Al's Voice

[RyanHippFTW]

I've watched and listened to some recordings from Al's shows from this past year, and I'm noticing that his voice is starting to get weaker. This isn't coming as a shock or anything, he is getting older, but what is surprising me is how Al is not lowing the pitch/key/whatever in some of his more difficult songs (Nirvana, Craigslist, CIA) to make things easier on his voice and to prevent any awkward moments where his voice cracks or he is obviously struggling. The key was altered for "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" when that was done live, I don't see why he couldn't/shouldn't do the same for the harder stuff.

What do you guys think?

[Alinite27]

I've been seeing this for awhile now. He is getting older, so I don't guess it should be that surprising. I agree that at those times when Al feels like he can't reach those notes exactly, he could lower the key. But, at the same time, I think the perfectionist in him doesn't want to.

[RyanHippFTW]

If the perfectionist in him wouldn't want to change the key, why did he do it for "Why Does This Always Happen To Me"? And wouldn't a perfectionist want to do the songs without their voice cracking or showing signs of struggling?

[Alinite27]

I'm guessing that for Why Does This he knew that he couldn't reach it every night. The songs that he struggles with sometimes now, he doesn't always struggle with. Sometimes, and usually, they sound perfect. But, then there's the few other times.

[Orthography Enthusiast]

I suspect that it's not so much strictly age-related, but more fatigue and weather/possible minor upper-respiratory-illness related. He's had a pretty heavy touring schedule.

[Kristine]

"Why" was also changed for the band- Kimo's tenor line is high enough in the key they lowered it too.

[The Sporkman]

I'm completely musically illiterate, and I don't know how any of this sort of thing works, but in this interview Al says that Why Does This Always Happen to Me was in the key of F-sharp, which made Ben Folds "kind of mad," presumably because it's a difficult key in which to play on piano. So maybe they changed the key for the live version for Rubén's sake?

[Kristine]

F# Major uses more black keys than white keys, so... yes, it's harder to play. In fact, there are only 2 white keys used (out of the 8 in an octave). But I'm 99% sure they lowered the key mainly for singing purposes.

[weirdojace]

Also, electric keyboards have a transpose option. Meaning, if he wanted to, Ruben could set it to +6 semitones and play the song in C major, but the sounds coming out would be in F sharp.

So yeah, must've been for singing purposes.

I've been watching live bootlegs of the recent shows and I can hear parts where it isn't as easy for Al to hit some of the notes. Unfortunately, it happens to many singers as they grow older, like Justin Bieber.

[crazygurl14]

But still Al sounds a million times better than people who have not been touring as long as him...