Shahram Shabpareh Comments on Michael Jackson’s Vocal Range

Last night, Shahram Shabpareh, one of our country’s veteran singers, was a guest at the Googoosh Music Academy. He performed the song “Vavayla” on the academy stage and made the audience laugh with his jokes. After that, he sat down with Salomeh, one of the hosts of the “Man o To” network, and advised young people who are looking for fame to learn more and more about the entertainment and recording industry. He said that the profession of singing is not just about singing. During his remarks, he brought up Michael Jackson as an example and said:

“Michael Jackson’s voice isn’t even two ‘dangs,’ but it has taken over the world because there is coordination between his singing, dancing, and movements.”

But it seems that Mr. Shabpareh doesn’t have accurate information about Michael Jackson’s vocal range.

What is a “dang” in music? The distance of four consecutive musical notes is considered one dang—for example, from the note D to the note F. Therefore, the distance of eight consecutive notes, which is a step (a “scale degree”), includes two dangs or one octave. So every octave includes two dangs in music.

In general, humans have four vocal ranges: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, covering from the lowest voice (a child’s voice) to the lowest voice (the deepest male voice). When Yma Sumac, a Peruvian female singer, died in 2008, the BBC wrote in an article that she was among the few people who had a vocal range of more than 4 octaves. At her peak, her vocal range reached as many as five octaves. Also, Mariah Carey is among the few people who, according to the BBC, has a five-octave vocal range.

In 2003, in an interview with Reverend Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson described his vocal range as three octaves—six dangs.

In his book Magic and Madness, Michael Jackson biographer and author J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote, quoting Seth Riggs, Michael Jackson’s vocal coach for 32 years:

“Michael has a high tenor voice with a range of 3.6 octaves (from basso low E up to G and A-Flat above high C) [eMJey.com: In many English-language websites, this is written as E2–B5; music experts can explain it better.] Many people think his voice is falsetto, but it isn’t. In vocal rehearsal sessions, he would look at his arm in the air, and while singing the note, he would spin around. When I asked him why he did that, he answered, ‘Maybe I’ll have to do this on stage. I want to make sure I won’t run into any problems.’ I had never seen anyone practice notes like that. At first, maybe I thought it would be better to ask him to focus on his singing and reduce the dancing, but then I realized he could handle singing while dancing, so I didn’t interfere with his work.”

Riggs also, in the 1990s, during an interview, described Michael’s vocal range as close to four octaves. He also said in the 1980s that Michael had a six-dang voice. In addition to being able to sing all the notes in his natural vocal range, Michael was also able to sing falsetto (falsetto / artificial voice).

Michael always spoke with his high voice (high voice) so that he wouldn’t lose his ability to sing high notes. At age 17, Michael’s voice had changed from soprano to tenor. In the final years of the 1990s, Riggs said that as Michael got older, he could sing very low voices without losing his high voices. Michael’s voice had become deeper as an adult male, while still maintaining his ability to sing high notes. The natural vocal range of a male singer is four dangs, and men’s voices are naturally deeper than women’s and sit below women’s vocal range. By preserving his ability to sing high notes (soprano / very high female-like voice), Michael achieved an extraordinary vocal range that is rarely seen among singers and is a phenomenon. Michael could perform very low notes without any damage to the lower notes that are known as his own. Therefore, Michael also had full ability to perform falsetto notes. In simpler terms, Michael could perform a range of notes from very low to very high.

By sharing the link to this article on Facebook pages, help spread information among the public about Michael Jackson’s abilities, and share this with the staff of the Googoosh Music Academy and/or the dear Googoosh herself.

Source: eMJey.com