Faye Wong and Jack Ma are singing 《The Cloud Knows?》recently. This song was originally sung by Taiwanese female singer Valen Hsu in 1996. There are many cover versions throughout 24 years. But it is the first time that I find a duet version. Please note that the original key is A Major. But the duet version is lowered by a whole tone, transposed to G Major. This changes the highest note from E5 to D5. You may not know that the highest note among Faye Wong’s songs is D5. So I believe that they transposed to G major so that Faye Wong didn’t need to sing the note E5 which falls into the female 2nd passage. Well! Let us see how are their performance.
【Text Version】
Faye Wong singing Verse 1 After transposing, the vocal range in Verse 1 stays in female’s chest register. Faye Wong sing this part definitely with ease, and sing with a soft tone as usual. As the key has been lowered, there is a low note E3, that note is the word ”靜”. Most ladies will find this note (E3) too low which is hard to sing out loud. But Faye Wong can sing it very easily.
Jack Ma singing Verse 2
Please note that Verse 2, in many Cantopop and Mandopop duet songs, male singers usually sing an octave lower than female singers. But Jack Ma is singing in the same octave as female in this song. That range covers both 1st and 2nd passage of male singer. That is to say, he need to sing mix voice. It needs blending in more head voice element. In terms of vocal technique, Jack Ma has improved a lot in these 3 to 4 years. The improvement in sense of rhythm might be due to singing in Karaoke box, he can see the colour change of lyrics. However, you may feel that his tone does not match the style of this song. You may feel that he sing too stiff, not soft. Actually his voice is too heavy, he sings too heavy on the consonants. He need to gently sing. If he did not sing every single word too detached and heavy, the result will be better.
Faye Wong singing Chorus 1
In Chorus 1, Faye Wong need to sing in the female 1st passage, that is, mix voice. We need to increase the vocal tract space when singing high notes. Vocal tract is the space between the vocal folds and lips. But when Faye Wong’s singing mix voice, her vocal tract space is too narrow, resulting a nasal sound. Actually we only need to increase the vocal tract space. Our voice can be projected through our mouth. Not resulting in nasality in our voice
Faye Wong & Jack Ma singing Chorus 2 In chorus 2, they sing one by one. The issues are similar to the previous parts. In the last phrase, there’s the highest note D5. Jack Ma is still singing in his modal register. As Jack Ma’s voice is born to be sonorous, it is not difficult for him to sing higher range. But Faye Wong sings with severe nasality in the last few words.
