Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I need help with scat singing

[NinjaGeek]

My band is fusing jazz and death metal together, and as the vocalist I'm trying to mix scat singing with death metal growls. I can already do the death metal part easy, but not really sure about how to learn to scat sing well. Kind of important since we're aiming to be a jam band and I need to be able to improvise on the spot. Anyone know where I can learn how to do this?

 

[Cheiron]

Practice? Doing it during jams ...

Can you run scales vocally? Can you jump around notes fairly freely?

How good is your ear?

Have you listened to a lot of scat vocalists?

And there are Scat singing method... videos and books out there.

 

[TalesOfTerror]

Ella Fitzgerald.

 

[Vimana]

 

[KingVEE]

wow.......i am very open minded when it comes to music, i love 90% of whats out there, but that vocal style in F&F's post is shit(no pun intended). it ranks right up there with rap.

 

[Vimana]

wow.......i am very open minded when it comes to music, i love 90% of whats out there, but that vocal style in F&F's post is shit(no pun intended). it ranks right up there with rap.

Are you saying Rap is bad, some is good like Gil Scott-Heron and Run-D.M.C.


And to Ninja Geek, no offense but scat growling would sound really gay. The best way to combine death metal and jazz in my opinion would be to play jazz riffs faster, lower, and with more distortion.

 

[razoredge]

Ellas a queen, shes mimicing the many sounds of a jazz band there using a few octaves and instruments, mostly Trumpet, but there are parts of Trombone, Sax, Upright bass and drums. Rappers cant touch that.

There was an off the wall guy named Cab Calaway (not sure on the spelling)that I believe did some scat singing too.

Some did it in unison with their guitar like George Benson

Cant think of his name but that guy that did the song "Dont Worry Be Happy" had unbelievable tone and improv skills and Ive seen him "Jam" with some of the best modern jazz musicians. He does not use the be, bop, du, de, da's heard here by Ella. He sounds nearly like an instrument.

Im guessing this is what you have in mind ? To be able to improvise a vocal solo with your voice that perhaps sounds like a wailing guitar? Tuff task and you will need excellent voice control, range, breathing control and creativity. Cool idea, dont know how it will work out, but good luck.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

There's already an active band that mixes jazz and metal quite well. Unfortunately, I don't remember their name right now, but my friend saw them at Summer Slaughter and said they're up there with Necrophagist and Beneath the Massacre - not in style, but in ability. I posted about it on another forum as well, so I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: The band turned out to be The Faceless. I'm not familiar with, but I listened to some MIDI tablatures of their music and didn't see much jazz influence at all. Definitely some classical though. Anyway, the MIDIs were great, so I'm definitely going to check them out.

Also, for the record, I think jazz metal would sound pretty cool, but I could never take scat vocals in death metal seriously.

 

[Conti]

There's already an active band that mixes jazz and metal quite well. Unfortunately, I don't remember their name right now, but my friend saw them at Summer Slaughter and said they're up there with Necrophagist and Beneath the Massacre - not in style, but in ability. I posted about it on another forum as well, so I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: The band turned out to be The Faceless. I'm not familiar with, but I listened to some MIDI tablatures of their music and didn't see much jazz influence at all. Definitely some classical though. Anyway, the MIDIs were great, so I'm definitely going to check them out.

Also, for the record, I think jazz metal would sound pretty cool, but I could never take scat vocals in death metal seriously.

no they arent jazz at all.

 

[Vimana]

Also, for the record, I think jazz metal would sound pretty cool, but I could never take scat vocals in death metal seriously.

I think combining Jazz and Metal would be pretty hard, Jazz and Metal are way different. If it was possible to combine them (and have the Jazz recognizable) it would've been done by now by lots of bands.

I searched for anything in the genre of Metal with Ray Charles influence.

ELODIO
EsGi
Herbert Wiser Band


Putting scat into Metal is like making a screamo version of "I'm a little teapot".

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

no they arent jazz at all.

...which is exactly what I said :Smug:

I think combining Jazz and Metal would be pretty hard, Jazz and Metal are way different. If it was possible to combine them (and have the Jazz recognizable) it would've been done by now by lots of bands.

Honestly, I don't think it would be that difficult, especially considering that just about every other style has been combined with metal somehow. While I'm not particularly well versed in jazz theory, it's not really that much different from classical theory, on which most metal is now based. With the rise of the technical death metal movement though, I think we'll be seeing heavy implementation of jazz theory before too much longer, because they already have quite a bit in common, such as odd meters, rapid time and key signature changes, innovative chord progressions, and widespread use of dissonant chords. When you get right down to it, the only real changes made are tempo, gain, growling and blast beats.

 

[Grovesy]

I think if you wanted to truly create a jazz metal fusion then you'd basically have something like 'improvised metal'. Everyone forgets that Jazz, at its core, is about improvisation. The second most important part of it is probably its swing rhythms.

I can't see death growl scat singing sounding much different from the vocals of a normal death metal song - incomprehensible and very rhythmic. The genius of Ella's scat is that she weaves melodic lines through the chord changes like any of the other instruments in her bands. Death metal has neither the chord changes nor the melody so really all you're left with is growling at random intervals, right?