Vocal Masterclass Discussion For Season 7 Of The Voice: The Top 8

December 1, 2014 by Masterclass Lady 9 Comments


IMG_0741.JPG Picture Credit: NBC/THEVOICE

Hmm – I was very sad to learn of the elimination of Reagan James. I much prefer her style to that of DaNica’s. Plus, she certainly possessed a more natural form of charisma and style.

So, what do we have here? A Top 8 comprised of 1 female and 7 males. Is The Voice channelling American Idol? The latter is known for voting favouritism towards the male sector.

Here is the breakdown of the remaining singers:

Team Adam
Chris Jamison
Damien
Matt McAndrew

Team Blake
Craig Wayne Boyd

Team Gwen
Ryan Sill
Taylor John Williams

Team Pharrell
DaNica Shirey
Luke Wade

As a special treat, judges Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams will be performing their new single.

The Voice airs on Monday and Tuesday, December 1st and 2nd at 8:00 PM on NBC.

Please add your comments and recaps in the comments section – let’s dig deep together and really analyze the performances together.

And don’t forget to download The Voice iPhone App here: or the iPad App here: .

By doing so, you can cast your votes nice and early, thus ensuring that your favorite moves on in the competition.

Comments are now open for business.

Singing, Television, The Voice
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About Masterclass Lady

Rosanne (Giallonardo) Simunovic began her musical career in Timmins, Ontario. She studied piano with Anne Pizzale and later, at an advanced level, with Soeur Anita Vaugeois (Sister Cecile of Les Soeurs De L’Assomption in Timmins). Her vocal and accompaniment skills were nurtured by her aunt, the late Dorothea Mascioli. When Rosanne graduated from O’Gorman High School, she moved on to the University of Toronto where she continued her piano and vocal studies while attaining a Bachelor of Arts Degree. She was hired as a piano accompanist for several musical companies, most notably, the National Ballet Of Canada. She presently holds an A.R.C.T. Teacher’s Diploma in Voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Rosanne has studied choral conducting with numerous well known Canadian Conductors, including Wayne Riddell of Montreal, Quebec and the internationally renowned Dr. Elmer Iseler. She has been a founding member of numerous community-based arts organizations: the Timmins Arts Council, later known as Arts & Culture Timmins, the Timmins Symphony Orchestra, and, the Timmins Youth Singers…as well as the TYS Alumnus choir, the Timmins Concert Singers. In 1987, she was also selected to be the conductor of the Timmins Board Of Education Choir, comprised of talented students from Grades 5 to 8. In 1988, she was elected to the Board Of Directors of the Ontario Choral Federation (now known as Choirs Ontario), where she served as Chair of the Festivals Committee for six consecutive seasons. In 1996, in honour of the Ontario Choral Federation’s 25th Anniversary, Rosanne was selected as one of 25 recipients of the OCF’s Distinguished Service Award for outstanding contribution to the choral art. The ceremony was presided by Lieutenant Governor, Hal Jackman. In November 1997, Rosanne Simunovic was selected by the Rotary Club Of Timmins to receive the prestigious Paul Harris Award for her years of dedication to the artistic development of young musical talent in Timmins. In August of 2002, Rosanne Simunovic was selected by the Board Of Directors of Choirs Ontario to serve as Conductor of both the Provincial Junior and Teen Choir Camps, now renamed in honour of the Camp Benefactors, Don and Lillian Wright. In November 2002, Rosanne was the one of the recipients of the Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, honouring her work in the development of the arts in Timmins. Under Rosanne Simunovic’s direction, the Timmins Youth Singers and the Timmins Concert Singers have been featured in numerous choral festivals and performing opportunities outside of Timmins. In 1985, they were selected to partici
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9 Responses to “Vocal Masterclass Discussion For Season 7 Of The Voice: The Top 8”

  1. Kariann Hart December 2, 2014 at 1:30 am

    I really don’t know most of these people, but I did come across Ryan Sill. I guess he’s been saved 3 times. He’s cute enough and really has a good voice. “Open Arms” is a difficult song to sing, and I believe he pulled it off quite well. He does have his charm. I heard a gal singing but didn’t watch long enough. She wasn’t that good. The judges are still the stars of the show. Maybe I’ll pay more attention in the coming weeks?

    Rosanne, I think it’s terrible that the “Sing Off” will consist of ONE show on December 17th. It isn’t going to be much of a talent contest but they usually sing lovely Christmas carols.

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  2. louise December 2, 2014 at 9:01 am

    Reagan James is a very natural performer and at one point in the competition I thought she would be a contender, but for a couple of weeks she did songs that weren’t that great. And I had a real problem ever understanding what she was singing.

    As for DaNica, I’ve been rooting for her from the beginning because I like her voice, however, I’m quite sure she doesn’t have a chance of winning over several of the guys who are quite talented–namely, Matt and Taylor. I hope she has a musical career, but I just don’t think she should or will win. Most of the songs she has been singing have been older songs and she stays in one place when she sings. I’ve noticed that when she does group numbers that she’s perfectly capable of moving around. I think it’s too bad that she didn’t do something upbeat. Last week I thought that Craig had a shot of winning it all since so many people like country music and he gave a very strong performance, but I wasn’t that impressed last night. I also have been disappointed in Luke the past few weeks because I liked him in the early rounds. Chris Jamieson is the one who could possibly be a dark horse. He seems to do well with every song they give him. Damien has a voice that I like a lot, but there is something about him that seems so sad and tense. There is no way that he will win in my opinion.

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  3. Idol Girl December 3, 2014 at 7:41 am

    After last night’s results, we have an all male top 5 this season.

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  4. Gene W December 3, 2014 at 2:53 pm

    This is pretty much the result that I expected. Pharrell has not been a good coach for his team and it finally caught up with them. Pharrell is out.

    Ryan has had two weeks of good fortune that allowed him to receive the two saves, He was the best of the bottom three during those two weeks. That was not the case this week, leaving Gwen with one contestant, Taylor. Blake is also down to one contestant, Craig. These two are my current favorites I guess. Taylor has improved in his last two performances and craig slipped back some this week.

    I don’t get the appeal of Chris and would have preferred to see DaNica survive. The two songs that she sang without input from Pharrell, her blind audition and her sing for your life song, have been much better than the rest. Adam’s other two singers, Damien and Matt both had strong performances with Matt reaching the elusive goal of sounding as if he could have been the original artist of his song.

    I’m pretty unlikely to buy anything from any of these guys, but never say never.

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  5. Idol Girl December 4, 2014 at 11:12 am

    I don’t get the appeal of Chris either.

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  6. Gene W December 4, 2014 at 3:39 pm

    Karian,
    You mentioned the Sing-Off in your post. I’m glad to hear it is making even a brief comeback this season. They get so many things “right” on that show that the others can’t seem to do.

    I just heard that the Penatonics who were the last group to win on the Sing-Off, have a new Christmas album that is the largest selling Christmas album by a group in over 50 years. I also noticed back in the Spring that they were booked for a concert at a local performance venue. Tickets went on sale over two months in advance of the performance and sold out very quickly even though tickets for other shows by much more established artist sold at a leasurely pace right up untill show time. Most of their expossure came from that little show and the Voice has yet to launch a major artist.

    For Idol fans:

    I read yesterday that Scott Brochetta, who is the head of Big Machine Records in Nashville is going to be the mentor on American Idol next season. His lable launched Taylor Swift and manages legacy artist like Tricha Yearwood. Last year’s winner of The Voice, Danielle Bradbury also signed with Big Machine.

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  7. hunter December 4, 2014 at 7:44 pm

    gene, funny, you have probably Inadvertently answered a confusion i had about tuesday’s result show. while i watched raelyn (sp?) singing, i could not imagine who she was. i thought, my goodness she looks like a ‘grown woman’ not the cute little girl she was. all that heavy heavy makeup, especially eyes didn’t help her at all. i thought, pretty soon she’ll have breast implants and be another dolly parton look alike just like cute little thing from idol that i just forgot her name..the one who was on dwts. i did not recognize raelyn. now, i realize i must have been thinking about danielle. either way, raelyn was not someone that i ‘knew’ any more.

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  8. hunter December 4, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    there are a couple singers that i like okay. and other than that: i loved reagan’s tone in the beginning. and then that went nowhere because of song choice. my favorite is/was probably luke but he never ever sang anything that totally moved me. what totally moved me was his two seconds of rehearsal when he sang the simply red song. then Pharrell added his spin to change it, but it still was probably my favorite of his performances. i loved craig wayne boyd’s ‘i walk the line’ (and i loved chris daughtry singing it on idol long ago in the dark ages). i don’t really know who chris Jamison is. i know that adam calls him a sex symbol and wants to sell him as that, but i just don’t see that or know him or get him. same with ryan sill. i don’t really know him, other than that he has a sweet smile. these two just don’t seem to have personalities. danica was just never my type of singer. i find matt and taylor interesting.

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  9. Gene W December 4, 2014 at 8:43 pm

    Hi Hunter,
    I was wondering where you had gotten off to. Raelynn (sp) was on team Blake the year prior to Danielle as I recall. She was a little firebrand sort of country singer and was never really my cup of tea. I happened to see her opening for Miranda Lambert late last summer and I recently read that Danielle would be opening for Miranda in her upcoming tour, which is a much larger production than the last one. I think she sort of had the look that you are referring too when she was on the show, but yeah, she isn’t the sweet little Danielle Bradbury.

    I thought that Reagan James would win hands down after seeing her blind audition. She flipped Ed Sheeran’s “Give Me Love” so well. She had great stage presence, maturity of someone ten years older, a very interesting tone to her voice and well developed personel style. I really liked her at that point. I blame Blake for her continuing to have breathing and enunciation issues throughout the live rounds. The song choices and general direction of her musical taste left me disinterested. They were not playing the iTunes vote game very well. I bought her first download which was very good but didn’t want any of the rest.

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