Greg Pritchard - Male Soprano on Britain's Got Talent

Some people, who encounter something unfamiliar to them, are open to learning and appreciating it. Other people, so set in their thinking and hindered by irrational beliefs, seem to be incapable of understanding and appreciating it.

In regard to intolerance of people who are different, or regarding ridicule or disdain for concepts or interests unfamiliar to the majority of people:

1. When superior people encounter superior concepts, they hold on to them. When middling people encounter superior concepts, they sometimes hold onto them and sometimes let go of them. When inferior people encounter superior concepts, they laugh at them; for they do not understand them. (Taoist paraphrase.)

2. One cannot fight ignorance with reason: Ignorance will not listen; and if it did, it would not understand. (Ashleigh Brilliant.)

Historically speaking, it is interesting that some people of the Baroque era, especially when conversing with their peers in public, expressed their discomfort with high male voices through ridicule; however, they were full of praise upon hearing those voices. The French liked to consider themselves different from and better than the Italians, disdaining high male voices and the Italian style of singing; yet when they heard them, they were ecstatic. Late in the era, even Napoleon, whose stated disapproval for the high male voice was well known, awarded one singer the highest French honor, much to the surprise and anger of his generals.

i think it WAS Crescentini and he became the singing teacher of the Emperor's family.

Have been mulling over the information about Greg's performance - can you explain more fully about the difficulty with diction for these particular singers? Is it a question of focussing on the sound rather than the meaning? - what is happening inside the head of the performer? - I ask as one who writes, sculpts and paints and is generally more visual than audial, I do not sing. I know that in creating visual art one shifts away from logic into a different mode of thinking - is this also what happens to a singer?

I think we singers probably go into a different state of mind. For me when I am fully into the aria/song I am singing, I lose sense of reality and basically it is me singing alone. Even if people are present.

c.

No it is a physical problem. Unfortunately, I am increasingly being cursed by it. I eventually decided to take a break from singing about a month ago as I was not even able to speak in a high voice anymore. Greg is simply having the lyrics a bit loose so they don't affect the sound too much. Did you listen to anything with Aris Christofellis? You will notice that he does this too although he got better with diction later in his career.

I would love to hear you sing one day.

c.

oh dear another question! - have read that Greg has a six octave range - and also read elsewhere that for a male soprano to sing bass may damage his voice. If he does have a six octave range, is that true? ( please excuse this barrage of questions - I'd rather ask you and get the answers from an expert).

I don't know how high he can sing. If he has a whistle register, a "6 octave range" could well be possible and same goes for if you count Overtone singing which he may well be able to do. However, I am quite certain that he is not a true bass but rather a baritone. If you listen to a bass's speaking voice you will find it to be much lower than Greg's voice. His usable range can probably not be more than A2 - A6 for a generous rough estimate which is 4 octaves. I'm not sure if I can answer your question regarding whether it's damaging for his voice to sing low. There are arias for soprano's that require the singer to go quite close to A2 so it's not really that low when you think of it like that. However, blending the chest voice with the higher voice can be hard for countertenors and sopranists. I know that Jaroussky didn't use his chest register much ( if at all? ) for the first years of his career. Also, the sopranist Aris Christofellis said that he could sing in a low voice but that he found it unnatural to do so.

I don't think there are any male sopranos who are also professional tenors or basses but Randall Wong is very well able to sing baritone although he is not really a baritone singer compared to those who specialize in that voice. Jacek Laszczkowski is another sopranist who sings tenor, but he doesn't really seem to be a good tenor and in fact, his tenor singing is more like from a pop singer than an opera singer in my honest opinion.

Hi

I have just sat through Britains got more talent as they announce who will be in the next show and Greg is NOT in the Thursday line up so if you want to see him sing again then you need to watch the last semi final which will be on

ITV Friday 8:30.

If we want to keep this beautiful genre in the public eye then perhaps we should watch and support him.

I originally found this site after watching Gregs audition and surfing the net for more info about him so I would like to say thanks for some very interesting and highly informative posts and also for the great links to music and singers elsewhere on the site - so glad I joined.

Bump: I dont know if anyone here was watching tonights Britains got more talent but they have just announced tomorrows 8 acts and they really appear to be playing down Gregs next appearance since all he got was an extremely short clip and no mention whatsoever.

There was so little of Gregs practice that it was hard to tell what he was going to sing tommorrow but if my ears didn't decieve its quite possibly a number from Freddie Mercurys Barcelona showing more of his range but the cut to and from Greg practicing was so short I cant be sure.

I am looking forward to tommorrow but from what they were saying on the programme they seem to have discounted him entirely and implied it will be between and 11 year old street dancer and an equally young girl dancer/singer; so I echo what I said last night in that if we want to keep this genre in the public eye then he will need all our support tomorrow.

I have posted it here: YouTube - Greg Pritchard - Britain's Got Talent Semi Final 5 2009
I don't think this performance was nearly as good as his first. In my opinion, he should have picked a piece in which his voice could have remained in the high register.

agreed this performance was not so good - too ambitious, and he lacked the joie de vivre which made the first so outstanding; - one newspaper report had suggested he was worried about 'sounding like a girl' - the online comments have been horrendous in many cases. At the same time he was facing hostile judges - see Amanda's comments to the press. I don't think Simon Cowell deserved the option of signing him on.
I do hope someone steps up with the skills and the money to help him develop the carreer for which he yearns. Can't wait for his first DVD. Will watch his progress with great interest.

Hi

I agree the performance wasn’t as good this time around but I don’t know whether that was because Greg was being over ambitious or as he said afterwards simply trying to prove to Simon Cowel he could do more than sing falsetto or whether it had more to do with a ridiculous cape that wasn’t attached properly and was threatening to pull him over while he was trying to concentrate on singing.

I have been watching the follow up programs and was surprised to find the artists don’t get any choice about the outfits worn in the semi finals instead they wear what they are given and I guess someone thought a massive black cape would provide a dramatic end to the show but personally I think it did Greg no favours at all.

That said I don’t believe a chance of song or outfit would have made the slightest difference to the end results because he was up against a little girl who had been so upset after letting her nerves get the better of her and it was clear that after all the tears and pleading she had the audience and the panels full sympathies and with these shows its usually the sympathy vote that scores over talent everytime you only have to look at John Sergeant in Strictly Come Dancing last year.

All the same I loved hearing his voice and its a shame Greg didn't get through but I am sure I read on the Wales online website he has recently been backed for a career in opera so hopefully this will provide him with the start he needs and if that’s the case I wish him the very best for the future.

I actually think he is not good at singing in chest voice so that was not very wisely said.

Getting out of that show is not a bad thing for him, but I would very much have liked that he stayed a while longer for the audience's sake. If he could have impressed them again, they might have taken further steps to inform themselves about high male voices.

I will try to keep an eye on him. I think he has potential and it would be great if he learned to appreciate baroque music more.

Hi!

I just got attention on Greg Pritchard. I wasn't really interested in male soprano voice.
I am a normal male tenor, however I have never learned high male soprano, but I can do it.
Would you mind checkin me out, and tell me what you think?
YouTube - Nessun Dorma - Mark Taborosi (Contra-Tenor Demonstration)

I have never been taught for this. Next to this, my goal is to sing on my "normal tenor" voice, you can check out the other songs (Pop,Rock,R&B,musical)
I am not castrated, check out my channel's other songs or myspace
http://www.myspace.com/sunridermark