https://youtu.be/hjmnbBIy4do?si=Ky4gw5SMPON2Fj9x

And the loss of the mellifluous quality isn’t a matter of the current technology that is used — it started before then.

I chalk it up to fashion.

When I was younger, I was a fan of a dramatic cartoon series that I only knew as Battle of the Planets. Turns out it was anime (which I’d never heard of) and had originally come out in Japan as Gatchaman.

I bring it up here because this was in the early days of the commercial Internet, and eventually I was able to watch some original Gatchaman. The Japanese voice acting was entirely different from the English-language dubbing. In Japanese, the one female character, for instance, had the most – to my American ears – screechy, irritating, super-high voice, whereas in the American dub she had what sounded to me like a pleasantly modulated young woman’s voice, in the soprano range but not noticeably high, and with a quality of floor that was nowhere in the Japanese version. The men’s voices were similarly dissimilar, if I can phrase it that way.

I was on a fan BBS for the series back then, and I asked the real Gatchaman fans about it, specifically with regard to the female voice. They told me that that type of voice was the preferred type in Japanese anime. I stuck with BOTP.

So what I’m saying is that modern singers could certainly be trained as old-time singers were, and could certainly sing as well and in the same style – people haven’t actually gotten worse at singing, haven’t actually lost ability. But they don’t choose to sing that way, because – in pop- shallow, low-resonance nasality, whispering into a mic, not using legato – these are fashionable here and now. In musical theater it’s similar; modern musical theater voices sound nothing like the past ones. (And musical theater performers didn’t use to use mics! Which explains at least some of the stylistic change – when you have to project your natural voice, speaking and singing, to the back of the theater, it requires some squillo that you don’t need if you’re amplified.) Opera also has its styles, apparently just like ballet.

Another thing that seems to be fashionable – maybe ’twas ever thus, after all Mozart existed – is the child musical prodigy. My father-in-law recently made us watch a whole lot of videos of a conductor (Italian, maybe?) who performs at beautiful and dramatic venues like, you know, the Coliseum, and who seems to seek out children and very young singers and highlight them as soloists. My FIL was wild about these kids. I’m not a professional singer, but I’ve had many years of training – and I perceive (1) a rote quality, which I also had (more so, certainly – these kids are undoubtedly very good!) at the same age, which I chalk up simply to youth and lack of emotional and physical experience, and (2) a sense of vocal pressure, which would be pretty natural given that you’re asking a very young instrument to do very hard things intended for a mature vocal apparatus.

But something I wonder about, with regard to past versus present attitudes about prodigies: I wonder if, in the past, a time in which maturity was actually respected, prodigies were appreciated more as… oddities. Interesting, fun to hear and watch, but not standard-setting. Today, it seems that you get a Charlotte Church and everybody’s like, “Have you ever heard such artistry? Such genius? Voice of an Angel™!”

Sarah Vaughn has that mellifluous quality. Diana Krall did not. Cass Elliott did not. Julie Andrews did. I expected Annie Lennox to because she did a ton of vocal training, but she did not. Adele doesn’t have it.

Best I can figure is that the ones with the mellifluous quality seem to use their whole throat — it’s a fuller sound. While the others — the singers who lack the mellifluous quality — their voices seem more from their head. I tried to find the one Beyonce tune, but after wading through about seven video clips, I gave up.

Another analyst I like is Zharoff. Here’s her analysis of one of my fav vocals.

There’s soon going to be software that can pitch adjust with a better simulated real voice. Probably even ML based pattern duplication, for instance using Judy’s patterns of being slightly flat or sharp and often being a little bit between notes.

Haven’t seen or heard of this, yet, tho.

Someone+Else:

Agreed and agreed.

As to mellifluous voices. I think I know what you mean … voices that can caress the lyrics and melody together. I think of Sarah Vaughan and “Just a Little Lovin’.”

We may have lost a lot of that. I didn’t track it closely but it seemed to me there were a number of hugely popular female vocalists in the 90s/00s who were real belters. I’ve got nothing against the style, but it’s not right for everything.

Maybe you would like Diana Krall, more of a jazz singer as well as the wife of Elvis Costello. She’s a talent:

–Diana Krall, “Crazy” (2003?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFfJADWhBFM