Music] strings draw the blinds light every candle slip off my pretty dress down my chest when I think of you every night both lips on the miror it's ritualistic count lipstick stands where you should be [Music] oh need you getting close now do you picture me I picture you IID from your point of view you feel the same I'm too scared to say for the things I do than [Music] you so tell me now all your my doing research in a Min skirt at the library in your homeown [Music] oh need you [Music] round getting close now do you picture me I picture you I am afraid your point of view do you feel the same to scar the same of the things I I do will I picture you will I [Music] picture oh [Music] do you picture me like I picture you am I in the frame from your point of view do you feel the same I'm too scared to say half of the things I do when I picture you wow Goosebumps wow Chapel rone is something else my God so there was a lot going through my mind I wish I could just USB my head to the computer and just download the transcription of everything that was going through my head watching that that was fascinating that moment which she's doing the little yod thing in the bridge and flipping up that was so cool the overall context and meaning of the song of like kind of an intimate song talking about touching yourself and thinking about someone else and maybe it's an unrequited love that's not reciprocated I think that's kind of something like that I was picking up from the from the meaning she writes such provocative Concepts and turns them into interesting emotional things like this is a pretty provocative thing to sing about but she's doing it in a genuine emotional way she's not just doing it for the shock value of what she's talking about if what I think she's talking about is what she's talking about this was fantastic I'm going to go back and break down some of the things she was doing vocally now there's a lot of interesting vocal things going on and I'm excited especially to talk about what's happening in the bridge so we'll get to that in a [Music] minute notice how understated her singing is right now notice how minimal her mouth moving is notice how quiet her sound is what she's doing right now is she's pulling us into her she's a master of this she's amazing at creating these very intimate moments pulling us in getting us to lean into her and then at some moment in the song turning it around putting her heel in our chest and driving us back in our seat and getting us to go whoa she is so good at controlling our attention listen to that tone so she's got a little bit of scratchiness in the tone we get that through what are called false vocal folds we activate them she's doing that type of a thing she's also allowing a relatively high amount of air flow through the tone right now which gives it this dreamy sort of sexy intimacy let's see how she changes her tone later onp off my pretty downest when [Music] I I love these little slidy things she does it's almost like a throwback country singer when I think of you very interesting vocal choices that she takes she has a lot of artistic courage artistic courage gives you the permission to do weird vocal things sometimes when we don't have artistic courage we play it safe too much we autotune too much we try to make it perfect and we don't allow our spontaneous creative human expression to come through chaper rone does both lips on the notice how the phrases are starting with a little more bite a little more brass in her tone then as she gets to the end of the phrase there's a little more air allowance into the [Music] tone you did you hear that brassy than [Music] windy notice how much air flow is in her tone this is a big part of being a contemporary commercial music singer and this is one of the biggest lines in the sand that you draw when singing musical theater versus contemporary commercial music if you don't have a little bit of that hissin in your voice you sound like a musical theater singer that sound is called auditory roughness in the world of voice [Music] pedagogy where you she does a lot of yodeling things she's big on yodeling I think that may be one of her biggest paint brushes that makes her unique all that flipping around that she does with her voice it's so cool and I love how in this song later on she leans into it I think this maybe why you all recommended this because I was pretty Blown Away by her yodel flipping in good luck babe and I think you connected up with that oh need you [Music] notice the tone quality change right here her voice got a lot brassier and Bier and angstier did you notice how she didn't open her mouth a lot of times when we get that brassy element in our voice we want to open our mouth more to accommodate the brassy resonance it almost gives it a little warmth to temper the brass but that's not always the choice we want to make because we want to make vocal choices that support the expression of what we're singing about and this is a very longing angsty type of a song so her keeping her mouth closed while she goes into her brassy voice makes sense here it just makes it pointed it makes it sound like like there's this longing like almost like this crying in her [Music] tone and I love that Harmony no I picture you in the fr listen to how she's back and forth between brassiness in her tone or like this sort of B this trumpe in her tone then into this warm windiness she's a master of that flipping back and forth [Music] scar that is so hard to do it's so hard to be all of that stuff she's doing there is killer so so so [Music] good I love the beat see how small she's keeping her mouth here still the same thing tell me now this understated style if you've seen any of my reactions before of Lana Ray or Billy ish this is a very common vocal paintbrush to be using now in contemporary commercial music singing having this minimal mouth space this introspective pull people in I think about Lizzy McAlpine doing this I think about Nessa Barrett doing this this is a really common vocal technical thing to do and it's very effective it pulls us [Music] inch okay we got to talk about this background singer going off here oh my God she's amazing do you hear this call and response here Chapel is singing and then the background singer is answering with these beautiful wailing head voicy sounds wow listen for the call and response perversions my doing research in a min atary these lyrics oh my God she's [Music] brilliant do you hear those subtle little yodel up there that's her thing this is like Chapel Ron's thing she does this so so well this little these little angsty yodeling up and down I was talking with my daughter we were out and one of her songs came on and Starbucks on our way back from our family trip this weekend and my daughter was like you know I like her but sometimes she goes a little too far with all of that angsty flipping stuff you know but I do like her so that was what my daughter said but I like it I actually think it's really a cool vocal technique and let's face it you got to set yourself apart when things come up and we start experimenting and we're like wow I like this this feels like a part of me sometimes you need to lean into it I have no problem with her leaning into her yodeling stuff here because it's so hard and it's so cool and it makes sense expressively that's the big thing that you have to think about when you're picking vocal sounds close do you picture me like I picture [Music] you your point of view do you feel the same to scared the same of the things I do will I picture you oh I [Music] you so beautiful her head voice is beautiful here's the thing as a contemporary commercial music singer when you go up into your head voice you have to make sure that you still keep a little bit of hissin in the tone or it starts to sound a little bit like the musical Wicked it sounds like musical theater she does a great job of that here notice how it's just a little breathy a little hissy in that tone let's listen back for that again before we get to this wild [Music] Bridge right there air [Music] sound air did you hear the air that was hissy you've got to have that don't get to don't get too focused and ringy like that when you're using your head voice in Pop singing [Music] notice how little she's moving her mouth here when she does this yodel stuff if you move too much you create too many variables kind of like a piano player who's wiggling their fingers way too much when they're playing a scale same thing with the voice you have to keep the voice in a very efficient mouth shape when you're doing complicated fast things the faster you go the less movement you need to have between the things as you're going fast and she's great at that of keeping it very very minimal and she's just using her thickened voice it's called thyro aroid activation if you want to nerd out in voice pedagogy and then flipping into her CCO thyroid voice which is just and she's a master of controlling that notice her pitch accuracy doing this it's 10 out of 10 it's killer and this is live wow [Music] notice how she opened up more for the big notes the brassier she got uh there was an opening of the mouth but notice it wasn't that much it wasn't like she wasn't opening like a big Power pop note just a little bit even though she does open up sometimes for big Power pop notes but not here she's so controlled she has such intuitive connection to what vocal paintbrushes to use at any given moment based on what the expression is asking for what a brilliant singer [Music] do now we're back into the same intimacy that we started with very small very introspective she's not demonstrating anything she's just feeling it and letting her face be natural what great acting theame from your view do you feel again that little flipping she's doing so good I'm too scared to say half of the things I do will I picture you oh wow cap she's amazing there is no doubt about it and I haven't commented on her costuming and both for her and for her background artist so cool she's so styled she's so thoughtful about her art she's such an innovator I'm a big fan of how she's going about making music at every part of her performing there's Artistry from the makeup that she wears to the makeup that she has her background artist using and by the way I love that it's an all female background band that is so cool I love how creative she is with her lyrics I love how she's singing about this topic that's a little bit of an intimate topic to make such a big pop song out of but she does it in such a tasteful way to make it a beautiful heartfelt song and this is kind of her thing like she sings about things that kind of grab your attention but then she makes them real and emotional at the same time she doesn't just do it for the the shock value and that's what makes her an even higher level of artist in my mind her singing is so controlled and so thoughtful her pitch accuracy is amazing she does an incredible job of having tone quality diversity her soft singing has the right amount of scratchiness the right amount of minimalism the right amount of air flowiness for what this song and this style calls for when she gets big and brassy there's a lot of bite in her tone she's not over opening up her mechanism or creating a lot of space inside which gives her this ability to really control her voice to do a lot of those yodelling and flipping around things she does she has a beautiful head voice she's not making it too focused or theatrical sounding she keeps it like a pop singer even though she does have a decent amount of vbr that she was letting in when she goes up to those high notes Here her background singer is killer she's amazing I'm so glad that she's there this is a wonderful performance I'm going to react to more of these songs from this tiny desk thanks for recommending it and stay tuned for my next Chapel rone things and don't forget again to go over to the Community page as I'm asking asking for votes on next songs that I I do reactions to I want you chapel rone chapel ronans your what do you what do you call yourselves please leave that in the comments thanks for stopping by don't forget to like And subscribe if you like this video I'll see you soon