Dan & Phil part 27: Let's Go Home

[mio]

[offtopic]

I have no idea why I still watch shane but yeah.
Dan mention at 3:25 - 4:00

[/offtopic]

[internetakeover]

Thanks so much for the song/voice analysis post dezzawintz, it was really interesting and well explained! I'd only noticed the really heavy 't's towards the end of the song before so that's cool to hear throughout now, and I never would have spotted Dan's extra breath in a million listens! Do you think time for an extra breath could be part of why the pause between the last 'real' and 'mate' is so long? I had guessed it was to do with Phil's sliding maybe, but pretty much all of my music knowledge comes via siblings so I don't really have any idea.

also learning about 'passagio' just explained a lot of my vocal frustrations, so thanks again for that!

And oqua you are a gift, thank you so much for sharing so many wonderful compilations recently!!

[manged]

[offtopic]

I have no idea why I still watch shane but yeah.
Dan mention at 3:25 - 4:00

[/offtopic]

For those of you who'd rather not click, Shane says:

"Also danisnotonfire, if you want a taste of my whatchamacallit, call me. Although mine has a name, and its called *BLURGHH*"

[shoe]

Stand by for food tweets tomorrow kids.

Love the Lesters.

Because climbing a tree is really going to help him avoid a gorilla

Dezza

The Phil singing video that stands out for me is the one with him and Carrie.


2:03 lovely clear head voice

at 2:29 you can really hear how good his chest voice sounds when he's allowed to sing lower notes. Unfortunately it didn't suit the style of the tatinof song to show that off. He could make a wonderful base. It worked stylistically, but I do think it was a shame that The Internet Is Here was written so high for Phil that he went flat at the points where he was most exposed. (day and friend)

Phil falseto at 2:42 and 2:51
2:55 less confident at the top of his head voice
3:03 falsetto again
3:40 comfortable soft head voice

from 4:20 onwards you can hear the low notes resonating in Phil's chest. This is his base/baritone chest voice, which sounds lovely and he really didn't get the opportunity to show off in TATINOF.

He jumps up into falsetto to get the high note at 4:41, and doesn't get it perfectly in tune.
For the high note at 4:50 he goes up into falsetto again and this time hits (to my relatively un-trained ear) the same note as Carrie.
4:55 lovely tone on his head voice, even near the top of his range


I have quite a bit of experience with choral singing but no formal training, just a musical family some of whom have been formally trained and have talked to me a lot about singing. I've tried my best to get everything correct for this post, but I may be wrong about some things! Dezza please correct me if you see any mistakes! I want to learn from your brilliance!

[Artdefines06]

[offtopic]

I have no idea why I still watch shane but yeah.
Dan mention at 3:25 - 4:00

[/offtopic]

For those of you who'd rather not click, Shane says:

"Also danisnotonfire, if you want a taste of my whatchamacallit, call me. Although mine has a name, and its called *BLURGHH*"

Ok, I havent been a fan of DnP for long, so you guys will have to let me know if this is normal behavior or not. I only started noticing it from other guys after the diss track, but have male bi/gay youtubers and celebrities always hit on Dan like this?

Also I didnt see this pop up yet, its cute. These are two British youtube circles that don't often collide

[Galactic-Howell]

Oqua your dedication to compilations is appreciated.

I went off on one yesterday and did a whole musical analysis of their song and BiShoe said I should put my thoughts here so they're under the spoiler! I study music and have been training in various styles of singing for 12 years, so them releasing a song gave me an indescribable amount of joy. Honestly, I was having the time of my life; musical analysis and deppy at the same time makes my nerdy heart soar.

OKAY, buckle in friends; this is going to be a long one. First thing's first, I want to say that I'm incredibly impressed. I made a post about their singing last year on the website that shall not be named; I watched about a million videos of them singing for it and I have to say, they've come on LEAPS AND BOUNDS in a very short space of time and they should really be proud of themselves. Can't think who mentioned it now (sorry friend), but the Phantom of the Opera video is a great comparison point. It still sounds good but you can hear the improvement:



Dan has previously relied on his highest register in most of the available examples of them singing (known as falsetto). The only time I can think of where he didn't is this video:



He once said in a liveshow that he sings in his falsetto because he isn't a great singer, so I think he uses it as a coping mechanism. You can hear his lack of confidence in the banana clip, and he goes up to his falsetto at the end anyway. He's done really well to get out of the habit of doing it.

He also said in that liveshow that his voice was very "gappy", and that some areas of it sounded horrible. THAT'S TOTALLY A THING, everyone has that, even professional singers. It's known as the passaggio, and it's just a few notes in between each register that don't sound as nice as the rest of the voice. If you've ever heard people talk about head voice (high) and chest voice (low) the passaggio is the gaps inbetween those sections of the voice, so like: lowest voice --> few dodgy notes --> middle voice --> few dodgy notes --> high voice --> few dodgy notes --> falsetto.

It takes YEARS to fix it. It's been 12 years and mine is still hanging around. The range of the melody in 'The Internet Is Here' is actually quite big, so it would have been impossible to not have parts where their singing is weaker. It's almost 2 octaves, here's an audio representation of what that means:



I think Phil is the main victim of that here. Phil has a low voice type (baritone or bass) and the song is written for a high voice type (tenor). The order goes, from high to low:

Counter Tenor (sings falsetto)
Tenor (most low-voiced pop music, except Hozier lol)
Baritone
Bass
Contra-bass (very low and rare)

The song is bam smack in the tenor range, with Phil's solo at the beginning starting right at the bottom of it:


(he starts on the second yellow piano key on the left, and ends on the second black piano key to the right of the dot in the middle)

The song starts in a different key to the majority of it, because Phil's voice is lower than Dan's and it's his solo. (For anyone who cares, it starts in G major, Phil's solo finishes on V/the dominant, "sing it with a friend" (0:36), and then there's a small jazzy section on the dominant before they move up a semitone into Eb major; a move that I will ALWAYS associate with Westlife when they get up of their stools and the key changes. Anyone know what I'm talking about?)

#spon but I worked out the chords for the first half of the song on the piano and there's some really fun jazzy ones in there!

Also #spon2themax but you should totally follow me and also go 2 my youtube because I sing there and I don't know if you can tell but I love everything about singing

But yeah, Phil is the passaggio victim of it being put in a tenor range. Most musical theatre numbers for low voices are in a tenor range so it might have been a thematic decision, or perhaps Dan might have struggled with his lower register? It's a strange choice but I think they would have had the same struggles in any key because of the song having a fairly wide range and them not having a lot of time to polish it (like I said, it takes years to hone!). Now let's go on a journey where we listen to Phil's passaggio!



He goes flat where he struggles. Some examples: (0:15) "brighten up my day" - day is flat, (0:27) "how the show should end" - how is flat, (0:36) "sing it with a friend - friend is flat.

On "day"; can you hear that the sound is a bit strangled because he's stuck between his chest voice (low) and his head voice (high). What he should do is imagine he has to sit on the note from above rather than attack it from below, but I can literally hear his brain thinking "now is when I go high!" To be fair it is a run upwards so that's natural unless you do a lot of practice to kill the instinct; you can hear how much his voice wants to resonate in his forehead but he panics.

A noticeable one is when both he and Dan sing "when you've got lots of followers" - the fol in followers is FLAT (1:44), and it's especially noticeable because Dan isn't. He does it again the second time, and the third time but it's a lot better, and then his whole end run is a bit dodgy. NO SHAME though, he still sounds great and lord knows I'm pitchy af too after 12 years hahaha. I do want to reiterate that they've done an amazing job, but that doesn't stop my songstress ass analysing their voices. I quite like that it's a bit off tbh, and someone was going to have to sing some notes that they struggled with. Phil took one for the team.

They could both do with work on their support and breath control (same). Support is supporting the sound with mainly your diaphragm/stomach and various other body parts, and breath control is how long you can sustain a note/melody. The better your support, the better your breath control (breath control also includes how to breathe properly/when to breathe). That being said, Dan definitely has a cold affecting his singing; he takes a breath before "me" (1:15) and he didn't do that in the show.

I thought that having Dan sing the lower part and Phil sing the higher part at the end was an interesting choice and a stroke of genius tbh (now a Jimmy Jewell stan), because Dan's voice is higher than Phil's, but I suspect that Phil would be nervous about the harmony/more confident singing the tune. A good example of Dan naturally gravitating higher is this (1:15) (oh hey, Dan's falsetto):



(OT, but I find that singing moment so fascinating because they lose confidence but they didn't even make a mistake!)

ALSO a thing that's really making me laugh is how they pronounce their t's! They're so heavy; I reckon they learned it like that because it had to be audible in a theatre (someone said something a few pages ago about having to over-exaggerate your movements to make them visible to the audience and you also have to do it with speaking and singing). It's not right for a studio recording, but it's cute. Their pronunciation in general is really good, I didn't miss a single word! I find Phil's sliding issue interesting because his solution is to almost bite the sound away and shorten it, if that makes sense? It's noticeable at points but he did a great job of not going to either extreme the majority of the time.

I said it in the post on the website that shall not be named and I'll say it again: they both have really lovely, colourful, warm voices. Dan also has a MASSIVE range, which is probably why he notices so many gaps (not sure what it is, but it's big). If they wanted to, I'm sure they could be really skilled singers. I want Phil to be a bass in a choir, because his bass section is delicious. Imagine him singing this, I think I'd melt:



Dan could be anything from a counter tenor to a baritone, but he should be a counter tenor because there aren't many about. Example of a counter tenor here:



Goddd, It sends tingles all through my body, such a haunting voice type. Mmm.

Both of those dreams of mine would mean they'd have to train classically (there are a few classical styles, but the only one I know about is bel canto, meaning beautiful song in Italian. I think it's the most common classical type?? but I'm unsure so don't quote me on that). Deppy are doing a thing called belt singing which is a really common musical theatre style (think Carrie Hope Fletcher). The main difference between the two, other than the style, is that belt singing is about trying to sing all through the range in your chest voice, whereas bel canto is about changing technique in different sections of the voice (chest voice = low, head voice = high) and learning to do it smoothly. They're both hard techniques to master; singing is a lot harder than it looks.

ANYWAY, that's my analysis, woo! If anyone has any questions feel free to shoot them my way! I never know the balance between under and over explaining things so I'm sorry if this either made no sense to you or was super obvious information. I've gone over everything to check it but I might be wrong in places, so apologies for any inconsistencies!! I hope y'all have a gr8 day.

dezzawintz Thank you for this post, I also am a major music stan who sings in a choir so I appreciate the analysis

I honestly think both of the boys would be great with a bit more practice, again breath control and not straining to hit notes.

Phil really would make a great bass with more practice. We could seriously use him in my choir, there is literally 7 bass in a choir of over 40 people.

[mio]

Watching Dan in the totoro onsie

https://www.younow.com/danisnotonfire

[JoeAverage]

Stand by for food tweets tomorrow kids.

Love the Lesters.

Quoting Dan: "I love hearing about your family". They're all too cute

they are so precious LesterLove4Life

[dezzawintz]

internettakeover, you're so welcome, thank you for your nice comments! I think that pause is supposed to be in there for variation on the repeat. It sounds very musical theatre and also in the video they both look at each other in panic and Dan starts conducting Phil and brings him off on three so I think the pause was just a thing written in the score that they struggled getting and wanted to get right in the recorded version. I'm glad I've given you the knowledge of the bastard that is the passaggio! I remember finding out and being like... why has no one mentioned this yet???

BiShoe you're too kind, I'm just some loser on the internet who's special interest is what is essentially the yelling of the arts

All I'd say is that 2:03 definitely goes into head voice but starts in the chest, but the rest is 100% right to the best of my knowledge! Also 2:55 is THE FUNNIEST THING! For folks who don't know, that technique is called melisma (think Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera warbling all over the shop) and some voices are naturally geared towards it whereas some will struggle with it A LOT. My voice is not naturally inclined to do it and I had to practice a lot to make it more Carrie than Phil

Galactic-Howell, you're more than welcome! It was a pleasure, honestly. About him needing to join a choir: FOR REAL THOUGH, I'm almost angry at him for not helping some choir out with a bass register like that. WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHORAL MUSIC. I love all the musicians arriving, eee

[dans left hand]

cute little red patch

[fleur-de-lis]

I literally held my breath when he started talking about Tatinof Europe, and I think he basically said that it's not a lost cause but they'll only talk about it if it is actually happening? I had already given up on that.

[Diyes_Celine]

dezzawintz I am really tone deaf so I don't notice those things unless someone point it out. But wow. Very extensive and appreciated! It was like when I watch videos of people explaining the voice range of Pentatonix. (I can't recognize it. )

Yaaaas! Phil's voice! If only he'll take proper lessons, he can really do it. (He can replace Avi Kaplan. Jk.) During their musicale performance, Phil looked so natural on stage including his clumsy walk. Hahaha

LS: Yuri on Ice!!! It's like Dan and Phil AUs.
What is that box? Either they are really moving or they just really accumulated a lot of trash.

[mio]

I can't believe he beat me to watching both the new haikyuu eps AND yuri on ice. Why are they such sports anime fanboys I can't

"...and possibly really gay"

[hunnyftw]

Coming out of hibernation to thank dezzawintz Speaking as a person who doesn't know shit about singing can't sing at all but loves to do it nevertheless your post was both interesting and very understandable! I actually muted Dan's liveshow for a bit just to play the clips that you added to your analysis because I couldn't wait!

Also, may I just say that I found the tatinof video slightly cringey (but didn't see the show live) BUT I literally cannot stop listening to the Internet is here and danger men at work and also singing it along with them. I assume some of you may have a similar problem so please tell me, how do I stop this madness?

[kooshka]

I'm breaking my lurking mode just to say that i died when he mentioned Yuri on ice. The show is SO GAY that i kinda assumed he would mention it like, a few shows after this one. Not so soon. Anyways I'm happy because yoi is my fave thing and i like my fave people talking about my fave things.

[dans left hand]

oh.. hes ing the cake scene

[mio]

I really want to read the lyrics that the other guy wrote now

[dans left hand]

I really want to read the lyrics that the other guy wrote now

omg same so much. i was cringing and i don't know what the lyrics were

[papierklemmen]

... what the hell was that huffleppuff sock on his desk?

darla

[Moony]

what did that hufflepuff sock on dans table though??

[JoeAverage]

He can't just show us a hufflepuff sock without explaining anything else. i mean dan what the hell, are those yours? are they phils? why did you have them on your desk?! dear god explain

[dans left hand]

He can't just show us a hufflepuff sock without explaining anything else. i mean dan what the hell, are those yours? are they phils? why did you have them on your desk?! dear god explain

dan isn't a hufflepuff? phil is a hufflepuff?!

why would phil have taken his socks off and just thrown them around dans room?

[Galactic-Howell]

He can't just show us a hufflepuff sock without explaining anything else. i mean dan what the hell, are those yours? are they phils? why did you have them on your desk?! dear god explain

Well, Phil is a Hufflepuff.....

[Kathrynxjane]

He can't just show us a hufflepuff sock without explaining anything else. i mean dan what the hell, are those yours? are they phils? why did you have them on your desk?! dear god explain

dan isn't a hufflepuff? phil is a hufflepuff?!

why would phil have taken his socks off and just thrown them around dans room?

Dan did say that Phil likes to take his socks off and leave them all over the flat.!

[papierklemmen]

well that was boring.

highlights of the evening:

- yuri on ice
- a random hufflepuff sock
- pizza

i'm so over tatinof now, can it be post-tatinof era now? where is it? when is it? please