Singing Guide: Tommy Dorsey
Vocal technique, exercises, tips and relevant resources
To learn singing like Tommy Dorsey, one must know what made him unique. Tommy was known for his smooth phrasing and vibrato on ballads, as well as his fast and precise trumpet playing.
To begin emulating Tommy's singing style, it is important to have a solid understanding of breathing techniques to maintain control over your overall tone, rhythm, dynamics, and vibrato.
Singing Carrot's blog on breathing basics is a great place to start. By enhancing your breathing technique, you can develop greater dynamic control, adding nuance to your ballad performances such as Tommy was known for.
To improve your fast-paced technique, practice using Singing Carrot's Pitch Training - Educational Singing Game to gain precision in pitch and rhythmic control. Tommy mastered his instrument of choice, and by doing so allowed him to produce compositions with greater control, agility and speed.
Another aspect of mastering Tommy's unique style is understanding the nuances and emotions involved in his songs. The Singing Carrot's blog on singing with intuition, skills, emotion, and thinking provides helpful tips and exercises to work on each of these aspects and cultivate well-rounded musicality.
Tommy Dorsey's iconic ballad, "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," showcases his signature style and is a great song to study to embrace his unique tone, phrasing, vibrato, and overall emotional delivery. Singing Carrots' songbook can help you find other songs in Tommy's range and vocal style with their search feature.
For trumpet players, Tommy's precise fingerings, embouchure, and mastery of the instrument made him a jazz legend. Here, Singing Carrot's vocal pitch monitor can be a helpful tool for tracking your own trumpet playing, helping you refine your phrasings, melody, and overall trumpet performance.
To conclude, proper training supported by the use of progressive tools such as Singing Carrots' search features, exercises, and tips on artist technique can go a long way in helping you learn the techniques of Tommy Dorsey.