The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was wondering if the band members had a method for getting into the zone for recording vocals.  Or for that matter, when singing live vocals. Of course they recorded so very many vocals over the years, but perhaps they had certain tricks to help them focus, such as visualizing a particular object?

As a generality, sometimes singers will stare at a object on a wall in order to somehow clear their mind and just zone in on that while they are singing. Others might close their eyes and try to let their mind go blank, or imagine a waterfall or something.

I'm sure that Mike would site TM as an inspiration for getting into the zone,  and of course drugs for all the members at one point or another, but I am more talking about something that they would be doing at the very moment of singing, as opposed to a ritual beforehand.

In particular, there's something that I have often observed Al doing which inspired this thread.  I have noticed that in a live setting, Al seems to be using his fingers to gesture when he is singing, but in a way that is *not* some sort of expressive body language related to the lyrics and words (the way that Mike would do), but more seemingly as if he is trying to mentally focus on a note and hit it just right. And maybe his finger movements help that.

Not sure if anybody else quite knows what I am referring to, but it's always been really sweet and endearing to see Al do.

They used to invite Murry down.

Carl sang scales as a vocal warm-up exercise in the '90s, not sure about earlier.

I have always been amazed at how the boys could go from 0-60 so quickly. Silence, a collective deep breath and then... perfect harmony. You can hear it a lot in the session recordings. One minute they are laughing and goofing around, then in the next breath 100% perfection. Unless it was just edited to sound that way, but you can hear it live too. I would love to know what they did (if anything) to hit the marks like that too. But it may be that they are just that good.

I know what you mean with Al - I have seen that too. As a guitar player, it bothers me when he stops playing and starts making hand gestures. I assume it is similar to guitar players who make faces when they hit certain notes?

COMMENT:

No Tricks.  Just Talent !

~swd

I guess it's Al's much cleaner version of the guitar player "O" face  :lol

I think Al's tics in concert, especially in more recent years, are a result of being more engaged with the audience (as opposed to the mid-late 80s into the 90s when he sometimes seemed kind of ticked off or disengaged), mixed with the awkward question of what to do with his hands when he doesn't play guitar.

And for that matter, I think Al realizes that his guitar playing (really since the 80's) has become more the icing on the cake, then a crucial part of the rhythm section. His guitar playing used to be crucial for time keeping and harmonic support (the duties of a rhythm guitarist), and now his guitar playing is more supportive of what the group is playing (sustained chords, usually just the main triad, no 7ths, 9ths, etc...)

I just love how Al works his body language into the sincerity of how he sings the repeating vocal parts at the end of I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, on current live iterations. Where he goes back and forth with Brian. Giving that part to Al might be my favorite live version vocal-handoff tweak to any BBs song in any live set the band's ever done. Or pretty high up there at least.