The Vocal Range of James LaBrie: E♭2-B♭5(-B5)
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- James LaBrie is the lead singer of famed prog band Dream Theater. He is most widely known for having a light, feminine tenor voice, but in fact he is quite capable of leashing out VERY powerful chesty vocals, particularly in live settings where he shines. Much of his negative reputation comes from the fact that in 1994, at his peak, he suffered throat damage that permanently altered the quality of his voice, so for almost twenty years his singing hasn't been as clear or supported. Despite this, he is still able to bust out blistering high notes from time to time.
Before joining Dream Theater, he also served as frontman for cheesy small-time glam outfit Winter Rose.
0:00 - Emotional singing down to quiet B2s in "Scarred"
0:36 - Stronger B♭2s from the Winter Rose song "Saved by Love"
0:56 - Wispy B♭2s from "Fatal Tragedy"
1:14 - One whispery A2 and strong B2s from "Lie"
1:34 - Solid soft A2 in "Voices"
1:48 - Nice G♯2 singing in the forefront vocals in "Wither"
2:03 - A spoken-rap passage bottom at G♯2 in "Octavarium"
2:29 - Solid, scintillating G2s in "Nothing but the Best" by Winter Rose
2:51 - Spoken G2s from "Home" (damn, does LaBrie have a cool speaking voice)
3:11 - By far LaBrie's lowest, this strange passage bottoms at scratchy but solid E♭2s in "In Too Deep"
3:51 - Now for the part everyone really cares about: some very powerful singing up to E5 from "Voices"
4:05 - A relatively light E5 from "Surrounded"
4:15 - A live version of that same passage where the E is more chesty
4:28 - Incredible singing up to easy E5s in "Take the Time", a real powerhouse of a performance.
4:49 - Singing up to lots of D5s with a very seamless short F5 from "Innocence Faded"
5:10 - First singing up to an E5, then sustaining an airy F♯5 in the Ayreon song "Confrontation"
5:25 - LaBrie awesomely changes the phrasing to work up to a chesty F♯5 in the live version of "Metropolis"
5:47 - A great live passage from "To Live Forever" in Manhattan that has gained some fame on RUclips: he sings roughly up to E♭5 several times and reaches F♯5 once, ending on a surprisingly clean B4
6:30 - Another incredible live passage, he sings up to E5 twice, with a wild F♯5 in between in this great display of breath support; song is "Learning to Live" from Tokyo 1993 (not the DVD release, but a bootlegged show from a few nights earlier)
6:57 - From that same performance, the famous rising scale up to F♯5, clearer, fuller and longer than the original
7:13 - An entire line sung on G5 from the end of "Thrill of the Night" by Winter Rose!
7:22 - A blistering G5 from a live cover of "Since I've Been Loving You"
7:33 - An immensely powerful G5 from "The Killing Hand"
7:44 - Lots of F5s and a couple G5s, leading to an immense D5 and then two sustained F5s from the same song
8:42 - The classic E5, F♯5, and G♯5 (actually a semitone lower than the original) from the cover of "Cemetery Gates", with some wide vibrato
9:09 - A very wild G♯5 with a short voice crack in the middle in "The Killing Hand" live in Milan
9:18 - Taking the ending up to a raw A5 from a live version of "Octavarium"
9:36 - A surprising and extremely dirty A5 in a live version of "Lines in the Sand"
9:48 - A slightly cleaner, but incredibly powerful sustained A5 from "Number of the Beast"
10:05 - LaBrie's highest full note, a short but very strong B♭5 followed by a G5 which also trills to a thin B♭5! From "The Killing Hand" in Milan
10:19 - From a recent live rendition of "Under a Glass Moon," LaBrie takes the original E5 and breaks into a falsetto B5, presumably for his own amusement
Do not mind this last bit at the end. :)
Deepest thanks to RoyalCrimsonTheater, TheTarantinoManiac, StageHolder, Danerage, sobeto28, axisundone, and HenrikMoe90.
Edit: Hey, lots of nonmodal A5s in the new track "Build Me Up, Break Me Down"! 
Видеоклипы
5:40 HOLY CRAP
Overdubbed in studio
João 13 so what if its overdubbed, it's LaBrie singing anyway. Also he's done the same thing live in other performances of that tour, so he can indeed do it.
@@joao1328 you might want to listen to the full performance, too many natural mistakes for a studio recording. That was his real live voice back in the early 90s
6:57 was fucking amazing! I think probably the best example of that segment he had ever pulled off live!
I can't believe EvilDragon is here
What an absolute monster.
Much like Lars (but for WAY different reasons), I’ll always defend James whenever some “metal” dick starts in on him. James has one of the most difficult jobs in all of rock. He may have calmed down a bit with age and he may be flat here and there but consider this. He’s out there every night, playing shows 2-3 hours long and working his way up to at least an E consistently. Never downtuning even a half step. Not only that but he’s continued to do so for over 20 years after a major vocal disaster that nearly ended his career. It takes someone who’s very powerfully gifted to handle that. Very few who read this comment could do so. Especially, ESPECIALLY with a speaking voice that’s solidly baritone.
I'm curious about your argument for Lars
They did downtune him for certain tours, which is imo a great idea!
Can we all agree Images and Words is an absolute masterpiece?
AWAKE!!
Yes
And scenes from a memory
He's the perfect singer for that band I love him
I totally agree with the description, after seeing Labrie twice it makes me really sad to see people hating on him or saying he's lost his ability, because it's very obvious live that he hasn't. Just for some reason he seems to have taken a liking to some real breathy kinda cheesy style for some of DT's latest stuff. He can certainly sing with some major cajones too though, I wish more people knew.
What a fucking range. I mean all these years, two vocal injures he still slays many songs live. He is the BEST!
i just realized that excluding falsetto and vocal fry, james labrie has more range than freddi mercury... by one step.
That passage from In too deep is insanely cool.
I just saw Dream Theatre (they opened for Iron Maiden) and James sounded fantastic. Better than I had ever heard him in his studio versions. He has lost no power at all!
SO MUCH MORE DUDE !!
JAMES LABRIE REACHES I HEAD N CHEST HIGHER NOTES OF TENORS !
Labrie sings the way he does now so that he doesn't hurt his vocal chords. Don't be a bunch of greedy bastards. He gave all he's got in 1992-1993 and it lead to a disaster.
Giving it all he's got didn't have anything to do with the disaster.
He probably gave it all he had in the vomitting sense in '94 though. Trying to vomit on empty is a trying experience!!
Those years are arguably his best years as well. We can't deny that Labrie's vocals on "Images and Words" is probably the best album when it comes down to his vocals alone.
is strange, the accident was on 1994-1995 and he said that it took 8 years to recover, but just 5 years later i think that he had one of his best performances in live scenes from new york
+Pablu in live scenes from new york, he couldn't get the scream in learning to live right, like he did back in 1993... His best years are definitely 1992-1995, I think.
He is amazing, no doubt! Now mostly amazing in the studio. Love him!👍🏻❤️
His voice is sexy amazing!
You were my inspiration :)
7:26 gimme more plz
No way! I've been wanting to make a video like this and now I don't have to!
Now you brought the one take element.. I think that can apply to every single "vocal range" which this video shows...
I think on the chaos in motion live album/dvd, in Lines in the sand around the 11:25 mark he hits an F5 a few times
I'd like to see one perfrmance of him singing Metropolis or Take the Time or Scarred or Innocence Faded or Live Forever or Learning to Live like he did in '93. He's never stopped being able to belt out blistering high notes from time to time, that does not mean his voice "recovered".
Am I the only person that knows labrie's voice was fully restored by 2002?!
Sweet, I was wondering what his bottom actually was - I've seen some put that In Too Deep note at E2, some as low as C#2. I'm actually more a fan of his lower vocals, but the dude's high notes are immense. He destroyed when I saw him at High Voltage, busted out the last chorus of Learning To Live as if it was 1993 again
AGREE DUDE . JAMES LAST YEAR N 2010 SURPRISED ME WITH A GIG OF 3:20:00 SINGIN' N NAILING ALL DA HIGH NOTES , DRIVES N GROWLS!
LEGEND !
during the live perfomance labrie did overtone sometimes. but still his voice is is so rocking
F#
Any concert footage focusing on MP clearly shows him singing into a mic whenever there's backing vocals.
4:12 sounds like double track vocals, D5 and E5 or Eb5
10:19 is G#5 to A5
I wouldn't think to hard about what that last part is XP
@@zorland876 Oh, sorry. You're right. That's B5 from G#5 to B5
i keep forgetting what i'm listening to and keep getting shocked everytime the song is about to hit the crescendo but switches before it can
yes he said that jaime vendera saved his voice nowadays he sound close to what he was...amazing!!
You ever heard Allen live? He tends to replicate performances almost perfectly. He hits Eb5s like crazy live.
Labrie is the best!
HAHAHAHA, No...
Devonshire Pee Hahahahaha YES
Dan Mulcahy Hahahaha, Kyo Nishimura, Mike Patton, Freddie Mercury, Rody Walker, Devin Townsed, Axl Rose... all superior in versatility, technical skill, or both. James can't even position his fuckin tongue right, let alone do a quarter of the shit the aforementioned vocalists can. So hahahaha, no, opinions aside, these guys better.
Axl Rose? The man who ruined one of the best bands of the 90's? Really do some more research, Freddy Mercy and Axl Rose should never be in the same sentence
Dan Mulcahy On a technical level, Axl Rose's singing is extremely difficult to pull off correctly, regardless of what you think of his personality or sound of his voice. So yes, I will mention them in the same sentence, and maybe you should do your own research. Refer to Street of Dreams, for one of his most demanding passages ever; the F#s are incredibly well done. The notes also seem to lack the typically nasally tone of his mixed singing, which is a super plus, in my eyes. I personally wouldn't put him above Freddie Mercury in raw talent, but he is far more technically proficient than Mercury, this is a fact.
He was one half step from reaching the 6th octave!
He sings a lot of Labrie's parts at times? Like in A Change Of Seasons?
"We can hope for the future but there may not be one~"
Cus, James is still singing there.
I'm pretty sure in regards to TTTSTA, it's Labrie that does it in the studio. I used to think it was Portnoy, but after listening to it god knows how many times, I'm pretty sure it's Labrie!
@hermygagala I can't tell you whether it was intentional or not, but the note was quite connected, like as if he tried going for the note but couldn't hold it. He also hits that note right before that too, "it WAS my choice"
:D:DDDD, First: I never said that, John Petrucci isn't the best (imo) for his technical but more 'cuz of his musical abilities, LaBrie is the best (again only imo) not only for his incredible range but he has a lot of techniques and singing styles that he uses that most singers dont have. Second: I listen to a lot of diffrent music, not only progressive metal.
now its restored!
10:24 LOOOOOOL
whan you are that DT fan with perfect pitch, great work btw
I meant in the studio version... MP did those vocals live.. and the last tour they just used backing track...
Could someone tell me what is the technique used to hit those chesty notes?
/watch?v=1Yogybuxyc4
found the link to the last music clip in this vid, where James pulls off the falsetto B5
@soldatojoker85 Just noting this, he hits a pretty big F#5 on "trusting in YOU", as opposed to the D5 in the original.
On December 29, 1994, LaBrie was struck with a severe case of food poisoning during which he ruptured his vocal cords. He saw 3 throat specialists who all said there was nothing to do except have him rest his voice. However, on January 12, 1995, against doctor's orders, he was on the Awake tour in Japan with his voice far from normal. LaBrie has said he did not feel vocally normal until at least 2002. After the Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence tour he discovered that his voice had fully returned.
You forgot to thank me for having found the C#6.
You should also know that there has never once been an occasion when Portnoy has sang Labrie's parts live, even as accompaniment. MP has done backing vocals on the albums since Awake and never backs up James's harmonies live.
Ah, yunno I wanted to man, both the original and live versions, but didn't want to get bogged down in E5s. It's one of his best performances though, along with Take the Time and Killing Hand.
Yeah, at live, but I was referring to the studio version..
WHAT was that at 7:35?
A G5 from the Killing Hand from DT's "Live at the Marquee"
Ben M thank you.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he can go even higher than a b5 in falsetto. Or used to be able go higher than that before his vocal injury.
@TheBarrelMan2
The C#6 at the end is a sample from a James Brown song, I'm pretty darn sure. It's not LaBrie. (Btw, LaBrie is freaking awesome.)
@TheBarrelMan2 It was just a random intro screaming for never let me go.
I can't entirely be certain, but I think the Milan bootlegs may be pitched up a half step. And is that scream in the "My Way" demo really James? I mean, it just doesn't sound like him. Perhaps it's some kind of sample?
The B5 in "Under a Glass Moon" is hilarious, though. Gotta love the Captain.
dear uploader,labrie has made in fates waring some backing vocals.i think he sings higher than ever in those songs.plz check it
Dim Tim yes...life in still water!
Occasional voice breaks can be classified as part of the range nowadays? If that's the case that all sounds you can produce can be put into the spectrum of singing range, my range as baritone goes from guttural rumble of C1 to painful squeeling A6, but the usual singing range goes from G2 - C5 or at best D5 in full voice and with Falsetto/flageolet the rest of the scale. But the top and bottom end octaves are not something that sound pretty, but it should be considered as range, right? Right???
So does this mean I have 5-6 octaves of range? I don't think so myself.
It was a joke, chill
Rodney Razorshorts Ah!
I think it's MP in studio too. JLB's falsetto usually sounds richer.
Yeah, Allen is just crazy, he is one of the elite in the world. LaBrie is one of the elites as well, though not in the same way Allen is; where Allen is stunningly accurate and breathtaking, LaBrie tends to swing between lower-par performance and some of the best performances in the world. Nowadays he's found a middle ground, though, and I personally think he's even better than he used to be back then.
If I have to give a clear opinion IMO Allen is consistently better.
I can.
Just a question from some of you vocalists out there. How do you distinguish like really high full voice notes and falsetto? Is full voice more of a chesty kind of sound?
In The Test that Stumped them All he achieved an incredible diversity in the "chorus": "...The boy is simply crazy, suffering from delusions..."
esta mal porque la primera nota que hace labrie que se supone que es la mas baja esta en la escala mas alta, en la 3 no en la 2 como sale aqui
So, how is his voice working. I hear a lot of mix in his clean high notes, more akin to Kyo's style of high singing. Any thoughts, because I'm a bit dumbfounded on his approach to high notes.
Devonshire Pee definitely a lot of mix. and a lot of mask/nasal resonance
deathpill100 that's what I thought.
+deathpill100 he was asked about his high notes following images and words and he said he uses mask resonance a lot
@Sutherlinite Just terrible? He has an INCREDIBLE range, creative vocal melody lines and phrasing, and a clear and solid tone. He went through an awful vocal injury, but still does his best and puts on a hell of a performance each night. To reduce all of his experience, hard work and dedication to singing to being terrible because you think his style is "cheesy" is incredibly ignorant. You don't have to like the guy's singing, but at least give credit where credit is due.
7:46 made me think of Jackyl.
@zorland876 Thanks for the explanation it is very appreciated. I am not arguing but again in comparison to some other vocalist falsetto notes that sound full this doesn't sound like a full voice note to me in comparison. But Again I guess you are the expert.
@hermygagala Feel free to disagree, distinguishing between modal and nonmodal at those levels is difficult and somewhat subjective. Even us folks who helps with pitching disagree quite often.
hmmm im dont get it... screams count like voice ''range''? I thought the question was about ''singing'' range
Some olympic records in up in here. XDXDXDXDXD
@UnholyMessiah555 (also In Too Deep always sounded like a D2 to me, but I'm no expert and differentiating between semitones is very difficult in a spoken passage that low)
@soldatojoker85 Nope, not full. Just very powerful.
I've given plenty of reasons that lead us to believe that it is Portnoy, including the fact that *it sounds exactly like him when he sings it live as in the studio*. You're only point is that LaBrie is the lead vocalist I assume, somehow indicating that he does all the vocals.
I seriously doubt it.
@Charsyndrome2 It's Labrie.
rofl how do you think I was able to make this video?
im dead serious.
i pissed myself at 7:27
Leggierro tenor
Too heavy for one
Wait never mind the last one is a C6?!! Thats crazy! Is it real?
Maybe we should update James' wikipedia page and state that his youtube username is zorland876. Or maybe not, the guy would probably think he's James himself.
DUDE, U SHOULD STUDY SOME VOCAL TECHNIQUES .
LISTEN THE NEW ALBUM . IN PARTICULAR ILLUMINATION THEORY.
11:10 UNTIL THE END SHOWS THAT JAMES TENOR LABIRE IS STILL A GOD WITH 50 YO. I WROTE 50YO DON'T FORGET ABOUT IT N THE TROUBLE HE HAD IN HIS THROAT !
THIS GUY IS A LEGEND !
Yes but only one of ours has any evidence to it.
Michael Luppi is one of the masters of showy range for the sake of it. He has an extensive whistle register which he uses to hit most of those 6th octave notes. Labrie's C6 was partially an adlibbed joke anyway. You seem to be arguing in the opposite direction for needless range masturbation.
Also, this is a *vocal range* video, why do you seemed so shocked at the emphasis on range?
I beg you to watch Score and then you'll realise Portnoy did the falsetto in the test that stumped them all.... and besides, Portnoy did lots of chorus.... its kinda curious... :)
Because Portnoy sings it live and also it sounds like his voice
@sobeto28 I didn't know you had a YT XD
Listen to Rob Halfords vocal range !!!!!
A lot of falsetto to reach high notes. Everybody knows Rob.
We don't know that it's him and I don't think that it was performed in one take.
No Another day????
you know there's no falsetto scream in his songs, right? I think that's score for him.
Nah, that actually is a sourced quote, it's apparently just really misleading.
you know what happened to his voice right?
How can you say "never"? Do you have been to all their concerts? I know what I know, and I remain firm in my posture.. To get me out of it, show me evidences..
Where did you get that? To me it's definitely LaBrie...
Who is it? I'm pretty much lost already... If it's you, then reveal them: a page where it says that was Mike P. who sung those lines, a quote, a picture, something ..
Maybe we are discussing all this, when actually the two of them (JLB and MP) are singing it..
Am I the only one that thinks he sorta sounds like Chris Cornell when he starts singing the high notes?
Yes, you're the only one. He sounds nothing like Cornell. Cornell had power and soul and balls behind his high notes. Labrie sounds like a castrated teenage boy.
FIRSTTTTTT woot
Then you need to start paying attention
For his own amusement in Under a Glass Moon? His voice cracked. That was one of the worst things I've ever heard.
Yeah, in concerts, but I mean the studio version.. That's James..
I don't think he has feminine tenor voice. He just sings with lots of air and makes him sound feminine. I think he is actually pretty dark tenor.
E Arabul even not a tenor
Maskong but could be leggero
Actually it's Mike Portnoy.