Minnie Riperton - Vocal Ability

Vocal Ability

Aside from her various hits, Riperton is perhaps best remembered today for her ability to sing in the whistle register, in which she had rare facility. Riperton possessed a five-octave vocal range (the liner notes to her Petals legacy album ascribe five-and-a-half octaves to her). Riperton's ability to enunciate in the high registers set her apart from most other whistle-register singers. This feature is most notably heard in the song Here We Go, where she sings "here we go" in the whistle register. Whistle-register enunciation can also be heard in songs such as "Inside My Love", "Adventures in Paradise", "Expecting", "Only When I'm Dreaming", and also in "Teach Me How to Fly" and "Like a Rolling Stone" with the Rotary Connection. Riperton was also noted for her ability to sound almost mechanical or instrumental in the whistle register. In "You Take My Breath Away", she sang a portamento ending two octaves above the staff. She has also been credited for her ability to sustain notes in the sixth and seventh octave for long periods of time, as in "Reasons", "Could It Be I'm in Love", "Adventures in Paradise", and "Inside My Love" and also "Love Me Now" with the Rotary Connection. Having an innate ability to imitate many instruments helped lead to Riperton's discovery while she was a secretary at Chess Records. In her recordings. Riperton's highest recorded note reached in the whistle register was F7 on the third scale of "You Take My Breath Away". Minnie reached this extremely high note before on an early recording of "Teach Me How to Fly" and "Could It Be I'm in Love". Also in a live performance of the song "Ruby Tuesday" from Rotary Connection, she sang an F#7. In a 1998 interview for Vibe magazine, Mariah Carey cited Riperton as an influence on her.