Besides of course the mastery of his instrument playing, there are 2 things that have always left me in awe about P's musical and stage performance.

1. The scream. But more specifically, the scream talk, ala the kind of thing he does in The Beautiful Ones. To be able to scream the lyrics of the song in note with the song, is nothing short of impressive to me.

2. The reverse split. Now I have to precurse that I am not a major enthusiast of P's dancing, I feel that it's probably one of his weakest areas of performance, however I remember when I first glimpsed the reverse split, my brain couldn't register how he managed to pull it off. Especially when he perfected it around the d&p era. It seemed to me to have the same anti-gravity character as MJ's moonwalk.

As a performing artist I've always considered myself as having strong dance and vocal ability so I've felt capable of performing, albeit not to the same level of mastery, most of what P does vocally and dance-wise even if just for my own kicks, lol. Major respect to Nyse for his youtube vid on how to hit a split, check it http://www.youtube.com/wa...OYKDwLuds4

As for the scream talk thing, can anyone shed some light on how to pull this off. Would love to get my head/voice around it, not to mention your thoughts on this one..

Peace and love,

Mega

[Edited 3/8/11 16:03pm]

I feel you on the scream-talk. That part is what made me really fall in love with those songs ("The Beautiful Ones", "The Dance", and to a lesser extent "Endorphinmachine").

Spinlight said:

I feel you on the scream-talk. That part is what made me really fall in love with those songs ("The Beautiful Ones", "The Dance", and to a lesser extent "Endorphinmachine").

Oh, how I love his vocals on Endorphinemachine.

GO Babay!

I love his vocal control!!! He can do a mad ass scream & then straight back into normal vocals, that is one thing that has always held me captured by him, the damn vocal control!!! I just listened to The Beautiful Ones & yes I get goose pimples, everytime!!!! I get them from Rosie as well in Diamonds & Pearls. Damn!!!!

Yea, the scream/sing thing is one of those things that make Prince so damn great...I can do the "screachy" thing that Prince does with his voice and I can do the Prince splits perfectly...now if I could only sing!!!

Forgot to mention "Girl"!! One of my top 5 all time tracks, his vocal control on there is amazing.

Spinlight said:

Forgot to mention "Girl"!! One of my top 5 all time tracks, his vocal control on there is amazing.

Mmmmm. Dreamy ice-creamy. *melts*

I practice in the shower, singing the Beautiful ones is the best example, just get a back scratcher brush when you launch "Tell me baby, do ya want me, I gotta know, do ya want me!, Bayyybyyyy baaabbbyy lissen 2 me, I may not know where I'm goin baby etc" and the scream crescendo "I know what I want and (Tease your chest) if it please you baby, please you baby, I thinnking all abboouuttt you !!!!! Never fails to remove the dirt anytime lol

NouveauDance said:

Spinlight said:

Forgot to mention "Girl"!! One of my top 5 all time tracks, his vocal control on there is amazing.

Mmmmm. Dreamy ice-creamy. *melts*

Marry me.

Spinlight said:

NouveauDance said:

Mmmmm. Dreamy ice-creamy. *melts*

Marry me.

lovesexy06 said:

I love his vocal control!!! He can do a mad ass scream & then straight back into normal vocals, that is one thing that has always held me captured by him, the damn vocal control!!! I just listened to The Beautiful Ones & yes I get goose pimples, everytime!!!! I get them from Rosie as well in Diamonds & Pearls. Damn!!!!

Yes! His vocal control is awesome! I also love it how he goes from a deep low masculine register all the way to a high-pitch feminine falsetto (eg Kiss, Damn u, etc).

I think the most impressive part of Prince's screaming ability is his use of vibrato.

I'm not sure what the "reverse split" is though Megas. Do you mean where Prince would rise up from the splits without using his hands?

That scream is really hard to do.

I can't get even close. I've tried recording myself doing it and it sounded even worse than I had thought.

NightGod said:

I'm not sure what the "reverse split" is though Megas. Do you mean where Prince would rise up from the splits without using his hands?

That's the one.