It was no surprise to me to see Christine Aguilera have a poor live performance at the Super Bowl. It was only a matter of time when this would happen. We all know she messed up the lyrics, but that’s not what I’m referring to.

Christine’s voice is a prime example of a voice deteriorating with age from vocal abuse. And, how old is she…she’s 30. She was unable to perform the anthem with a build up to the highest note, and instead had to “flip” into head voice. She’s in the key of F with the starting note being F below middle C. This is not a high key for this song! She is belting through her first bridge as usual, and when the big finale comes to get to high C she can’t do it, she has to flip. This is just a high C and a “flat” high C at that. Good singers in a good mix can belt to a high C with ease.

This is such a common problem among singers. Singers will try and copy the vocal power of their favourite artists the wrong way, and wonder why they can’t hit a note above an A without getting into trouble. And furthermore, all this poor singing is continually deteriorating their voice.

Let’s hope Christine Aguilera figures out how to mix better and not over-perform when singing live, or we won’t be seeing her perform live at all. She won’t be able to risk the possibility of her vocal cords not being able to hold firm through all that yelling.  In her youth she could scream her way through a high C, but not anymore, or at least not as easily. 

It will be interesting to see how she performs at the Grammys. Comments are welcome. Susie