Mariah Carey: how she hits those highs
You may love Mariah Carey's voice, or you may loathe it, but one thing's undeniable: she can reach higher notes than nearly any other human singer. After nearly 30 years in the spotlight the 45-year-old is taking on Vegas with her show, Mariah Carey #1 to Infinity, in which she'll perform all 18 of her chart-topping tracks together for the first time for 18 shows at the city's Colosseum.
On record, Carey's vocal range spans five octaves: from F2 at the lowest end, on her song Sweetheart, to G7 on her track Emotions, her highest recorded note. Her range may be marginally smaller than that of Axl Rose, Guns and Roses' glissando frontman, but she is by far the highest pitched contemporary pop singer of our time: a survey carried out last year found Christina Aguilera second to her with C#7.
In 2003, Carey entered the Guinness Book of World Records for reaching G#7, a note higher than her recorded peak on Emotions, while singing The Star-Spangled Banner live in 2002. This put her on a par with dolphins, since, biologically speaking, they're the only mammals with the lung-structure capable of reaching the same pitch - one high enough to counter electric currents and speak through water.
Some have debated her talents - claiming that her highest note is nearer F#7, the next note down, and that she achieved it during another performance - but Mariah's ability to enter the whistle register, as it's known, is nonetheless phenomenal.
Carey's speaking voice is relatively low, which explains why she's able to reach deeper notes and sing in husky tones as well as a high, clear soprano. But the whistle register has been something she has worked on for a lifetime. She explained in 1998 that the range is the result of nodules on her vocal cords - normally something that considerably hampers a singer's career, but which Carey uses to "have the high register and the belting register and still be husky".
"A lot of people couldn't sing through the nodules the way I do," she said, "I've learned to sing through my vocal cords. It's a certain part of the cord that not many people use - the very top." She's had the nodules since childhood, and used them then to talk in a "really high whisper", before training herself to sing in a really high whisper, too.
Age has not, however, aided Carey's range. Even some fan sites have noted a new coarseness among her higher belted notes, and a video of her performing her famous festive track, All I Want For Christmas Is You, in December was hardly flattering. And, of course, she reaches her high notes with the aid of a microphone, a tool that is never used by opera singers.
In fact, says the Telegraph's opera critic, Rupert Christiansen, anybody who tries to stretch their range as far as Carey without electronic help risks doing permanent damage to their vocal cords. "A singing coach can help you stretch the muscles a bit further," he says. "But you wouldn't want to go too far." But those Colosseum ticket-holders will hardly care. After all, this is a woman who turns a mere band introduction into an octave-spanning show-stealer. (Telegraph)
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