Ben's Vocals

I came across a post from 3y ago about Ben's voice that I think leads to an interesting discussion. This was the original post by a now deleted user. My thoughts are below it:

Howard is a baritone. It’s important to remember that this is a role. People are just born with a voice, and a label like “baritone” or “tenor” is not a classification of the voice that the person was born with, just the role that they could best play in, say, a classical choir or opera. In a similar way, an actor might be naturally good at playing a policeman, but that is not to say that they were born with only the capability to play a policeman.

In classical music, the “baritone” vocal part is typically written between F2 and F4. In operatic music, it is between A2 and A4. The operatic bass part is only a semitone lower than the baritone classical part, at E2-E4, and many baritones can sing best in this range too. This leaves a very broad range of voice types that can be circumscribed to baritone roles – anywhere between bottoming out at E2 and maxing out at A4. Anyone from Johnny Cash to the fella from Kings of Leon could thus sing a baritone part very well. Most men are baritones.

As well as range (the full range of notes a singer can hit), there is also tone and tessitura to consider. Tessitura is the ‘comfortable’ range, in which a singer is most comfortable singing, and sounds the best. As they have the most control over their voice in this range, this is also where they can do the most with their voice – things like runs, vibrato, dynamics, and tonal changes like ‘breathiness’ or ‘grit’ for example.

I’m not completely familiar with Howard’s full recorded range, but it is somewhere between F2 (‘A Boat…Part 1’) and A#4 (‘Depth Over Distance’ – “in the bli-I-indness you feel”) for chest voice. He clearly struggles with both of those notes live. His tessitura is perhaps G2 (e.g. lows in ‘Evergreen’) and G4 (e.g. highs in ‘IFWWW’), with the most ease between A2 and E4 (“stroooong” in ‘Keep Your Head Up’). Off the top of my head, he can stretch up to C4 in falsetto (intro of ‘The Wolves’) and probably higher, but he doesn’t go falsetto very often.

Howard’s vocals are interesting because they have changed to such a degree. In the EK and pre-EK “eras,” he was very much singing above his tessitura a lot of the time. There are lots of high notes, such as A4s in the backing vocals and in live renditions of ‘Old Pine,’ from the second verse of ‘The Wolves,’ in the last chorus of ‘Depth Over Distance,’ etc. A lot of songs see him maintaining his voice around and above the “bridge” (where your chest voice starts to give way to your head voice, unless you push it), above C3. As well as pushing his voice consistently high, he was forcing out a lot of air and constricting his throat as he sang – hence the breathy/gritty tone – which, in combination, is a sure-fire way to rip up your vocal chords. What is interesting, though, is that when he sang “lows” on those recordings, which were actually way above the bottom of his tessitura, he sort of artificially bottomed-out by putting his vocal placement way down in his chest. So maybe he didn’t even know he was doing it.

A lot of baritone signers will try and sing tenor parts in popular music (tenors are typically leads), and a lot of singers will also try and sound ‘breathy’ and ‘gritty’ in rock-oriented music. A lot of singers also fuck up their voice in the process. As “impassioned” as those EK recordings and performances are, it was nice to see the change in IFWWW, which is his best vocal performance in my opinion. The range of the album is pretty much his tessitura; G2 (‘Evergreen,’ ‘Time is Dancing’) to G4 (‘IFWWW,’ ‘End of the Affair’). He stopped with the closed-throat-breathy stuff, which no doubt helped the health of his vocal chords, but also made the performances much more balanced. Singing within his tessitura allowed for much more nuance and variety – I particularly like the tone and emotional weight of the verses in EOTA. The highs at the end of ‘Small Things’ (F4), for example, are not particularly high compared to the highs in EK, but they are clear and well-projected, which gives them so much more power. The G4s in IFWWW (“the blind leading OUT the bold”) are beautiful – really clear, and they toe the line very skilfully between sung and belted. This also means that when he does bring the grit back (bridge in EOTA) it is much more impactful (and sustainable in the long run). And, in live performances of EOTA, he soars out of his tessitura to A4 in the break section (see the “screaming-into-my-guitar” bit of the Jools Holland performance – “this is eeiiiSSAAAAA” or whatever he says). But that A4 is clear, sustained, well-supported and sounds fantastic – compare with that live festival performance of ‘Depth Over Distance’ where he fucks up because he is sustaining his voice around G4-A#4 for too long. The lows in songs like ‘Evergreen’ are wonderful too, killer tone, well-supported and just add so much more colour to the performance as a whole. And ‘Rivers In Your Mouth’ is a great example of well-projected singing within the speaking-voice, tessitura range. The vocals in the verses of ‘Conrad’ are right at the top of his tessitura (E4s on “CLImb out…”) but sung beautifully, clear and without breathiness but without belting either.

The only problem seems to be that singing in the lower end of your range tends to involve projecting less, at least in popular music, which caused some issues in live performances. It can be hard for your voice to cut through clearly if you are singing in your “speaking range” with a full band playing behind you (see the Glastonbury performance of ‘Rivers In Your Mouth’). Going back to what I said about EK, where he seemed to not even know that he was “bottoming out” way above where he was supposed to, he also seems to genuinely struggle with singing low notes even when they aren’t that low for his voice – again, seems to be an issue with his vocal placement and see that Glastonbury performance.

This didn’t seem to faze Howard as in ND he fully committed to singing in the low end of his tessitura and even pushing below, rather than above it – see that F4 in ‘A Boat…Part 1.’ He also clearly opted for a more subdued approach – and if you aren’t belting or switching to falsetto (something Howard apparently isn’t very keen on), you will find it harder to sing even in the upper end of your tessitura. This was clearly a stylistic choice and worked well with the vibe of ND (which I think is a killer album) but caused more issues live, with his voice getting even more muddied in the mix due to a lack of projection, even in songs where he sings higher (e.g. ‘The Defeat’). That said, ‘Someone In The Doorway’ sees him projecting his lower end well, and it is one of my favourite vocal performances from the ND era.

CFTW sees Howard maintaining that subdued, no-belting style, but incorporating it over a wider range. He seems to be much more comfortable singing in that style now, and particularly his upper range in that subdued style has improved greatly. ‘Far Out,’ for example, has some lovely mix voice high notes (“…wheeling around”). I suppose we will see if they hold up live.

This is such a great post. In my opinion, the change in Ben's voice over quite a short space of time has been stark. I can't actually think of another artist who lost that much quality/uniqueness in their voice within a 10 year period. I still love Ben and every now and then his live performances are still good, but it feels like he's sort of meandering through the songs in a very monotone way (sorry, don't know the technical terms).

He's obviously older now, but not *that* old! He sort of sounds like an older guy just doing covers of Ben Howard songs and his new music seems to be written in a way that doesn't really test him vocally. It all just feels very mellow and safe.

Maybe his voice is just knackered from all the belting, singing and smoking over the last 10 years. Not to mention all the other health problems. I'm glad he's still consistently making music and touring. Just a bit gutted to have not seen him in his prime, which for me is the original IFWWW tour days. Some of the Glasto performances and in particular the Jools Holland EOTA performance was an artist at the very top of his game. Vocally, it all looked so easy for him. 

I'd LOVE OP to do an updated version of this analysis that factors in Is It?. Even better, a YouTube video to show the examples that are mentioned in it, but it seems their account is deleted now. Any other singing pros willing to take a stab?

Edit: This isn’t hating on Ben by the way. I’ve got tickets to the upcoming IFWWW tour and buzzing for it! Just an observation that I found interesting. When I compare to someone like Justin Vernon, who’s voice seems to be getting better with age if anything. I just wonder how aware Ben is of his vocal change and whether he adapts his songwriting and live performances accordingly.