section_path: Musical style and development/Vocals
section_name: Vocals
paragraph_text: Vocals
  
  Brian identified each member individually for their vocal range, once detailing the ranges for Carl, Dennis, Jardine (" progress upwards through G, A, and B"), Love ("can go from bass to the E above middle C"), and himself ("I can take the second D in the treble clef "). He declared in 1966 that his greatest interest was to expand modern vocal harmony, owing to his fascination with a voice to the Four Freshmen, which he considered a "groovy sectional sound". He added: "The harmonies that we are able to produce give us a uniqueness which is really the only important thing you can put into records – some quality that no one else has got. I love peaks in a song – and enhancing them on the control panel. Most of all, I love the human voice for its own sake." For a period, Brian avoided singing falsetto for the group, saying: "I thought people thought I was a fairy... the band told me, 'If that's the way you sing, don't worry about it.'"
  
  In the group's early recordings, from lowest intervals to highest, the group's vocal harmony stack usually began with Love or Dennis, followed by Jardine or Carl, and finally Brian on top, according to Jardine, while Carl said that the blend was Love on bottom, Carl above, followed by Dennis or Jardine, and then Brian on top. Jardine explains: "We always sang the same vocal intervals.... As soon as we heard the chords on the piano we'd figure it out pretty easily. If there was a vocal move envisioned, he'd show that particular singer that move. We had somewhat photographic memory as far as the vocal parts were concerned so that never a problem for us." Striving for perfection, Brian insured that his intricate vocal arrangements exercised the group's calculated blend of intonation, attack, phrasing, and expression. Sometimes, he would sing each vocal harmony part alone through multi-track tape.
  
  had a hand in a lot of the arrangements. He would bring out the funkier approaches, whether to go shoo-boo-bop or bom-bom-did-di-did-did. It makes a big difference, because it can change the whole rhythm, the whole color and tone of it.
  
  On the group's blend, Carl said: " has a beautifully rich, very full-sounding bass voice. Yet his lead singing is real nasal, real punk. 's voice has a bright timbre to it; it really cuts. My voice has a kind of calm sound. We're big oooh-ers; we love to oooh. It's a big, full sound, that's very pleasing to us; it opens up the heart." Rock critic Erik Davis wrote: "The 'purity' of tone and genetic proximity that smoothed their voices was almost creepy, pseudo- castrato, a ' barbershop ' sound." Jimmy Webb said: "They used very little vibrato and sing in very straight tones. The voices all lie down beside each other very easily – there's no bumping between them because the pitch is very precise." According to Brian, " Jack Good once told us, 'You sing like eunuchs in a Sistine Chapel ', which was a pretty good quote." Writer Richard Goldstein reported that, according to a fellow journalist who asked Brian about the black roots of his music, Brian's response was: "We're white and we sing white." Goldstein added that when he asked where his approach to vocal harmonies had derived from, Wilson answered: 'Barbershop'."
  
  Brian identified each member individually for their vocal range, once detailing the ranges for Carl, Dennis, Jardine (" progress upwards through G, A, and B"), Love ("can go from bass to the E above middle C"), and himself ("I can take the second D in the treble clef "). He declared in 1966 that his greatest interest was to expand modern vocal harmony, owing to his fascination with a voice to the Four Freshmen, which he considered a "groovy sectional sound". He added: "The harmonies that we are able to produce give us a uniqueness which is really the only important thing you can put into records – some quality that no one else has got. I love peaks in a song – and enhancing them on the control panel. Most of all, I love the human voice for its own sake." For a period, Brian avoided singing falsetto for the group, saying: "I thought people thought I was a fairy... the band told me, 'If that's the way you sing, don't worry about it.'"
  
  In the group's early recordings, from lowest intervals to highest, the group's vocal harmony stack usually began with Love or Dennis, followed by Jardine or Carl, and finally Brian on top, according to Jardine, while Carl said that the blend was Love on bottom, Carl above, followed by Dennis or Jardine, and then Brian on top. Jardine explains: "We always sang the same vocal intervals.... As soon as we heard the chords on the piano we'd figure it out pretty easily. If there was a vocal move envisioned, he'd show that particular singer that move. We had somewhat photographic memory as far as the vocal parts were concerned so that never a problem for us." Striving for perfection, Brian insured that his intricate vocal arrangements exercised the group's calculated blend of intonation, attack, phrasing, and expression. Sometimes, he would sing each vocal harmony part alone through multi-track tape.
  
  had a hand in a lot of the arrangements. He would bring out the funkier approaches, whether to go shoo-boo-bop or bom-bom-did-di-did-did. It makes a big difference, because it can change the whole rhythm, the whole color and tone of it.
  
  On the group's blend, Carl said: " has a beautifully rich, very full-sounding bass voice. Yet his lead singing is real nasal, real punk. 's voice has a bright timbre to it; it really cuts. My voice has a kind of calm sound. We're big oooh-ers; we love to oooh. It's a big, full sound, that's very pleasing to us; it opens up the heart." Rock critic Erik Davis wrote: "The 'purity' of tone and genetic proximity that smoothed their voices was almost creepy, pseudo- castrato, a ' barbershop ' sound." Jimmy Webb said: "They used very little vibrato and sing in very straight tones. The voices all lie down beside each other very easily – there's no bumping between them because the pitch is very precise." According to Brian, " Jack Good once told us, 'You sing like eunuchs in a Sistine Chapel ', which was a pretty good quote." Writer Richard Goldstein reported that, according to a fellow journalist who asked Brian about the black roots of his music, Brian's response was: "We're white and we sing white." Goldstein added that when he asked where his approach to vocal harmonies had derived from, Wilson answered: 'Barbershop'."