As I type this, I have just finished a pack of Maryland chocolate and hazelnut cookies, and I'm spreading the crumbs all over the keyboard. But of course, I don't care - because cookies are that great. I'm not a fat kid who always fantasizes over food - I'm not even fat in the first place actually. The thing is, since I'm only 14 I have a high metabolism, which means I can eat all the unhealthy crap I want and I'll hardly gain weight - as opposed to adults, who only have to eat half a chocolate bar for their asses to jiggle all week.
I love the chocolate chips, and when you find them. It's like they're mini-oasises. Soft and sweet in the middle of a crunchy desert of cookie goodness, with the odd hazelnut to spice it up a little. Well, I'm sure you've all eaten a cookie before. If not, I suggest you head for your nearest shop and buy some immediately - they're unmissable.
Anyway, as I type this I am also listening to an Aerosmith song, called "Dream On". At first, when I heard it the first thing that popped into my mind was - "What the hell is this fake bullcrap? That's not Steven Tyler. Gimme the real thing." So, believing devoutly that the song off iTunes was a fake, I searched all over YouTube for the original. Everywhere I looked, however, it was the same audio track with the un-Tyler-ish voice singing. So I checked the live performance, and oddly enough - there he was, Steven Tyler himself, pouring his soul into the microphone but not in his "trademark" rasp.
See, I read somewhere that the voice ages with the body. Not true. About a year or so ago I and Charlie went to a music shop which was holding an open evening with a few performances from local acts. In among the three acts was a band (I've quite sadly forgotten the name) and the frontman was an older guy, maybe around fifty or sixty. (I'm not great with guessing ages, for all my guess is worth he could have been twenty.) Yet when he sang he sounded just like a young vocalist with their whole career ahead of them. So you can't really claim that Steven Tyler's voice has changed due to his age.
Wear and tear? Maybe. With all the screaming in some of their songs, I wouldn't be surprised if his voice had adjusted to cope with the harsher sounds it was being forced to produce. Maybe that's why I love playing guitar so much - because the sound and quality never changes, never alters itself unreliably. I mean, Steven's voice was great back then and it's great now, but it's still different. I personally prefer modern-Tyler, but he sure wasn't bad in Aerosmith's early years.
I'm sad to say that the transformation of my own voice is even more of a mystery, at least to me. I'm 14, and my voice started breaking roughly half-way through being 14. Not exactly an early starter, yeah, but a lot of kids in my form can still sing Queen songs an octave higher than they should be. Anyhoo, my voice has broken quite dramatically - I used to have quite a high voice, and my singing pitch was vast, if I say so myself. However, once the hormones struck and my voice transformed, I found myself constantly speaking in a baritone. And singing was even worse - the first time I tried to sing along to an AC/DC song and found I hit exactly 0% of the notes was... suicide-inducing. If anything, it made me cling to my guitar even more than I had before - because I didn't want to lose all of my musical ability all because of some god-damned hormones. My voice probably will never be like it was, yet I can't help hoping it will be one day. I don't want a vocal coach and would much rather spend that time playing guitar or socializing - I'm a guitarist at soul, not a singer.
Still doesn't stop me from singing along to "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" though.
Steven Tyler still kicks ass.
This post is brilliant. You have a talent for writing. :)
ReplyDelete