Analysing Taylor Swift’s vocals in ‘Cruel Summer’ (steal her tricks!)

In this video, I analyze Taylor Swift’s vocals in ‘Cruel Summer’. For this blog post, I am focusing on three main vocal tools Taylor Swift used in ‘Cruel Summer’, which you can adopt today and use in many other songs to embellish them and to increase your vocal skills toolbox!

Enjoy!

1.Singing REALLY low notes!

The first part of the verse starts with a melody that doesn’t have too much of a wide range, which creates contrast with other parts of the song.

In the second part of the verse, Taylor makes use of the lower part of her vocal register. This is a resource that she uses in other songs too. This is a resource that is quite hard to master for high voices. Usually expanding the vocal range in the direction of lower notes is quite much harder than expanding the vocal range upward.

(Watch the video to see a demonstration of this vocal skill)

You don’t have to have a very strong voice in the lower notes. It’s enough to be able to reach it. You still have that nice effect that low notes give you. And that is because low notes are associated with lower, calming energy. Higher frequencies, on the other hand, are more ‘energizing’.  So this vocal skill can be used to play with those effects.

 To expand your vocal range downward, you need two things:

First, you need to strengthen your vocal muscle,  and second, you need to improve the way your vocal cords close together.

 If you are interested in expanding your range, I also have a chest voice workout that is going to help you with that. 

But for now, if you would like to sing this song and you are stuck in that part, you can to sing the melody with the vowel ‘UH’. This is a sound that  strengthens your chest voice naturally, so it’s going to give you more powerful lower notes.  Once you got the melody with this sound, try adding the lyrics and it should be easier.

2.Vocal slides

In Cruel Summer, Taylor Swift utilizes a common vocal resource known as ‘vocal slides’.

Watch the video to see the demonstration!

In this case, her vocal slides start in her chest voice and she slides them up to her chest voice, getting a smooth and connected sound.  

If you do proper singing training, you probably practice slides in some vocal warm-ups. And this is a way you can use it in songs as well. For some people, vocal slides are quite hard to do if you still don’t have a lot of flexibility in your voice. So going from your chest to your head voice in a slide requires that training.

If you find that the vocal slides within ‘Cruel Summer’ are hard to do, you can break it down and slow it down. It is also advisable to sing the slide with only one vowel at a time until you get the transition smoothly, then you can add the actual sounds in the song.

3.Vocal flips

The third vocal element that I want to show you today from the song ‘Cruel Summer’ by Taylor Swift is the ‘vocal flip’. 

(Watch the video to identify this part!)

To achieve this vocal effect, you need to be able to transition quickly from your chest voice to your head voice WITHOUT sliding. For that to happen, first you have to have a certain degree of mastery over those two vocal registers: chest voice and head voice

Learn to sing from a holistic and functional approach in Auckland or ONLINE from everywhere!

Explore our programs HERE

Don’t miss out on our singing videos!

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly original singing articles and videos, and to receive all the news about our latest online singing programs!