MimeTroupe

I have no idea to be honest. Not a whole lot is known scientifically about the whistle register. There may be a way to do it safely and it might not even be totally connected with having nodules. I'd say as long as it doesn't hurt and you don't feel yourself straining you're probably ok, though it's probably best not to overuse it. Generally speaking though, I just like the sound of the head voice way more so I'd say it's time better spent developing that. That's just an opinion though.

I'm pretty skeptical of the smoking argument. Smoking increases the weight of the vocal cords due to swelling which creates a darker tone which makes it seem like you can sing lower when it really does nothing to your actual range. She probably could sing just as low if not lower if she hadn't been a smoker. This is just my opinion, but I don't think that high register is worth screwing up her voice forever. She absolutely could sing without them. At worst she'd loose 4 of her highest notes and she could learn how to hit very high notes in her head voice. It probably would be easier for her to sing without the nodules and it shouldn't be hard for her to learn new technique. But at this point the damage is done and she can't go back.

Lol what a question to ask! No, if you get all that stomach acid on your cords you just damage them. It doesn't make your cords thinner all over. Whatever your voice type is, you're stuck with it haha. I don't think you can be born with nodules. Maybe she got them when she was a child, but not from birth. It's really easy to oversing when you're young and develop nodules. And I definitely think that contributed to her vocal deterioration. "Using nodules" or singing through them is never good for your vocal cords. If you sing as much as she does with nodules, you WILL damage your voice, end of story. There is some evidence that supports that you can only have a whistle register if you have nodules because for some singers once they were removed they could no longer use their whistle register. So I suppose she could have used them to sing higher.

Exactly right. I've never heard the term musical alphabet but that's the idea. I'm just saying it's not a good idea to say you NEVER use flats in a sharp key, because unless you're singing pretty basic music it's going to come up especially in pop music where there's a lot of applied chords and mixture.

If you need to pass year 1 music theory yes. But that rule gets broken in classical music all the time. I wrote about it in a post a while back. A vii fully diminished 7th chord (which is a relatively common substitution for V) in D Major for example will be C# E G Bflat. So yes, normally that's the rule but there are many exceptions even in classical music. Trust me, that's what we just learned in theory at my college and I got an A on that exam lol.

I trust you, I'm sure you would feel it or someone would have told you if you were straining that bad haha.

Oh neat! I stand corrected. Is it not strained at all for you?

Sorry, this was a while back lol. It's called Mongolian throat singing. You go into vocal fry and then shape your tongue in a bowl shape on the roof of your mouth to create overtones that sounds like whistling or a flute. It's super cool sounding.

Not entirely true actually, it happens more frequently than you think when you're working with applied chords and mixture. Or most commonly with vii fully diminished 7th chords in major which is used as a substitute for V in pop and classical sometimes.

YOU! I like you, we need to discuss the influence if Greek philosophy on the development of western music. Oh I am HARDCORE geeking out. I also agree with you with regards to musicianship. A lot of it to me has to do with phrasing and text painting. Adding notes and ad lib is a small part of that.

Actually I kind of agree with you on this one. Why does she have no musicality to you guys? ALSO WISH ME LUCK ON MY AUDITION IN MANHATTAN!

Question, where are you getting your definition for tonality? Are you using it interchangably with the term timbre? Maybe that's why there's confusion. Tonality is also used to say you're within the tonality of the piece which would mean he's on key.

That's not very unusual actually. Speaking loudly and projecting doesn't usually come naturally, that's why stage actors have to have some vocal training. If you live on the east coast in the U.S. I might be able to ask around and see if anyone knows a good teacher in the area.

I'm going to be honest, I still don't totally understand what they mean by resonance so I don't mess with that unless they're talking about opera singers. I think they both resonate well. But I would say that Narsha just naturally has a warmer sound in general than JeA which has nothing to do with resonance. JeA would have an even thinner, less warm sound if she didn't resonate well.

OK, take what I say with a grain of salt because I know I have a slightly different definition of resonance. Resonance is mainly about projection but it also adds overtones to the sound which makes the sound fuller and warmer. Part of the reason a resonant sound seems louder is because it has those overtone frequencies that cut through the background music without having to actually sing louder.

Is there a college with a good musical theater program near you? You might be able to take lessons from a professor or a graduate. A contemporary musical theater singer will know enough about pop singing to get you started

I'm of the opinion that you really shouldn't be taking formal voice lessons until you're at least 16. It's so easy to screw up your voice otherwise. Your teacher probably had the right idea, you shouldn't be getting into technical vocal training at that age.

Gaga is sneaky that way. Her songs don't show much of what she can actually do because that's not what gets popular. Smart move IMO.

Well Miley isn't a contralto either haha. Honestly, even professional voice coaches get it wrong sometimes, especially if you're under 30. And then there's the tendency to label every young female singer as a light lyric soprano and every young male singer as a tenor. It's a nightmare.

They both sing some repertoire that's not really appropriate for their voice types which really affects how they sound. Especially with Juan Diego Flores, his voice is not nearly dark enough to handle the songs he tries to sing. Sumi Jo has some really great technique things going on, but she could be more resonant in her lower range and more expressive with the music. Both sound like they're at an advanced grad student level. So they're good yes, but they aren't getting top billing at the Met any time soon. Mariah is definitely not a contralto, but "diagnosing" a voice type is a tough skill that I personally don't think people should attempt unless you have a lot of first hand experience or have studied it formally. You can make educated guesses of course, but voice types are deceptively complicated. Maybe I'm just too pretentious that way, I dunno lol.

Classical singers don't use the word riff as far as I know. But it sounds like you're right. For us, a melisma is simply any part of a written piece where there is more than two notes per syllable and a run is basically the same thing but it can be improvised and not specifically notated. A trill is movement from two notes a half tone apart and sounds like a very wide vibrato and is used as an ornament. None of it has to do with length.

Awww, you're learning! Yes, that's correct. There are other minor implied things especially if you're a soprano, but most importantly agile voice=coloratura.

Woo, lots of pages I missed! Dear lord this thread is active. For us classical singers, once you get to very high notes they always tell you to just not worry about what vowel you're singing because if you're using good technique it's really hard to distinguish what vowel they're trying to sing anyways. But I'm personally of the opinion that the vowel should be considered no matter how high or low the note is. In the lower register an ah is always going to be more difficult to resonate on compared to an ee. Most of the time it doesn't make a huge difference, but when you start getting loud and belty or out of your comfort zone it starts becoming important. And fun fact, sometimes they tell us to change and modify vowels if they're not working out and people usually can't tell the difference. Technically you use the same muscles for your upper and lower registers but one muscle group is more dominant than the other. I also disagree that it's part of the head voice although they are similar in many ways. But that is not important! What I wanted to say is that falsetto doesn't really mix often with the chest voice, but it does mix with the head voice. Listen to the highest voice in this. It has a lot of qualities of falsetto but it's a bit louder and fuller. But this is super technical and most people who aren't countertenors don't really do it much or at least not consciously. I wouldn't worry much about trying to decide what is and isn't a falsetto mix especially since it's used mostly as a stylistic thing in pop music.

Taemin is a dancer and I'm not sure what the standards for an "OK note" is, but it seems to me like he would have sung an "OK note" at least once. It was a tentative suggestion, I have no idea if it's right or not. I know you guys were originally talking about snsd, but I was curious lol.

Taemin perhaps?