Transcript
Hi I’m Cari Cole. I’m a celebrity vocal coach and artist development expert. And I help artist find their voice, craft their music, and create successful music careers. I’ve worked with Donald Fagen from Steely Dan, Courtney Love from Hole, I’ve worked with the band Journey. I’m going to teach you how to be a better singer and performer
So I’m going to talk for just a minute about how to sing like Christina Aguilera, take a look at her voice and what the qualities are that make her Christina. She is one of the more popular singers today. I think primarily because of her riffs and her runs. And she’s really based in blues and in R&B. And her phrasing is just sublime. Just, she really, truly is an incredible singer
So one of the things, you know, if you’re wanting to emulate her and have more of her sound is right away you need to sing blues. You need to sing older blues songs. Listen to Aretha Franklin, Mavis Staples. Get into that. And also really listen to Christina and sing with her. She is the queen of riffing today. And she will show you all the riffs and runs. Sometimes she does them so fast, they’re even hard for a professional like myself to hear. I gotta slow them down. I gotta really pull them apart. But there’s so much to learn from her.
So if you want to sing more like her, it really is that soulful element that you are looking for. And so I recommend you listen to her Back To Basics record, which is the record where she really gets more into blues. And that’s a great place to start to really give you that foundation. And again, she is going to show you all the riffs and runs. And just study them. Take one song every week or every two weeks even, and break it down. And really learn what she did.
So for instance, one of my young students was 13 years old. Came to me. And she was singing musical theory at the time, but wanted to be a pop singer. This is the transitional period that a lot of singers come to me in, and they want to sound more pop. And so she had gone to an audition, and one of her friends was at the audition as well said to her you’ll never sound like pop. You don’t know how to riff. You don’t know how to do runs. And she just panicked. And she went home and started really listening to pop singers and studied Christina Aguilera in particular. And within six months she was riffing. And this is the best way to learn riffs.
Christina really is the queen of it. So, you want to sound more like her. Really, really learn her runs. This is probably the most important thing that you can learn with her, besides the amazing emotional expression that she has. But they are not mutually exclusive. Those two qualities go together. You know, having more soul is having more rhythm and more riffs in your voice.
So, I hope this helps you sing a little bit more like the queen, Christina.
