Pink Floyd "Comfortably Numb" REACTION & ANALYSIS by Vocal Coach / Opera Singer

welcome back to the charismatic voice today we're gonna be taking a deep dive into the legendary pink floyd for the first time many of you are probably very familiar with pink floyd and i know that i've heard some songs on the radio but i've never done a deep dive or analysis of the voice i don't even know who's singing the lead vocal or vocals and to be honest when i was doing research it was a bit confusing it looks like they trade vocals off i'm going to need your help i can tell already so the reason that i'm doing this video is because i heard comfortably numb for the first time a few months ago on a patreon playlist we were driving in the car this song came up and my jaw just dropped i thought wow that's really really good was really touching but it was on a car speaker and i wanted to hear it in a much much more friendly acoustic environment and i really want to hear a live performance so i've only heard it once this is going to be my first time actually seeing it live actually getting to hear it in good speakers and we're going to be taking a look at the pulse concert performance from 1994 in london let's get to it [Applause] [Music] is there anybody in there [Music] is [Music] [Music] this vocal styling and harmonization is very it's strange it's interesting it's intriguing draws you in right away there's a lot of things that are unexpected happening in there there's definitely some speak singing essentially kind of talking but kind of on pitch um it's so interesting when you talk about like what is the definition of speak singing we're all kind of playing around with pitch when we're talking and i would just say speaking is where you're elongating the words more and not necessarily being 100 specific with the pitch you're kind of 50 with pitch so there's a loose definition for you and in addition there was a really weird uh it sounded like an upward slider glissando at the beginning that was pretty awesome [Music] let's go back one time that was cool [Music] [Music] bye [Music] is [Music] this is such an interesting intro because these guys some of them are singing or sing speaking more than others and there is a a hint at various harmonies in that harmonic structure often it feels somewhat stagnant there's a lot not a lot of movement and when it does move it seems to mostly be moving in a parallel fashion so harmonies often will kind of come in and out and do this together in more modern music but if we go back to like gregorian chant we see a lot more parallel movement in the harmonies where they kind of go up and down like this which makes it sound archaic or in this it almost feels like it's distorting our perception of time there's something that feels it feels archaic yes but it feels like it's just uh i like the word psychedelic for it and i like the word psychedelic to describe pink floyd so far as well so i'm gonna go with that psychedelic let's keep going [Music] i do like the way they're all coordinating their enunciation well together it's like they've got a little trio there and i don't know who these guys are i don't again i haven't seen their faces and and put them together before i know that let's see sid barrett david gilmour and roger waters are all uh singing i believe on this richard wright too maybe so maybe we have three of those guys there but i i don't know if you guys can help me out on comments and tell me exactly which face goes with which name i would super love that let's keep going [Music] horizons [Music] but i can't hear what you say my hands felt just like uh i want to talk about his voice and also talk about the line he just said i i i don't know who this is again maybe it's roger waters he's the one that wrote the lyrics to the song might be somebody else though his voice is so smooth he's trying to think about like what it reminds me of i would say it's like water droplets on silicone it's just it is like it feels like it's just flowing very very nicely and he still enunciates well you hear a really good breath support underneath there but it's also um has an a particular style to it where he's falling off the ends of words not really sliding off that's like a very slight slide and lets it just almost hover it's very interesting and then this line that he just stopped on was one of the ones that i had read about in some background research is about the hands feeling like balloons so it says when i was a child i had a fever my hands felt just like two balloons apparently he wrote this song or roger rogers wrote the lyrics to it in reference to an actual event from his childhood where he was really sick and he felt like reality just was distorted because of this huge fever and so he wrote this entire song about that experience but tons of people think that it is about drug usage i think it's a sign of a good song when you can take something and apply it to lots of different paths in life right uh i don't think that he would say no a person can't interpret it like that instead he probably made those lyrics even though they seem very specific to this fever moment you can see oh well i could apply it to maybe not just being in a fever but maybe being in a a different reality at that point i think it's fascinating that they were able to take such a specific moment from childhood though and related to millions of adults so anyhow let's catch that moment again and listen to that stylization and his silicone smooth voice [Music] [Music] [Music] just comment i might have gotten all of these names wrong because i see a woman here that is singing the backup harmonies beautiful really great combination of the voices there i feel like they both have that smoothness and common it works really really really well i don't know her name though but it's gorgeous so i have to tell you that the one time i heard it in the car it was the way that comfortably numb i remember the way that that was enunciated was it felt like it just struck me right as an adult there are so many things in life that you might feel like you've developed to become numb to and i really related to the message in this way of thinking wow what what do i not really sense or experience anymore and i like the way he said it here i really like it this big extended eye or it's medium accident it's not like the most extended note ever uh it makes it feel like that person is growing to me and that the sustained nature of it has a lot of energy in it but then you get to comfortably numb and it just falls away right it isn't sustained it's not even super specific and the pitch in some moments such good delivery [Music] [Music] is interesting how they changed the lighting there so when you had the backing vocal you had her lit up in the back and then it darkened when it was just to him uncomfortably numb look at that one more time i really love the the big sweeping of feeling and the song as well feels very melodic um uh it feels floaty it's just got such a great overall feeling to it and uh the way that you have these long extended chords that are being held underneath you always have essentially a support bed of sound that's going on and it feels again very very smooth [Music] oh there's so much that's happening right now um i love this moment where he he goes over to little uh chime for the pin prick maybe i'm not sure what that sound was um but really cool how he's really multitasking doing so many different things at the same time yet really able to stay in sync with his group here on those vocals and there was a really interesting moment where i think the lights also affected a much uh another additional set of backing vocals okay we need to see it again [Music] why would you think about doing that when composing a piece like okay let's have this sort of gregorian speak sing chant but then we're gonna have a moment where we have like uh it almost sounded like a gospel choir insert and then we're gonna keep going with that spin seeing speak we're gonna have a chime for a pen prick and oh on top of that let's be really specific about our k's and match them all together it's it's a very very interesting and unexpected combination of sounds that was nice [Music] [Music] this to me hearkens to minimalism minimalism is a movement of composition uh i know john cage had some i believe john corliano has done some um there's yeah there's a whole bunch of minimalistic movements um where essentially you have a pattern that's repeating over and over and it just very slightly shifts and often those patterns can be arpeggiated i'm thinking about an opera ochnaten that i did with l.a opera that was really cool all this minimalistic style it and that particular style of music often feels like it's slowing time down because it tends to have slower chord changes instead of having the chords together they've been broken up into arpeggios it's very uh very strange as an audience member when you're in that setting because if you can't sort of slow down and seep into this time distortion then you're probably not going to be on that entertainment ride for in an enjoyable way you'll probably feel like oh this just feels boring but if you instead allow it to seep over you and allow yourself to move or think almost at a different speed it's an amazing amazing experience so i feel like pink floyd is doing something really similar here and these are descending arpeggios and you hear them shifting every now and then but they're not shifting by a really large amount let me go back and listen to that [Music] but i can't hear what you say [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] i it looks like we've got some more backing harmonies from the other ladies in that group now and i again i think that this bed of sound is beautiful and the way that it's very very subtly shifting underneath but you have this melody that is so keen and interesting um it the melody and the way that has a falling away everything here seems to work with this idea of um distortion somehow of reality of time it's a fascinating combo and i had no idea that the depths that could be found in often it feels like these are simple things but the way that they've matched them it's created this brilliant depth and experience in a song that feels like somebody who just is having almost hallucinogenic experience i totally get why people think that this would be about drugs but it also makes sense that maybe this kid just has a 105 degree temperature [Applause] [Music] [Music] loving this circle of lights yes there's an amazing solo that's also happening the the lights are grabbing me and the way that they have the uh fog floating fog smoke floating through it and sliding up uh also the gradients of color at one point it looked like we had the channel colors up there i love the way it can tilt as well such a fun stage design also i would be so scared to be underneath it i always have a fear of lights falling um i'm on stage don't tell [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] it's uh very interesting to still continue to think about how are they sustaining the sound how are they sort of lifting us out of maybe a normal perception of time how are they slowing down time and i think it's still happening even though we have a drummer that just came out with a lot more energy right drumming often can really get our hearts beating faster which might feel like time is speeding up or slowing down possible in either direction uh and even though you have a guitar player who is really just killing it in this solo underneath you still have these paddle sounds these sounds that are sustained the whole time you still have these quartz which are switching very very very slowly and uh like the base is not super active basically the stuff underneath is fairly stagnant and that creates this feeling of just floating along having like really cool happenings but it's ultimately uh it's just wafting it's really cool i love it [Music] hmm like a huge disco ball [Music] wow this this stadium is so enormous i did not get the sense of how big it was initially from the video and oh my goodness this is such a huge place to play into i'm really curious how many thousands of people are there and what is this this big light in the middle this globe is it is it a big disco ball um very interesting to see how they're lighting it from different angles you know looks like mostly below and so that lower light would then ping off to go to some of the upper stuff but if you wanted to ping off and get something down there i guess it all depends on the angles as well on the wall but it's uh it is very interesting to me that they've got specific light sources that are coming towards it from below and the sides [Music] [Applause] [Music] what [Applause] oh this is such weird sounds [Applause] you you guys know that to me sometimes certain slides and when it's like between pitches um if they're really leaning into it it just has a visceral effect it kind of makes me shiver and this like rare kind of sound that keeps happening and there's two instruments that are doing it back and forth to each other is uh it's it's so disturbing [Applause] [Music] [Applause] like we're really really off the train now whoa [Music] so [Applause] [Music] hmm oh no vocal coming back okay i have to tell you i thought the vocal was going to come back but i loved that it didn't this makes so much more sense because the that instrumental experience for me had so much drive this consistent growing behind it i didn't want to be soothed by a vocal at that point it felt like the instrumental was taking me somewhere uh deeper and disturbed and and the vocal was smooth the vocal had that feeling of the more numbness to it and oh i'm so fascinated and i feel like it was the right decision to not have a vocal come back in at the end i like this progression and this feeling that we went somewhere else that was beyond the numbness but we still maybe somehow had the the numbness on the top layer but went somewhere underneath it wow what what a cool direction and song that was brilliant i love this evolution of the song i loved this intro and the way that they had the vocals harmonizing but not quite and speak singing in there it was almost like you had tons of different voices going in your head really took you into the the trip already there and uh the feeling of the almost you know it could have been like a rise in temperature even at the end as the instrumental was just growing and growing in volume and then became disturbing with those slides and different ways of playing the instruments that felt like not necessarily the pure way of playing but felt distorted that was so troublesome i can see why we wouldn't want that smooth voice afterwards but wow his voice delivered a beautiful message in the middle of it that really gave you an idea to put this experience to i love that we can extrapolate that experience from his childhood and say oh as an adult maybe i experienced this trip from x y or z you know name whatever it is it was amazing and it was brilliant to hear how they use those musical elements to convey this experience wow just wow i did not get pink floyd before but i feel like after just digging my teeth into one song i'm blown away and uh and definitely wanting to hear more so please please down in the comments suggest more songs for me to listen to um really if you put your suggestions in the comments that is the best place for us to see them or through patreon we do have a great group of patrons they're the reason that i'm listening to the song today and we do things like playlist beat saber or patron suggestions for youtube so if you want to join that community they are amazing amazing people you can also find me here and chat with me every monday tuesday and friday at 8 a.m arizona time that's when we have live premieres and a really fun chat during those premieres or you can find me at thecharismaticvoice.com if you want to take any lessons and voice or singing or just music in general there are courses on that there i hope to see you somewhere soon you

Channel: The Charismatic Voice

Views: 1,356,403

Keywords: pink floyd, reaction video, the charismatic voice, comfortably numb, david gilmour, roger waters, vocal coach reacts, pink floyd reaction, voice teacher reacts, opera singer reacts, elizabeth zharoff, pink floyd live, david gilmour comfortably numb, pink floyd comfortably numb, pink floyd comfortably numb reaction, pink floyd comfortably numb reaction video, roger waters reaction, roger waters comfortably numb, comfortably numb live reaction

Id: nS7oZZLZQA8

Length: 30min 12sec (1812 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021