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Saturday, May 16, 2020

What Does Singing Soulfully REALLY Mean?

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents information and comments about what "singing soulfully" means.

The content of this post is presented for cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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INFORMATION AND COMMENTS ABOUT SINGING SOULFULLY
(These excerpts are presented in no particular order).

Excerpt #1:
From https://www.yourdictionary.com/soulful
"soulful
adjective

Full of or expressing deep feeling; profoundly emotional."
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Example #2:
From https://www.quora.com/Why-were-African-American-singers-so-much-more-soulful "Why were African-American singers so much more soulful?"
Thomas L. Johnson, Answered December 8, 2014
"Church culture.

They all got their start in church singing songs that were more emotional than logical and that drew from the great tradition of the pre-literate slavery era. When white people sing in church, they sing out of a hymnbook and follow the notation just as it is in the book. A gospel choir never sings from the book; they always allow the spirit of the song to direct their performance. I sang in a gospel choir for several years and there was that moment when the director told us to put away the paper, which was the natural crutch. Only once the paper was gone did the choir start to learn how to sing the music.

I had the pleasure of seeing Aretha in concert last summer and she still sings in a fashion that is totally different from the typical pop singer whose only intention seems to replicate whatever they originally sang."

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Excerpt #3:
From https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/22kjyp/lets_talk_the_term_soulful_in_regard_to_voice/
"TheLawTalkinGuy, 2014
"Soul is a style of music which is fairly easy to recognize and define. Initially it was a combination of Gospel and R&B, and it developed from there. A soulful voice would belong to someone who sings in the style commonly known as soul. As you already noted, soul singing would traditionally rely on improvisational additions and twirls. Most soul singers will avoid singing a melody perfectly straight, and are more likely to add their own improvisational touches and ornamentation than other singers.

The problem you're running into is that soul is a term that is also frequently used to identify music or elements of music that people find appealing. Like the terms "emotion" or "feeling," soul can be used to describe the music or elements of music that we like but can't articulate. If you like the way a person sings, but you can't explain why, you might be inclined to say he sings with "soul," even if he's not singing soul music or in the style of a traditional soul singer.

I personally dislike the use of vague terms like "emotion" or "soul" in this manner. Generally, the elements of music that we find enjoyable or appealing are readily recognizable if a person is willing to put forth the effort to learn a little bit about the subject. Terms like "soul" become a crutch... It's vague, confusing, and a weak way to describe something. In my opinion, music lovers should think more deeply about why they enjoy a particular piece of music instead of dismissing the tune quickly as being good because it's got feeling, or emotion, or soul - words that don't actually tell us anything."
-snip-
The sentence "Most soul singers will avoid singing a melody perfectly straight" is the same thing as the sentence "A gospel choir never sings from the book" which is given in Excerpt #1.

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Excerpt #4:
From https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-sing-with-soul "How do you sing with soul?"
Timothy Christian Liu, Updated October 5, 2015
"I am only an enthusiastic amateur, but from my experience in all my lessons, I can tell you one thing: technique does play a part of it although many people tend to suggest otherwise. If someone tells you that technique is not important and must be ignored when it comes to singing, take that as baloney and do not believe it. While it is true that there are some well-known singers who have adequate technique at best, great technique will only enable you to enhance the emotion of a song more. When you have a good vocal technique, you have all the capability in the world to sing more softly without sounding weak and loudly without sounding like yelling and too forceful and accordingly express yourself more freely, hence helping you in giving a soulful and emotional performance to the audience. Besides, most great singers have already trained their technique very well to the point that it has become a natural part of them; we hence cannot say that technique is not important.

At the same time, understanding of the lyrics is very important. When you know the lyrics by hard, you can connect to them better, and having a similar experience as the composer or songwriter in the context of the tune will really help in giving you a great performance since you can immerse into the world of the song even more...

Last but not the least, a sense of respect towards the melody is crucial. Although we want to make a song our own, we also need to ensure that we respect the original melody and not butcher them with too many melismatic attempts and additions of unnecessary notes that do not even contribute to the song. Many talent shows in television nowadays tend to sell overmelismatic singing and screaming at the top of your lungs as 'soul', although the opposite is often true. We must never forget that the main reason why a song is timeless despite its simplicity is its melody... There is time and place for high notes, whistle register, melisma, riffs and runs, and abusing them is not going to make our singing soulful, but rather forgettable and tiring to listen to.

But it's not just technique. Singers are conveying a mood and a message when they sing. They are telling a story, having a conversation with the audience."

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Excerpt #5
From https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94186584 'What Is Soul?' New Faces Have Answers National Public Radio [NPR] interview, Ashley Kahn, September 2, 2008
"Today, as it was then, there's no easy answer. But if you're talking about music, soul is easy to define: It's a gritty, vocal style, filled with a feeling straight out of the black church. Soul music was born in the '50s, took over the charts in the '60s, and remains alive and well today. Soul often has horn sections and sometimes strings, but it doesn't like to be too dressed up with polished production: Soul is more about naked emotion and personal testimony.

Soul music was so prevalent by the end of the '60s that the word itself took on a world of meaning for black America. "Black people identified themselves as soul brothers and soul sisters," says Nelson George, who has been writing about African-American music and culture for more than 30 years. "There were soul shakes, soul haircuts, soul barbershops, soul food. There was a lot of soul. It was so widely used, it almost lost its meaning, quite honestly."

The triumph of Soul music meant a lot, signifying a major shift in popular musical taste in America.

"By the '60s, soul music was mainstream black pop music and became mainstream American music," George says. "Certain styles of music are incredibly connected to the times, and certainly soul music and the '60s are intertwined — things like Aretha Franklin's '(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman,'" Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness." I also think that soul music gets stereotyped by the rawer stuff, and actually there's a quieter tradition from Smokey [Robinson] to Curtis Mayfield and the Delfonics. So I would say that 'La La (Means I Love You)' by the Delfonics is soul music."...

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