Singing Guide: The Ronettes
Vocal technique, exercises, tips and relevant resources
The Ronettes were an American girl group consisting of lead singer Veronica Bennett (later known as Ronnie Spector), her older sister Estelle Bennett, and their cousin Nedra Talley. The trio rose to fame in the early 1960s with hits like "Be My Baby", "Walking in the Rain", and "Baby, I Love You".
Ronnie Spector's voice is characterized by her powerful and soulful delivery, with a unique blend of sweetness and grit. To learn to sing like her, it is essential to focus on developing a strong and controlled voice. The following tips and exercises will help you get started:
- Warm up your voice: Before you start singing, it's important to warm up your voice with exercises like lip trills, humming, and sirens. The Farinelli Breathing exercise found in this video is an excellent way to get started and can be found in the provided list of videos.
- Work on your breath support and control: Breathing is a crucial part of singing, and good breath support and control are key to hitting those high notes with ease. Check out the Breath support and Respiration blog post and practice breathing exercises to improve your singing.
- Practice open-mouth singing: Opening your mouth wide while singing can help you produce a clearer and more resonant sound. You can also practice opening up your throat to enhance your performance, as covered in the Open Mouth and Throat blog post.
- Sing with emotion: Ronnie Spector is known for her ability to convey powerful emotions through her singing. Try to connect with the lyrics on an emotional level and allow that emotion to come through in your voice.
- Focus on a well-rounded musical education: The Singing Carrots website offers an extensive singing course that covers singing theory and practical tips for improving your technique, including a lesson on singing with intuition, skills, emotion, and thinking.
To improve your vocal technique and learn to sing like Ronnie Spector, listen to her songs and study her style. Pay attention to the way she uses dynamics, phrasing, and vocal intensity to create an unforgettable performance. Below are some songs that really showcase her unique vocal style:
- "Be My Baby"
- "Walking in the Rain"
- "Baby, I Love You"
- "Do I Love You?"
- "I Can Hear Music"
The Singing Carrots platform offers useful tools that can help you improve your singing skills, explore vocal ranges of various famous singers, and find songs matching your vocal range, difficulty, and genre preference. You can take advantage of the Vocal Pitch Monitor to see your sung notes on a virtual piano, and use the resources provided in the Voices, Emotions & Styles blog series to gain further insights.