Singing Guide: Johnny Marks
Vocal technique, exercises, tips and relevant resources
Johnny Marks is one of the most celebrated American composers of Christmas songs, having penned many classics that have adorned the holiday season.
His most renowned song is "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which he wrote in 1949. Although most people associate Marks with Christmas music, he wrote other songs throughout his career.
The first step towards learning to sing like Johnny Marks is to examine his songbook. Along with "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Marks' most notable songs were "Run, Rudolph, Run" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." These songs' melodies are simplistic, making them perfect starting points for beginners.
Johnny Marks' singing style is fundamentally bluesy and soulful. His songs contain high notes and lots of vibratos. Brenda Lee's version of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" provides a fantastic example of Johnny Marks' vocal approach. Lee accents her vocal performance with confidence, bravado, fiery energy, and emotion. Her ability to execute vocal runs and belt out tunes is awe-inspiring. To learn to sing as Johnny Marks, you'll need to work hard to perfect your pitch, articulation, and delivery.
Adequate breath support is essential in Johnny Marks-style singing. To master breath support, start with Singing Carrots' educational singing course comprising of 21 lessons that cover vocals theory and practical tips. The course includes exercises and demonstrations of proper breathing techniques, warm-ups, range-boosting drills, and vibrato development.
To correctly render Marks' high notes and vibratos, you'll need to master pitching. Singing Carrots offers a pitch accuracy test, as well as pitch training, which involves interactive vocal warm-ups, pitch visualizer, and drills for enhancing range and agility. Additionally, the Singing Carrots pitch monitor records and displays your notes on a virtual piano, enabling you to compare and adjust your tone.
It's also crucial to work on voice register to achieve Marks' soulful style. Vocal registers and the vocal break play a key role in developing vibrato and high-pitched notes to convey soulful melodies. Singing Carrots' mixed voice and chest voice video demonstration gives a deep insight into these techniques for creating soulful melodies.
In summary, singing like Johnny Marks requires a lot of practice, dedication, and soulful expression. You'll need to perfect breath support, pitch accuracy and work on your chest voice, mixed voice, and vibrato. Referencing Singing Carrots' educational singing course, range tests, vocal pitch monitor, and chest voice/mixed voice demonstrations will greatly improve your ability to incorporate Johnny Marks-style soulful singing into your performances.