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ROM is Gaga's highest & most challenging chorus


derpmonster

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derpmonster

...to sing live.

 

I know most people see this song as a cute bop but it's far from being like Just Dance or Poker Face vocally. I was thinking how vocally challenging it is especially for Gaga - she's a mezzo soprano and her voice isn't that high. And no, I'm not talking about the high head voice note, although that's gonna be a thing too.

The chorus starts pretty high straight away: on an E5. For contrast, the highest note in Paparazzi is Eb5, half a step down from E5. Paparazzi's chorus, which is one of her higher choruses starts at an A4.

Gaga sings part of the chorus in her head voice and then switches to modal/chest voice and then a mix for the final note. This is a bit difficult to do in live settings. Gaga has done it before, but for the sake of simplicity, she might just opt to sing the whole thing in her modal voice a la The Cure's live performances.

But then the question is, can she sing the E5 in her modal voice all the time? TEOG's highest note is a D5, the same as the high note in TIHTY (studio version) and the last "dream" from her Oscars Sound of Music performance. And she doesn't sing that in the original key at Enigma. She sings it lowered, which makes me wonder if she'll sing Rain On Me in a lower key live. And that could be an issue IF she ever does a live performance with Ariana.

And then of course, there's the high B5 in her head voice towards the end :D

It'll be interesting to see for sure. :) She has set up quite a challenge for herself, we'll see how she chooses to tackle it when she goes on tour and has to sing it repeatedly as part of a long set.

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Head Empty

I'm uneducated on this subject but isn't it similar to Heal Me and/or Look What I Found as well? :oprah:

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GaGaAst

few vocal coaches have mentioned this. That the way gaga is singing is very technical and her use of falsetto is flawless. 

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derpmonster
21 minutes ago, Why am I on GGD said:

I'm uneducated on this subject but isn't it similar to Heal Me and/or Look What I Found as well? :oprah:

Almost - the highest hoot in LWIF is A#5 and in Diggin My Grave it's B5, the same as the one in ROM. And the highest chest/mix note is E5.

Heal Me has some very low head voice which is again hard to do.

But she has performed neither of these two songs live. :) In fact, Heal Me was the one song that she didn't even record live for some reason. When she invited fans to be extras, she had to lipsync and said something like, "I don't usually do this, but I'm going to have to just for this one time."

When you have to switch in and out of head and modal voice, it gets very tricky in the middle of a 90 minute set because your muscles tire. Much easier to do in isolation.

 

Also note: B5 is higher than E5. The notation is confusing. It goes like C5, D5, E5, F5, G5, A5, B5, C6, and so on.

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derpmonster
4 minutes ago, GaGaAst said:

few vocal coaches have mentioned this. That the way gaga is singing is very technical and her use of falsetto is flawless. 

Rebecca Vocal Athlete caught the last B5 in particular and I was quite surprised by that. :) Most voice teachers on YouTube seem to comment on the music, not the singing, which is frustrating.

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LOVE JUNKIE

I could see her singing it in a lower key on tour tbh. Otherwise she could always sing Ari's lower harmony from the second chorus :billie: and have the backing track and/or back-up singers do her part :billie:

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derpmonster
3 minutes ago, Chromatica said:

I think the Cure is more challenging.

It has more head voice but it's easier for Gaga to do it all in her modal voice than ROM is. The Cure at the JWT was all in her modal voice unlike the studio version. The highest note in The Cure is an Eb5 compared to the extensive E5s in ROM.

It seems like Eb5 was sort of an informal limit she set for herself for most songs and she just said "**** it" this time.

5 minutes ago, LOVE JUNKIE said:

I could see her singing it in a lower key on tour tbh. Otherwise she could always sing Ari's lower harmony from the second chorus :billie: and have the backing track and/or back-up singers do her part :billie:

Yeah, this song is gonna be a backing track heavy song.

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derpmonster
6 minutes ago, Blastertoyo said:

[INLA]

still seems harder to me

Doing it exactly like the movie version with first chorus in head voice and second belted? Especially with the emotion. Sure.

However, there's only one E natural in that song (the bridge, "I don't wanna know this feeling") which if you see the movie version, she sang incorrectly cause it's just too high on most days for her. The chorus only goes to a D at most (which is harder to sing in head voice but easy in modal voice). As opposed to multiple E naturals in a FAST chorus. That's the other thing people don't take into account often. A faster tempo means you have less time to set up and sing with technique and breathe properly which means it's harder to do what you could've otherwise done.

Any of Gaga's best performances of a song that goes high are the slow ones. Look at Marry The Night, DWUW, Perfect Illusion. Slower songs are by definition easier to do. There's a reason she used her head voice extensively in the JWT version of TEOG (slow piano ballad that she plays) but couldn't seem to use it for The Cure (which is faster and she can't stop and adjust as she wants) :)

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RabbitHeart

I really like this analysis of Gaga's music :enigma:

I wonder: if they were to perform it "live" in some way together, do we think Ariana could reasonably sing the higher notes?

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derpmonster
2 minutes ago, RabbitHeart said:

I really like this analysis of Gaga's music :enigma:

I wonder: if they were to perform it "live" in some way together, do we think Ariana could reasonably sing the higher notes?

The thing is there are times when Gaga is singing higher than Ariana on the track, especially on the chorus. :selena: I know that's not what most people remember because of Gaga's low "Rain. On. Me." and the talking in the bridge. But most of all three choruses are Gaga. And if Ari sang the choruses and Gaga just harmonized lower, it wouldn't really be a Gaga song anymore.

Gaga will probably just layer some harmony with a backing track and sing a different part - maybe change it up like she did for Paparazzi while the studio version plays (hopefully mixed lower) in the background.

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RabbitHeart
2 minutes ago, derpmonster said:

The thing is there are times when Gaga is singing higher than Ariana on the track, especially on the chorus. :selena: I know that's not what most people remember because of Gaga's low "Rain. On. Me." and the talking in the bridge. But most of all three choruses are Gaga. And if Ari sang the choruses and Gaga just harmonized lower, it wouldn't really be a Gaga song anymore.

Gaga will probably just layer some harmony with a backing track and sing a different part - maybe change it up like she did for Paparazzi while the studio version plays (hopefully mixed lower) in the background.

That's a good point :selena: I wouldn't be opposed to Gaga and Ari sharing more of the chorus, like more back and forth so it doesn't strain Gaga too much.

 

Your idea sounds like the best idea! I can really imagine her singing it in a lower key/harmonizing with a backing track

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HauntingHollow

If she uses the light mix she does in the studio, then she should be okey, i think the first and second chorus both have falsetto, onl yhte last one she mixes lightly, cant hear any chest on the E5s. 

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FameHookah

Backtracks and her armonizing as always.

As low voice male its way too hard for me to even transpose that lmao, i usually harmonize with them on the chorus, i can reach it easily if i do falsetto tho (same with heal me and the cure) but i dont like singing in that "fake" register.

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