Songs where the singer vocalizes the instruments
November 24, 2015 8:55 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for songs where the singer vocalizes part of the instruments in the song.

There's probably a term for it and Googling it is proving to be challenging.

Like Suzanne Vega in Tom's Diner or Regina Spektor in All The Rowboats (mimicing the drums).

Any examples you could throw my way would be appreciated - can be any genre.
posted by Twicketface to Media & Arts (56 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin
posted by LionIndex at 9:00 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Bobby McFerrin is famous for this. Michael Jackson did it a bunch as well. On Kid A, Thom Yorke's voice was often making nonsense syllables, although not a recognizable instrument. Rahzel from the Roots is known for beatboxing.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:02 AM on November 24, 2015


You mean George Benson?
posted by humboldt32 at 9:05 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


This seems like it might be in the ballpark of what you're looking for: Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye scatting what would otherwise be an instrumental break.

There's a list of other scat singers on Wikipedia that might lead you to more examples.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:09 AM on November 24, 2015


The first one that comes to mind for me is The Who's "A Quick One" where they sing "cello cello cello" where cellos were supposed to come in, but it didn't work out so they sang it.

Also maybe Petra Haden's cover of The Who Sell Out where she sings all the part - vocals and instruments. Here's "I Can See For Miles".
posted by kendrak at 9:11 AM on November 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


Queen's Seaside Rendezvous

(Wikipedia paraphrase): The song's "musical" bridge section was performed entirely by Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor using their voices alone. Mercury imitates woodwind instruments including a clarinet. Roger uses mainly brass instruments such as tubas and trumpets, and even a kazoo. The tap dance segment is also "performed" by Mercury and Taylor on the mixing desk with thimbles on their fingers.
posted by The Deej at 9:12 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Since looping became simple and popular, more artists than you think do this in some way or another. It can be subtle--Annie Lenox vocalizes one of the percussive beats in No More I Love You's, which you can hear clearly in the first feww seconds. Of course, sometimes it's blindingly front and center, the opposite of subtle. I'm thinking of ubiquitous 80s track Oh Yeah by Yello. Chk-ah-chk-ahh.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 9:14 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Air. J.S. Bach Bobby Mcferrin.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:16 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


There's always "beatboxing", which is where the singer vocalizes the percussion.

Also, you may want to check out the group Pentatonix.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:16 AM on November 24, 2015 [3 favorites]


This entire song: Wee B.DoinIt by Qunicy Jones and Various Artists. Even the lyrics are about vocalizing the instruments.
posted by girlmightlive at 9:18 AM on November 24, 2015


Oh! I even have a good example for Pentatonix -

When Tom Hanks was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor last year, they had Pentatonix come in to perform the song "That Thing You Do" with some updated lyrics. An actual band joins in towards the end, but at the beginning it's all them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:19 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]




Old timey, but the Mills Brothers were known for this. Listening to the recordings, you'd think they had an accompanying brass ensemble, but it was just the four singers and their voices.
posted by bepe at 9:22 AM on November 24, 2015


Then there's Vocal Sampling, a group who vocalize all the instruments.

Hotel California. Check out the vocalized "guitar" solo at 4:18.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:26 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also, check out Metafilter's own Eideteker's vocal take on the Knight Rider theme.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:29 AM on November 24, 2015


Perhaps not quite what you had in mind, but there is also Van Canto - Wishmaster
posted by cantthinkofagoodname at 9:30 AM on November 24, 2015


Moxy Früvous does some of that.
posted by cabingirl at 9:42 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Todd Rundgren's album A Cappella; he sampled a lot, but it's all his voice.

In the vein of Pentatonix, you really have to check out the (Tufts) Beelzebubs' rendition of Peter Gabriel's Digging In the Dirt and maybe their version of "Come Sail Away" by Styx (couldn't find a good Youtube recording of it though).
posted by kindall at 9:47 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Zoot Suit Riot has a vocalist doing a call and response with the brass section (starting here)
posted by 256 at 9:49 AM on November 24, 2015


Violin and The Bells Are Ringing by They Might Be Giants come to mind
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:49 AM on November 24, 2015


In case you are interested, the inverse of that is called Vocalese - in which jazz singers sing lyrics for music that was originally instrumental. Here's an example of The Manhattan Transfer employing Vocalese in Birdland.
posted by Lokheed at 9:54 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


Karrin Allyson does this often. This video is mostly scatting, but you could certainly argue that she's scatting instead of having an instrumental solo.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:59 AM on November 24, 2015


In Pink Floyd's Sheep they do some really neat things to use vocals to mix into electrical instruments, blending the two together.
posted by poe at 10:11 AM on November 24, 2015


Don't know how close you want to get to beatboxing, but Dokaka makes all sorts of insane covers of metal/rock/videogame music using only his face!
posted by oh.ghoulin at 10:14 AM on November 24, 2015


Some Nights by fun has an autotuned vocal "guitar solo" at about 4:15.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:16 AM on November 24, 2015


The intro to Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk" (the soundtrack to this amazeballs video) does exactly this.
posted by asterix at 10:17 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Weezer's El Scorcho has a sung guitar solo.
posted by Sleddog_Afterburn at 10:21 AM on November 24, 2015


Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians has some parts that are vocal, where the vocalists are mostly just saying "ooh" at different pitches. By parts, I don't mean sections of the composition, but voice is just one of the instruments used. Since it's a minimalist composition, none of the instruments are really playing any kind of melody; they're more contributing to the overall textural feel of the piece. I think "Drumming", also by Reich, has some similar stuff going on in its last couple sections.
posted by LionIndex at 10:33 AM on November 24, 2015


If you like the Pentatonix-type arrangements, there are a ton of a cappella groups doing this (usually covers of pop hits). Check out one of the "Best of College Acappella" (BOCA) compilations.

The Tufts Beelzebubs have a great rendition of U2's Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (not on BOCA).
posted by tracer at 10:37 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Tim Finn in Split Enz's My Mistake vocalizes along with the trumpet solo starting around 1:30.
posted by the return of the thin white sock at 10:53 AM on November 24, 2015 [2 favorites]


All of the songs on Björk's album Medúlla consist primarily or entirely of human vocalizations. Many of those vocal sounds are electronically processed or sampled, and they also don't always sounds like instruments, but most (all?) of the songs have some unprocessed sounds made by humans sounding like instruments. One of the clearest examples is the trumpet sound in Triumph of the Heart.
posted by lesli212 at 10:58 AM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix features Jimi singing along with his guitar and a kazoo.
posted by wabbittwax at 11:03 AM on November 24, 2015




Pretty much anything by Pat Metheny fits the bill
posted by bifter at 11:14 AM on November 24, 2015


On R.E.M.'s early albums, Michael Stipe's enunciation is so (intentionally) poor that his vocals are often considered another instrument.
posted by mkultra at 11:18 AM on November 24, 2015


The Roots - ? v. Rahzel
posted by stinker at 12:18 PM on November 24, 2015


Van Morrison, Blue Money
posted by newmoistness at 12:53 PM on November 24, 2015


Mike Patton - Adult Themes for Voice

Lots of other Mike Patton stuff, too.
posted by Huck500 at 12:58 PM on November 24, 2015


The popularizers of the vocalese style in jazz were Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Here's Twisted and Cloudburst from The Hottest New Band In Jazz.
posted by nicwolff at 1:13 PM on November 24, 2015


Personal favorite: once Ben Folds started touring without the horn section, he started having the audience sing the horn bridge in "Army" in concert.
posted by dust.wind.dude at 3:24 PM on November 24, 2015 [1 favorite]


Martin Sexton does this quite a bit and it's lovely. "Beast in me" comes to mind, but he does it basically on every live recording.
posted by danapiper at 3:48 PM on November 24, 2015


88 Lines About 44 Women - The Nails

The Longest Time - Billy Joel

You could also look on YouTube for videos of a capella groups, barbershop quartets, and doo wop groups - all of them do this.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:21 PM on November 24, 2015


The Doors: Cars Hiss By My Window. Jim Morrison's vocal blues guitar solo.
posted by Clustercuss at 4:23 PM on November 24, 2015


Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but it was the first thing that came to my mind

Original song "Jijiji"
Version

Hope you like it!
posted by divina_y_humilde at 4:43 PM on November 24, 2015


To go way back, the Comedian Harmonists.
posted by gteffertz at 7:24 PM on November 24, 2015






Jazz singer Cleo Laine used to vocally noodle along with husband John Dankworth's saxophone. It was a fantastic thing to hear them go back and forth.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:04 PM on November 24, 2015


Jazz singer Emilie Claire Barlow does this in several of her songs. She sings the piano solo on a cover of Sting's La Belle Dame Sans Regret. Also the whole of Stolen Moments (the link to which isn't working for some reason, but you can find the full album here).

Kimbra's Plain Gold Ring and Settle Down feature this kind of thing, but more as supporting instrumentals (with regular vocals tracked over it) vs. singing the instrumental solo only. Lori Cullen does this a bit too on her cover of Destiny Child's Emotion.

I don't know what the correct term for this is, but came across a Wiki article on "Non-lexical vocables in music" that was interesting.
posted by miss_kitty_fantastico at 9:11 PM on November 24, 2015


Chris Wood's double bass solo in Syeeda's Song Flute might be my favorite example of this. Starts around 3:33
posted by STFUDonnie at 4:33 AM on November 25, 2015


Response by poster: Cripes! Tons of music to check out and links to explore. Thanks everyone for sharing!!
posted by Twicketface at 8:58 AM on November 25, 2015


Jazz singers do this a lot and one of my favorite examples of this is from an EPIC 23 minute-long live recording of Angel Dust by Gil Scott Heron on the Ultimate Jazz Collection album (which is fantastic start to finish). He starts trading 4s with the sax player and throws in a quote of Eleanor Rigby that always makes me lose it. Whole album is free to stream if you have Amazon Prime; I couldn't find this particular recording on YouTube.
posted by smirkette at 9:58 AM on November 25, 2015


Stereolab - The Noise of Carpet?
posted by Lucinda at 3:21 PM on November 25, 2015


There's a bit of that in Wish You Were Here.
posted by klanawa at 11:26 AM on November 27, 2015


goodman and prine. so fine.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QUSQJQml40
posted by oigocosas at 9:09 PM on November 27, 2015


I caught Enya talking about this during a radio interview a few weeks ago. She referred to it as "lilting", after a form of Irish vocal folk music designed to get around religious laws banning musical instruments.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:35 PM on December 12, 2015


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