Shahram Shabpareh Comments on Michael Jackson’s Vocal Range 2
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. Of course, there are differences between a step and an octave.
In 2003, in an interview with Reverend Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson described his vocal range as six dangs. Seth Riggs, his vocal coach, said in the mid-1980s that Michael had the ability to sing a wide range of notes and 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. According to Riggs, over time and as he got older, Michael’s voice had become deeper and he could sing more low notes 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. Michael Jackson, by preserving his ability to sing high notes (soprano / very high female-like voice), achieved an extraordinary vocal range that is rarely seen among singers and is a phenomenon.
In general, humans have four vocal ranges: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, covering from the lowest voice (a child’s voice) to the deepest voice (the deepest male voice) (4 octaves, 28 notes). In the end, a human can sing three octaves out of four (21 notes) (a six-dang voice): two octaves with natural notes, half an octave of artificial falsetto, and half an octave of artificial deep voice. Considering the human vocal range from soprano to bass, Michael was able to sing very low notes without any damage to the lower, well-known notes. 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.
With proper training, a person can sing three octaves out of four: two octaves with natural notes, half an octave of artificial falsetto, and half an octave of artificial deep voice. Of course, having this vocal range doesn’t always mean having a pleasant voice.
Seth Riggs, in the mid-1980s, considering 44 piano notes; E2–B5 (equal to 4 octaves, octave two to five: E2 is the deepest bass note up to B5, the lowest soprano note), said that Michael had the ability to sing a wide range of notes.
In the final years of the 1990s, Riggs said that as Michael got older, he could sing very deep voices among the notes in the natural vocal range without losing his high voices.
To express your view about Mr. Shahram Shabpareh’s remarks, you can visit the official Facebook pages of the “Man o To” network, dear Salomeh (who is a Michael fan), the official Facebook page of the dear Googoosh Music Academy, or Shahram Shabpareh’s Facebook page.
By sharing the link to this article on their pages and/or your own profiles, help spread information among the public about Michael Jackson’s abilities.
Source: eMJey.com
(In many English-language websites, this information is stated: Seth Riggs, Michael’s vocal coach, said in the mid-1980s that Michael could sing 44 notes (E2–B5), meaning 3.6+ octaves. In the final years of the 1990s, Riggs described Michael’s vocal range as something around 4 octaves. — This information does not match the reality of the human voice from a music theory standpoint, and it’s likely that an error occurred in how it was entered.)