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Whitney Houston was known as "The Voice" at the peak of her career, but her vocal range had deteriorated over the years.
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My singing voice went bad shortly after age 4 and has never gotten better. Luckily, I was good at basketball and able to make my millions in the NBA. Always good to have a backup.
Using a croaky voice deliberately? That doesn't surprise me. Girls today also stand deliberately with "pigeon-toes" thinking it's attractive. So, two things that used to be seen as "unfortunate" are now the way to be.
Along with poor speech, e.g. um, sort of, like, you know, and holding cutlery near the food (what do people think the HANDLES are for?) society is on the road from stylish to laughable.
Yes, we're continuing to evolve... tell that to Native Americans and Australian Aborigines - tens of thousands of years living the SAME way: we change for a buck. DEvolve: we went up and now we're coming back down the other side to land fair on our !@#$%^&* - and we'll deserve it.
Can I point out also that these studies take time, money and energy? Either sit and do nothing or put these "resources" towards a good cause: surely you can think of one.
The endless mindlessness in the face of so many important problems (NOT challenges)
The cult of the screaming and screeching falsettos began when the singers literally began shrieking within the songs they were singing. It's an ugly sound, destroys the vocal cords, and no one resorting to it is exempt. It is happening to Bette Midler when she belts out "Written on the Wind," and other music she's famous for.
The singers whose voices last are those who literally have had excellent voice training by professionals who understand the physiology of the voice. Natural voices which have not bothered with that kind of training are bound to destroy their voices prematurely.
There is, with a good natural voice, a range. The normal tones are the "middle" voice, the one we use to speak with. It falls into the upper, falsetto range, as it reaches to higher, louder tones up the octaves. A trained voice can make the transition we hardly notice during the tonal switch. The untrained voice does not.
Without proper care... those yells and screeches with which that modern "music" is vocalized ruins the voice prematurely. And, frankly, it's also quite ughly to listen to in my opinion.
Some folks don't care for Michael Crawford's voice; it is unusual. I think his voice is extraordinary, if for the expression he communicates alone. But more, he has an incredible range... my guess four octaves and he handles the transitions so well the break between the ranges is for most of us smooth as silk.
Now we have digital... I guess we now are supposed to listen to sounds created by machines.... lol Hope it disappears. Listening to screaming and yelling is not my idea of music.
"HeartsQuest":
Can you define the difference between "screaming" and "yelling" in terms of the Voice? I can hear "straining", but have had trouble discerning this when others claim a singer is screaming. I don't hear it, except in very obvious cases.
is depressing. I'm not long for this "circus".
Whitney could have gone on for years with her incredible voice. So sad this incredible artist died young. I thought of her as I pulled into Graceland (Memphis) this afternoon. So many great talents gone at a young age. It is sad when it is an accident but more sad when demons take over someone's soul.
Too bad that she messed up her life with that creep Bobbi Brown. Her life could have been much different with the right man.
This i wholeheartedly agree. Her life began to decline when she hooked up with him.... a classic example of a good girl wanting a bad boy syndrome. I don't know why but so many times the church-going choir girl falls in love with the street-cred thug.
Leap's comment that "anything you put in your body is going to go right past your vocal cords" makes no sense. As a speech-language pathologist with knowledge of the anatomy, I can assure her that foods/liquids do not pass the vocal cords. If they did, you would aspirate them into the lungs, as the vocal folds sit at the top of the airway. This is why we have an epiglottis to cover and protect the airway.
Probably until Chris Brown punches you in the throat.
Better question:"What is the lifespan of a singer's voice when they have been smoking crack cocaine?" Houston admitted to using cocaine. Cocaine is a potent vasoconstrictor and could damage the vocal cords in the same way that it damages the lining of the nasal passages if used too frequently.
If Whitney had become an opera singer (the MET is just across the river in NYC), instead of a pop singer a la Bobby Brown and the pop drug culture, she would probably still be alive. She certainly had the voice for it. Kathleen Battle did it. Think of her singing Handel's "Angels,ever bright and fair" or Turandot. What an incredible loss for mankind.
Not with the two-pack-a-day cigarette habit she had for 30 years.
Very recently (past couple of years) Whitney was not sounding very good live. The reports would say she had damaged her voice with the drugs. So it sounds like she had already ruined her voice. I sincerely don't believe she could have made the big comeback.
Lifespan of a voice? Gordon Lightfoot's voice became richer and more melodious with age. I don't know about opera, but in other genres, both age and hoarseness can render a unique and pleasant quality to a singing voice.
He was more popular as a singer over time, but there was a first album before any of his commercial hits, where he had a wonderful voice. One of our favorite albums on vinyl when we were younger, that album was hard to find, worth checking out.
Julie Andrews' voice did not deteriorate with age, it deteriorated with overuse and due to a failed surgery for a vocal cyst. This "biogel" may help some people in the future, but to claim that it'll magically fix surgical scarring overnight is a claim he can't support at this time.
This "biogel" has never been tested on a human. While optimism is wonderful, it is irresponsible for a scientist or physician to make premature claims regarding untested, untried cures.
I do, however, wish Julie Andrews the absolute best, and hope that for her sake, his claims are accurate. =)
Or could this be another use for botox injections?
Do you understand what Botox does and how it works? It "freezes" a muscle, which is the exact opposite of what you would in these cases.
My idol, Daryl Hall, is still going strong at 65 years old. He uses his singing voice every single day and and he sounds nearly as good as he did 35 years ago. Check out "Live From Daryl's House" for living proof. For me, Whitney was "gone" the first time I saw her on Being Bobby Brown. There was no coming back from that. To waste such an unbelievable gift is tragic; so few people are that blessed.
judy collins is like 90 and her voice is still very good but she probably never used crack
LOL...Actually Adam, she'll turn just 73 on May 1, and does indeed still sound great! Similarly, Judith Durham, of the '60s Aussie pop group the Seekers, still sounds mighty fine at 68, and Dame Vera Lynn, though retired now at a month shy of 95, gave her last concert in 1995 at age 78 and still sounded fine!
I'm a performing artist and voice teacher. The key to singing just until the end of your days is to never push your voice. Let the voice sip the air. Also, sing with the most pure sound (vowels) you can make. Don't try to push your voice up, let it ring naturally - it sings, you don't. Your natural sound may not be belting, but it will last your whole life long, and please many more people than if you try to be another Whitney Houston. Sing for yourself, fill yourself with your song, touch your own heartstrings, and you can't fail to please yourself and others. Keep the song flowing, and we'll see you on YouTube!
Just to add that I agree with you R Hendrix. I started lessons here in Scotland at age 47, having never sung. Range about 1/2 octave of breathy poorly pitched voice. I'm being taught never to push and to use good (not Scottish colloquial ) vowels. My voice keeps growing in that sounds are easier to produce, range is greater and I'm now getting 4 1/3 octaves (C2 - E6). OK so I'm still working on my voice, so no claim to a world class voice as I head towards 50. The main point is age is not a factor, it is the amount of abuse or over-use that ruins voices. A decent amount of well guided practice, and persistence will keep a voice fit; or re-generate an unfit voice.
No one ever points out the elephant in the room about Ms. Houston's voice: the wobbly jaw. That is huge indicator of jaw and tongue tension that destroy the voice rather rapidly. Just look at Charlotte Church. She had the same thing (because they wanted to make a teenager sound like a forty-year old woman) and now she sounds like a dog. While artistry is subjective, technique is not.
Case in point: Marianne Faithfull. The ethereal soprano she had at 17 ("As Tears Go By") is now a husky croak (she still smokes and also did her time as a heroin addict and drinker). And Joan Baez' "choir boy soprano" is not much more than a falsetto when she tries to reach the high notes. I disagree with A. Henry's comment about Judy Collins - she can still sing but. like Joan, the high notes are gone - she's *very* shrill at times.
Ella Fitzgerald's last performance was in 1993 when she was 76. Her voice was still pure and beautiful although she was nearly blind from diabetes. She was the greatest female singer ever... anyway, in my opinion.
Tony Bennett, age 85, released his first #1 hit in 1951 and he's still on top.
@barb-564827 you are correct. I was disappointed to see her and Nana not in the long lived list and Charlotte Church in the short lived list.
I have a related, but more perplexing question: Why do musicians of middle age or older degrade in songwriting ability? I can't name a single rock artist whose best album came out when they were in there mid-40s or older. What happens? Painters and writers can often get better with age. I'm begging for an artist to defy the odds, which seems 0% in my analysis.
kerriobrown - not all songwriters fade once they get older. Gordon Lightfoot is still a wonderful songsmith, though his voice is shot from the ravages of Bell's palsy and his medical problems a few years ago.
One of my favorite Charles Aznavour songs was written when he was in his late 70s. It's about a guy who tries to write a love letter and can't remember how to spell. In the end the guy gives up and just calls her and says all he wanted was to tell her he loved her. It's a WONDERFUL bit of storytelling with lots of plays on words, but unfortunately, you need to speak French because I don't think he could ever have it translated and have it work in English. It's called "Je t'aime - A.I.M.E." and I won't translate it because it would ruin it. But, he's not a rock singer, either, and you were talking about rockers specifically.
I think perhaps some people run out of ideas as they get older, too. In many cases what worked for a younger performer just doesn't work so well when they age. As in the case of Madonna, a 50-year-old woman doesn't look quite right running around the stage in a dominatrix outfit.
Thanks for the reply, I'll check Lightfoot and Aznavour out. I was wondering if perhaps it was a rock-specific problem. I write songs as a hobby but have little time these days, so my hope is I can still output quality songs in older age.
But the running out of ideas can't fully explain it because you'd expect to see at least SOME exceptions. Moreover, it is certainly not the case for authors, filmmakers, etc.
I'm surprised how little this phenomenon is discussed online, but I did see one explanation in a forum suggesting that lower testosterone levels may have something to do with it, at least for men. I'm not sure about this, but it is interesting that many artists' style gets a lot more mellow in their late 40s and beyond. It may also relate to my own hypothesis that a contributing factor could be that older folks are no longer trying to conquer the world by writing the best song ever and instead just go about it more reflectively. This would explain why so many of the classic rockers revert to their roots of writing straight blues albums.
@kerriobrown
Any chance at all of David Bowie doing this? Hello? Mr. Bowie? May we listen in on any songs you've recently written for your daughter or son? Or written and tossed in the bin? Please?
Everybody seems to kind of gloss over Whitney Houston's two-pack-a-day smoking habit she had for 30 years.
Not all singers' voices deteriorate with age. Look at some examples given earlier...Ella Fitzgerald for one. I have been a singer all my life and although not professional, I have always sung on a regular basis. I am now 69 and have almost the same singing voice I had 20 years ago. I think caring for your body and for your voice is upper most in preserving your singing ability. Too bad that many young singers don't feel the need for a vocal teacher or coach. They could learn so much toward preventing vocal strain and nodules!
One of my favorite singers, Charles Aznavour, can still sing at 87 years old. But, he does work at it and takes good care of himself. I hope we never hear him say goodbye!
well when you smoke crack-cigarettes-ect and get high and babble mindless stuff all the time and have enough money to never stop intill you wake up dead in a bath tub your voice tends to not sound as good as it used to.
Rock legend & the greatest rock frontman Freddie Mercury proved everyone wrong. He sang everything from rock to opera. He never had vocal lessons and he never had vocal training. He suffered from bleeding nodules. He was a smoker and he did cocaine for a few years. Even while he was dying he sang with such power. Go to youtube and listen to Queen songs "Don't Try So Hard" and "Innuendo". He died at the age of 45 in 1991.
Someone mentioned songwriting. Mr. Mercury was a great songwriter & great music composer. He wrote classics and the last song he wrote and one of the last he recorded was "A Winter's Tale". It was a goodbye song to earth's beauty.
Something is wrong in this world when you get a person like Justin Bieber receiving Grammy nominations and Mr. Mercury and Queen receiving nothing.
Freddie Mercury was one of the most gifted vocalists I have ever heard. Common sense tells us that smoking and cocaine had to have damaged his voice, but he started out with so much ability that even after that damage he was still awesome. It’s like when Michael Jordan was slowed by age he could still beat anyone.
I cant believe she smoked two packs a day for thirty years.. I'd be willing to bet THAT is what wrecked her voice not just coke or other drugs
Madonna can still sing and dance well