Christine's Vocal Range

WarmSir3 · #1 12-19-2009, 04:02 PM

Time for the third round of these! Here is a quick recap:
Stevie: ~2.5 octaves Bb2-Eb5 (up to E5 with falsetto)
Lindsey: ~2.5 octaves A2-D5 (down to D2 with vocal fry and up to B5 with falsetto)

As for Chris, she could have a wider range than Stevie and Lindsey. I would say she is an alto, while Stevie is a contralto.

Sadly I haven't found many notes of note (hehe). The lowest I have heard is an E3 in Isn't It Midnight (definitely not her limit) and the highest is a sustained D5 in The Chain (how did I forget this one and not Butter Cookie (Keep Me There)!). Someone pointed out the In The Meantime album to be full of low vocals, so I'll have to have a listen.

While I do that, if you can all point me in the direction of fairly low/high sounding performances from her, I'll keep a list in this post.

Let the good times begin

(The Rhiannon harmony is a C5!! Nowhere near her limit, she was sustaining these in her late 50s!)

Progress: B2-D5
Fleetwood Mac / White Album: Gb3-Db5
Warm Ways (Ab3-Bb4)
Say You Love Me (A3-Db5)
Sugar Daddy (Gb3-Db5)
Rumours: F3-D5
Songbird (F3-Bb4)
Dreams (E4-C5)
Don't Stop (B3-B4)
The Chain (E4-D5)
You Make Loving Fun (F3-C5)
Oh Daddy (G3-C5)
Butter Cookie (Keep Me There) (B3-D5)
Tusk: Ab3-D5
Brown Eyes (A3-B4)
Never Make Me Cry (Ab3-Bb4)
Honey Hi (A3-D5)
Mirage: Bb3-C5
Only Over You (Bb3-C5)
Tango In The Night: E3-C5
Isn't It Midnight (E3-C5)
In The Meantime: B2-A4
Northern Star (D3-A4)
Calumny (B2-Ab4)

michelej1 · #2 12-19-2009, 04:33 PM

Ok, I was thinking about Northern Star when she sings, "casting stone, throwing bones" as being low.

Michele

WarmSir3 · #3 12-19-2009, 04:45 PM

She dips down briefly to D3 at the end of the line "I like it when you comfort me"! The line you mentioned is actually fairly high compared to the verses

Cheers!

michelej1 · #4 12-19-2009, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarmSir3

Progress: D3-D5
Northern Star (D3-A4)
Isn't It Midnight (E3-C5)
Songbird (F3-Bb4)
Dreams (E4-C5)
Don't Stop (B3-B4)
The Chain (E4-D5)
You Make Loving Fun (F3-C5)
Oh Daddy (G3-C5)
Butter Cookie (Keep Me There) (B3-D5)
Warm Ways (Ab3-Bb4)
Say You Love Me (A3-Db5)
Brown Eyes (A3-B4)
Never Make Me Cry (Ab3-Bb4)
Honey Hi (A3-D5)

So, you have her everywhere from A - G. Does this mean she has the most range of the 3 songwriters?

Michele

GypsySorcerer · #5 12-19-2009, 09:27 PM

What is her range on "Everywhere," when she sings "Oh....I"? Almost sounds like a full octave to these untrained ears.

Also, I love her backing vocals on "Caroline," though I'm not sure of the range.

michelej1 · #6 12-19-2009, 10:05 PM

For Only Over You, when she says, "I'm ouuut of my mind," the "out" sounds high.

Now, for Over My Head, I've always assumed that that falsetto echo of "Over My Head" is Stevie, not Christine, correct? If that is Christine, then it's high.

For Calumny, when she says "proving that it's gone," I think "gone" is low, but she is practically talking rather than singing. I think her speaking voice is low these days!

Michele

WarmSir3 · #7 12-20-2009, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1

So, you have her everywhere from A - G. Does this mean she has the most range of the 3 songwriters?

Michele

Oh, perhaps I should explain it a little better! Each octave goes through the notes C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B, beginning on C. So B3 is one note lower than C4, F4 is higher than D4, etc. The lowest is D3 and the highest is D5, 2 octaves exactly, compared to Stevie's almost 2.5 octaves and Lindsey's slightly debatable almost 2.5 octaves. But I think she can go higher than Stevie (Whose highest is Eb5). D3 is not her bottom limit but I don't think she can go as low as Stevie (Slightly debatable Bb2, or a solid B2). Hope that clears things up

Quote:

Originally Posted by GypsySorcerer

What is her range on "Everywhere," when she sings "Oh....I"? Almost sounds like a full octave to these untrained ears.

Also, I love her backing vocals on "Caroline," though I'm not sure of the range.

An octave I think aswell, just going by memory it's either A3 or B3, to B4. An octave jump either way!

I love Caroline! One of my favourite songs on Tango in the Night. I'll have to listen carefully to the harmony then update the list!

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1

For Only Over You, when she says, "I'm ouuut of my mind," the "out" sounds high.

Now, for Over My Head, I've always assumed that that falsetto echo of "Over My Head" is Stevie, not Christine, correct? If that is Christine, then it's high.

For Calumny, when she says "proving that it's gone," I think "gone" is low, but she is practically talking rather than singing. I think her speaking voice is low these days!

Michele

I'll have a listen to Only Over You (it's about half a semitone out of tune to my keyboard!! grrr!). Going by memory I think the Over My Head echo is a C#5 but I'll listen again to make sure. I'll also listen to Calumny. I agree that her speaking voice is low, much like Stevie's, sadly however I'm very bad at pitching speaking!

WarmSir3 · #8 12-20-2009, 10:34 AM

Calumny, many E3s, including on the "proving that it's gone" line. However, on the line "No hope of cutting loose", there is a B2 on "no"! She also goes up to Ab4 later in the song.

This puts her at B2-D5, 2.25 octaves!

aleuzzi · #9 12-20-2009, 10:49 AM

Michele, you're right about Over My Head. That falsetto is Stevie's.

It's hard to make a case for the range for any of these singers as their voices have changed a good deal since many of the recordings cited here. If you consider vocal range today, Christine without question has the widest range--and the voice which is most in tact. The quality of the notes she sings on ITM is as rich and textured as the quality of her voice on Say You Love Me or Over My Head 30 years earlier.

But in 1975, I'm assuming Stevie has the widest, if not strongest, range. She was able to reach some pretty high notes when she harmonized with herself and with the others. But I still prefer her Dance vocal performance of Silver Springs to its original, and her knowing delivery of Planets on TISL is better than the shakier, less confident performance on the Rumours-era demo.

Lindsey's voice is pretty much shot. He can still scream, but that dry tenor we heard on Blue Letter and Never Going Back Again is gone, gone, gone...

WarmSir3 · #10 12-20-2009, 12:35 PM

aleuzzi, I agree with you completely. Stevie has a much better range these days than people give her credit for. Although she is a contralto, around 1973, notes as high as G5 sound possible. I don't think any of the three songwriters ever had a 3 octave range, but I'm sure they all had, and have possibly kept 2.5 octave ranges, just with different notes. For example, up until Tusk, I guess Stevie had a comfortable range of about C3-F#5, while from Tusk up until around Tango, although less comfortable, she definitely could have managed Bb2-E5. These days I'm not so sure, judging by the Goodbye Baby B2 and Destiny Rules Bb2, a note as low as Ab2 could be possible, but a D5? I've heard B4s from fairly recently so maybe...

As for Christine, it's obvious she has been using her lower range a lot more recently. The layout I've used for the list in the first post is a fairly good indicator of range over time, although it's far from finished! I tend to do the same when I do this with other singers.

Cheers

michelej1 · #11 12-20-2009, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Michele, you're right about Over My Head. That falsetto is Stevie's.

I've always considered it one of Stevie's best background vocals (in the same spirit as Gold) but it's funny that a lot of people don't even think it's Stevie. One Stevie fan even said to me that they could detect Christine's British accent and I said if there's an accent there, it's Stevie imitating Christine. Obviously, on live versions of the song, Stevie sounds like herself. But she's singing different live than she does on the album version. For the single version of the song, the falsetto isn't isolated alone like that.

As for Lindsey, he's been doing pretty good harmonies this last part of the tour. Actually, his voice has been a lot better this tour than it was for the SYW tour. It sounded pretty good on the GOS tour too. I don't know if he's singing with more discipline or if he's been training. For the SYW tour, the way he sounded on What's The World Coming To was like a running gag and I remember people complained about him screaming on the SYW version of Gypsy in their posts, so that when Stevie dropped the song from the setlist I joked that it was probably because she was tired of Lindsey's vocal.

Anyway, I was listening to the demo of Hold Me with just Christine's vocal. I don't think she hits any highs or lows there, but she does sound higher in the chorus for the demo than she is on the recorded version of the song. "Hold me, hold me, hold me like a good man should. Hold me like a good man could."

Michele

WarmSir3 · #12 12-20-2009, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1

Anyway, I was listening to the demo of Hold Me with just Christine's vocal. I don't think she hits any highs or lows there, but she does sound higher in the chorus for the demo than she is on the recorded version of the song. "Hold me, hold me, hold me like a good man should. Hold me like a good man could."

Michele

It's actually up to C5! I prefer this demo to the studio version. My favourite demo is Little Lies - amazing!

nicepace · #13 12-20-2009, 04:03 PM

I don't understand a word of this thread, but I'm enjoying reading it. (lol)

WarmSir3 · #14 12-23-2009, 06:56 AM

Slightly off topic, but are there any more versions of Butter Cookie (Keep Me There) than the one on the remastered Rumours? I adore that song, one of my favourite vocal performances of hers... and with scatting, wow!

I've yet to hear a relatively OTT vocal moment from Chris (Not 00:49 OTT!!)... for Lindsey we have the Tango In The Night chorus and the crazy falsetto, for Miss Nicks we have (arguably) Sisters of the Moon (Mirage tour) and Wild Heart... can anyone think of a Chris moment that best qualifies? I'm thinking she prefered to play it safe vocally

michelej1 · #15 12-23-2009, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarmSir3

I've yet to hear a relatively OTT vocal moment from Chris (Not 00:49 OTT!!)... for Lindsey we have the Tango In The Night chorus and the crazy falsetto, for Miss Nicks we have (arguably) Sisters of the Moon (Mirage tour) and Wild Heart... can anyone think of a Chris moment that best qualifies? I'm thinking she prefered to play it safe vocally

What does OTT mean? Over the top? If so, I can't think of such a moment. It would have to come in the demos, if it exists. She uses the piano for those kind of bursts.

Michele