Michael McDonald, His Voice

How Michael McDonald, The Affable Captain Of Yacht Rock, Lost His Voice: "...I can't claim to be able to explain what it is that happens when Michael McDonald's voice—or ersatz representations of it—leaves his lungs, is recorded and transduced, travels through air to reach my ears, brain, and heart. The French philosopher Roland Barthes, mesmerized by the same phenomenon in a very different context, coined the phrase "the grain of the voice" to find a pathway into vocal description that eschewed critics' tendency toward adjectives. "The materiality of the body speaking its mother tongue," Barthes wrote as a way to get at the uniqueness of the singing voice. My musicologist friend Christian describes the effect somewhat differently for McDonald: "The magic really happens when he floats into his falsetto voice. His 'break'—moving from the natural chest voice to head voice—is around B-flat4 (ca.466 Hz)."..." (read more at link above)

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