Official Vocals thread (READ OP FIRST)

[AhMin]

Haha I'll ask my tutor about it. It seemed like the first two 'whoa's of that bit were sung pretty messily, even if the post-processing covered up any off-pitch notes. She's kind of just sliding between them, and it doesn't seem very controlled, nor like it was meant to be sung as a slide. Opinions on that?

You mean whatever she meant to be a run? Yeah those were just messy slides without a center of pitch.

[galhadineas]

Hani has a pretty wide range

[shymi]

 

what do you think abt them?

 

(donghun: brown hair left, chan: blonde, right in case u need reference)

 

ty so much in advance

[jeong jaehyuns boyfriend]

a random clip of me practicing my pitch that i took last night lol (i.e. completely unedited)

for some reason, my phone has better recording quality than my computer...

 

 

 

[Celest]

Thanks for your input and help @AhMin and @C.Y.

 

Hopefully both Ariana and Demi continue to improve as they're far from the divas everyone has been tooting them to be and there's only (hopefully) improvement from here on out. 

[AhMin]

 

what do you think abt them?

 

(donghun: brown hair left, chan: blonde, right in case u need reference)

 

ty so much in advance

It is not the first time people ask about A.C.E. Throughout the verse of 너였다면 Donghun sounds mostly fine, he sounds relaxed and is using the airiness stylistically well without jeopardizing his technique completely. But then as soon as he starts going for that F#4/G4 range, he starts using a really throaty approach, he doesn't allow his sound to move into his mask and he is really tense. 1:08 F#4 1:20 G4 1:25 G4 1:28 F#4, all of those are really throaty and those are not high notes for tenors at all. Up to E4 with a soft airy approach he sounded more relaxed, but he's quickly throaty so low in his range. That is not a good sign at all. Side note, I really love his shirt, I want it. lol

 

Chan sounds relatively relaxed up to E4 throughout the verse, he is slightly nasal. 2:36 F#4 2:38 G4 2:53 G4 2:57 F#4, he's less thick than Donghun, he uses less chest voice and a bit of a lighter approach but he's also pretty throaty around the F#4/G4, he's tighter than Donghun, but strained all the same. Again for two tenors, they have good pitch, their harmonies in the last chorus was sufficiently blended, but individually they have some very obvious issues with very basic technique and a low-ish range for tenors to be struggling with this much tension. 

 

As for All Of Me, I feel like either there's a kind of shaky quality with Chan's singing or they melodine his voice, cause I hear a distorted quality when he sings, like at 0:44 ~ 0:46, 1:06 ~ 1:08, it's a weird kind of distortion in the quality of his voice. All Of Me only goes up to F4, so it's an easier lower range where they're not straining. They mostly transition into falsetto as well, 1:40 wait I hear the quality with Donghun. I think they are using melodine to fix their pitch since these are studio recordings. They sound fine, I hear some throatiness from Donghun on the F4's like 2:24, he pushes his sound from his throat more than he should and it's too heavy/thick, he pushes without using the vocal cords healthily. It's mostly just throatiness. 2:56 strained G#4's. 3:22 3:27 really strained G#4's, Donghun and Chan aren't striking me as very strong vocalists thus far. They have very underdeveloped technique and seem to have been improperly trained but they have nice voices, their voices match well for harmonies so it's pleasing to the other even though they seem to have many issues technically. Their falsettos are far too airy. 4:32 I like that change to the melody.

[shymi]

It is not the first time people ask about A.C.E. Throughout the verse of 너였다면 Donghun sounds mostly fine, he sounds relaxed and is using the airiness stylistically well without jeopardizing his technique completely. But then as soon as he starts going for that F#4/G4 range, he starts using a really throaty approach, he doesn't allow his sound to move into his mask and he is really tense. 1:08 F#4 1:20 G4 1:25 G4 1:28 F#4, all of those are really throaty and those are not high notes for tenors at all. Up to E4 with a soft airy approach he sounded more relaxed, but he's quickly throaty so low in his range. That is not a good sign at all. Side note, I really love his shirt, I want it. lol

 

Chan sounds relatively relaxed up to E4 throughout the verse, he is slightly nasal. 2:36 F#4 2:38 G4 2:53 G4 2:57 F#4, he's less thick than Donghun, he uses less chest voice and a bit of a lighter approach but he's also pretty throaty around the F#4/G4, he's tighter than Donghun, but strained all the same. Again for two tenors, they have good pitch, their harmonies in the last chorus was sufficiently blended, but individually they have some very obvious issues with very basic technique and a low-ish range for tenors to be struggling with this much tension. 

 

As for All Of Me, I feel like either there's a kind of shaky quality with Chan's singing or they melodine his voice, cause I hear a distorted quality when he sings, like at 0:44 ~ 0:46, 1:06 ~ 1:08, it's a weird kind of distortion in the quality of his voice. All Of Me only goes up to F4, so it's an easier lower range where they're not straining. They mostly transition into falsetto as well, 1:40 wait I hear the quality with Donghun. I think they are using melodine to fix their pitch since these are studio recordings. They sound fine, I hear some throatiness from Donghun on the F4's like 2:24, he pushes his sound from his throat more than he should and it's too heavy/thick, he pushes without using the vocal cords healthily. It's mostly just throatiness. 2:56 strained G#4's. 3:22 3:27 really strained G#4's, Donghun and Chan aren't striking me as very strong vocalists thus far. They have very underdeveloped technique and seem to have been improperly trained but they have nice voices, their voices match well for harmonies so it's pleasing to the other even though they seem to have many issues technically. Their falsettos are far too airy. 4:32 I like that change to the melody.

 

thank you sm for this

 

is there any examples where singers use their vocal cords healthily?

[AhMin]

thank you sm for this

 

is there any examples where singers use their vocal cords healthily?

Yes we have plenty throughout this thread and our vocal analysis blog. Do you want specific videos or specific vocalists?

[AhMin]

It was interesting for me to watch this video of Solji teaching singing because then I can clearly see where her vocal issues come from. Not only is pushing a conscious thing for Solji, she does it because probably someone taught her that it was the right thing to do when singing.

 

 

 

At 0:23, she emphasizes that he should compress his abdominal muscles to push more air against the vocal cords to sing higher and "better," which is essentially pushing too much air and creating too much air pressure. She probably does the same thing, since she's teaching him to do it as well. 0:49 and 1:39 same thing again, she is teaching him to use too much air pressure, especially with the Ha exercises and Hook. She would need to learn to breathe all over again.

[Dumb Dumb]

I found it interesting that the vocal teacher of SM managed to classify Somi vocal type, only by its timbre when speaking. (And he also said that she was forcing herself to sing like contralto when she obviously can not lol)

 

 

 

[Clay]

I found it interesting that the vocal teacher of SM managed to classify Somi vocal type, only by its timbre when speaking. (And he also said that she was forcing herself to sing like contralto when she obviously can not lol)

 

 

 

 

what's his name ?

[galhadineas]

what's his name ?

 

jang jinyoung

[AhMin]

I found it interesting that the vocal teacher of SM managed to classify Somi vocal type, only by its timbre when speaking. (And he also said that she was forcing herself to sing like contralto when she obviously can not lol)

 

 

 

He said alto like the choir part, not contralto. Most people don't know the difference though so he probably didn't either. He did mean that she was singing like she thought she had a low voice when everybody in IOI and 95% of kpop are sopranos. Edited April 14, 2017 by AhMin

[shymi]

Yes we have plenty throughout this thread and our vocal analysis blog. Do you want specific videos or specific vocalists?

i just found the vocal blog so it's ok

[C.Y.]

Thanks for your input and help @AhMin and @C.Y.

ah shit woops I forgot to timestamp something very important

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHXpNUVEH1U

 

 

listen to 5:56 in the above video again, she sings in a thin mix voice with no depth. Compare that with the rest of her E5s in the video. Now of course, she is purposely doing it exaggerated and making it whiny and nasal. But the thing is, if she just made it a bit less exaggerated and sang it more seriously with a tinge more depth, it could pass for bubblegum "light lyric" pop singing.

 

I cannot stress how many singers actually sing like what Lara Fabian did there except just a tad less exaggerated and more ummm "stylistically appealing", let's call it. The men do this especially where the amount of depth is so little and having the same habits in your lower register can make it seem much worse than it actually is, because the higher your larynx is, the less chest voice you can engage.

 

so let's reintroduce TAEYANG here, who is everyone's favorite "light lyric tenor" in kpop...who is in actuality, a baritone.

 

listen from the start of the video to 11 seconds in. He sings "every day every night" and the notes are B2-F#2-B2-F#2-B2. Listen to him when he starts practicing at 0:17, the Chris Brown influence kicks in, reverse-puberty happens and he becomes the so-called "light lyric tenor"

 

 

In those 11 seconds, Taeyang has sounded more baritonal and more like his speaking voice than his entire career all these years. Like I said before, singing like his usual singing and bringing that habit down low will disengage the chest voice much more, and that's why in performance, it would appear as if he was never physically capable of doing that. Just as it would appear that many sopranos have shitty falsetto or head voices because they are influenced by Mariah Carey or something, when in fact, if they sat down with a good teacher, in just one lesson the vast majority would be able to demonstrate the physical capability of doing a much better sound.

 

singing in this way lowers the intensity in your voice, and can make you sound "light lyric", but it is easier to access your upper mix with. What it also does is confuse the shit out of everyone LOL, because now it would appear as if his passaggi and tessitura is higher at first glance, but it is actually still lower.

 

now I realize how weird it is to think of Taeyang as a baritone, it's 99% likely you have not heard this before (though maybe some people have since I brought this up a long time ago and I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was crazy). and I realize that most people here will go the rest of their lives never ever hearing anyone say that Taeyang is a baritone ever again...ever. But fortunately, truth is not determined by how little or how many people know it.

 

I've said it before, but what is perceived as "natural" in singing can be culturally constructed. It has become that it is perceived as more "natural" that a baritone like Taeyang spreads his voice as thin and be as "lyric" as possible, than it would if Taeyang were to sing with as much depth as Lara Fabian, in which case his voice would sound noticeably deeper, fuller, rounder, more powerful. Now that is okay with me actually, if that is the tradition now then so be it, half of my favorite singers are thin mixing male singers and I have no bias here. But the importance of bringing stuff like this up is so people can try to take a step back sometimes and look at things outside the box a bit, outside of the sounds that you have become accustomed to perceiving as "natural", subjective disguised as objective characteristics of voice type, in his case being "light lyric tenor". Instead of hearing pop voices and then telling yourself, okay it is bright or dark or it is light or heavy because it is this or that voice type, there is a lot more to learn if you ask yourself why and how it is that the singer you are listening to sounds that way.

Edited April 14, 2017 by C.Y.

[Bolatacha]

Bless your ears with those vocal queen. SoHyang took the crown from HaeRi and become the new queen, she is too strong to be defeated unless some legend / well-known vocalist appear.

 

I think SoHyang's upper belt range skill is just unbelievable, compare with HaeRi, you can clearly hear the different 

 

I know SoHyang use the right technique but all her songs are extremely difficult with those super high notes, i wonder if she continue belting those high notes for a long time, could her vocal cord be damaged? And she is a cancer survivor too, you can see her trouble and tired easily in some performance in 2015-2016. I think she has a good health condition right now though...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y65Vs6hT3Go

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4eQrX4T_6U

Edited April 14, 2017 by Bolatacha

[Jstarfully]

I know SoHyang use the right technique but all her songs are extremely difficult with those super high notes, i wonder if she continue belting those high notes for a long time, could her vocal cord be damaged? And she is a cancer survivor too, you can see her trouble and tired easily in some performance in 2015-2016. I think she has a good health condition right now though...

 

Sohyang had cervical cancer, so unless the actual treatment damaged her voice, she'd be fine. I mean, it makes you really tired and you kinda feel like shit all the time, but she seems better now. 

And with the high notes, taking into account the amount of time she has been singing them, you'd kind of be able to tell by now if it was detrimental to her vocal chords. I mean think of, for example Solji and Hyorin. You could tell within only a year or two that they weren't using good enough technique to be pushing their voices that far. 

[AhMin]

ah shit woops I forgot to timestamp something very important

 

 

listen to 5:56 in the above video again, she sings in a thin mix voice with no depth. Compare that with the rest of her E5s in the video. Now of course, she is purposely doing it exaggerated and making it whiny and nasal. But the thing is, if she just made it a bit less exaggerated and sang it more seriously with a tinge more depth, it could pass for bubblegum "light lyric" pop singing.

 

I cannot stress how many singers actually sing like what Lara Fabian did there except just a tad less exaggerated and more ummm "stylistically appealing", let's call it. The men do this especially where the amount of depth is so little and having the same habits in your lower register can make it seem much worse than it actually is, because the higher your larynx is, the less chest voice you can engage.

 

so let's reintroduce TAEYANG here, who is everyone's favorite "light lyric tenor" in kpop...who is in actuality, a baritone.

 

listen from the start of the video to 11 seconds in. He sings "every day every night" and the notes are B2-F#2-B2-F#2-B2. Listen to him when he starts practicing at 0:17, the Chris Brown influence kicks in, reverse-puberty happens and he becomes the so-called "light lyric tenor"

 

 

In those 11 seconds, Taeyang has sounded more baritonal and more like his speaking voice than his entire career all these years. Like I said before, singing like his usual singing and bringing that habit down low will disengage the chest voice much more, and that's why in performance, it would appear as if he was never physically capable of doing that. Just as it would appear that many sopranos have shitty falsetto or head voices because they are influenced by Mariah Carey or something, when in fact, if they sat down with a good teacher, in just one lesson the vast majority would be able to demonstrate the physical capability of doing a much better sound.

 

singing in this way lowers the intensity in your voice, and can make you sound "light lyric", but it is easier to access your upper mix with. What it also does is confuse the shit out of everyone LOL, because now it would appear as if his passaggi and tessitura is higher at first glance, but it is actually still lower.

 

now I realize how weird it is to think of Taeyang as a baritone, it's 99% likely you have not heard this before (though maybe some people have since I brought this up a long time ago and I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was crazy). and I realize that most people here will go the rest of their lives never ever hearing anyone say that Taeyang is a baritone ever again...ever. But fortunately, truth is not determined by how little or how many people know it.

 

I've said it before, but what is perceived as "natural" in singing can be culturally constructed. It has become that it is perceived as more "natural" that a baritone like Taeyang spreads his voice as thin and be as "lyric" as possible, than it would if Taeyang were to sing with as much depth as Lara Fabian, in which case his voice would sound noticeably deeper, fuller, rounder, more powerful. Now that is okay with me actually, if that is the tradition now then so be it, half of my favorite singers are thin mixing male singers and I have no bias here. But the importance of bringing stuff like this up is so people can try to take a step back sometimes and look at things outside the box a bit, outside of the sounds that you have become accustomed to perceiving as "natural", subjective disguised as objective characteristics of voice type, in his case being "light lyric tenor". Instead of hearing pop voices and then telling yourself, okay it is bright or dark or it is light or heavy because it is this or that voice type, there is a lot more to learn if you ask yourself why and how it is that the singer you are listening to sounds that way.

The reason I disagree with Taeyang being a baritone is simply because his passaggi sound too high for him to be a baritone. I know plenty of very high tenors who can handle singing as low as baritones, Taeyang in that specific portion of the video may be singing crackly vocal fry-y G2's and relatively spoken range comfortable B2's without support, sure but I know plenty of tenors who can handle speaking range B2's just as well as he did. I don't think saying he's a baritone based off of E (B2) very (G2) day (B2) E (B2) very (G2) night (C#3) and the rest is above C#3. The only notes that were very clear were the B2's, the G2's or as you heard F#2, I could be wrong, are very vocal fry-like, soft, quick and half sung. They're barely actually hit. This isn't the first time you've brought up him being a baritone because I know in conversations between us we've discussed it and although I find it an interesting idea, I can't say I agree simply because I just don't hear him mixing close enough to C4 for him to sound like a baritone to me. Do you have any examples of him singing in a lower part of his mix where he sounds like a baritone? Because I mean even Key can handle singing in a tenor range but not be able to hide the natural baritone qualities of his voice. 

 

I mean we have EXO's low note battle video, are you going to say that Chen sounds like he's a baritone too?

 

 

Of course with a vocalist like Taeyang where there are so many technical issues going on, voice typing him can be quite difficult but I just don't hear the obvious baritone in his voice that I hear in most other baritones. And I'm not talking about darkness in tone, I'm saying even a baritone who sings light like 2AM's Jinwoon still sounds like he mixes earlier than Taeyang, as does Key, as does Youngjae, and so on and so forth. So my only question is ...do you have any examples where you can noticeably hear Taeyang needing to be in his mixed voice as low as a baritone would?

 

In case you're wondering who Jinwoon is, here's a video. I would say Jinwoon is a baritone but I just don't think I hear it enough in Taeyang to say yes. I am opened to the idea of it though, as someone with such underdeveloped technique could turn out to be anything really.

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by AhMin

[indigo]

It was interesting for me to watch this video of Solji teaching singing because then I can clearly see where her vocal issues come from. Not only is pushing a conscious thing for Solji, she does it because probably someone taught her that it was the right thing to do when singing.

 

 

 

At 0:23, she emphasizes that he should compress his abdominal muscles to push more air against the vocal cords to sing higher and "better," which is essentially pushing too much air and creating too much air pressure. She probably does the same thing, since she's teaching him to do it as well. 0:49 and 1:39 same thing again, she is teaching him to use too much air pressure, especially with the Ha exercises and Hook. She would need to learn to breathe all over again.

 

Isn't that also why sometimes idols say they sat on each others stomachs while they laid down to practice singing in training? Or are they trying to push against (out) the person there? 

 

It's kinda awkward lol Uji was already better at debut, no? So I'd bet she could have corrected Solji during training, but couldn't for respect reasons. I feel bad for Hyerin, seems like she absorbed her training but because it was flawed in nature, she's not able to build her skill :/

[Jstarfully]

Isn't that also why sometimes idols say they sat on each others stomachs while they laid down to practice singing in training? Or are they trying to push against (out) the person there? 

 

It's kinda awkward lol Uji was already better at debut, no? So I'd bet she could have corrected Solji during training, but couldn't for respect reasons. I feel bad for Hyerin, seems like she absorbed her training but because it was flawed in nature, she's not able to build her skill :/

 

Solji was their vocal teacher then, she wasn't a trainee until Uji and the others left and the company needed a vocal member.

 

Anyway, I've been arguing with someone who says that Hyorin didn't regress because of her technique faults and it honestly feels like I'm hitting my head against a wall like I'm losing brain cells trying to educate this person. I mean, I've given up now because she was one of those delusional stans but I just smh seriously, smh.

[AhMin]

Solji was their vocal teacher then, she wasn't a trainee until Uji and the others left and the company needed a vocal member.

 

Anyway, I've been arguing with someone who says that Hyorin didn't regress because of her technique faults and it honestly feels like I'm hitting my head against a wall like I'm losing brain cells trying to educate this person. I mean, I've given up now because she was one of those delusional stans but I just smh seriously, smh.

Wait but Hyorin didn't necessarily regress because of technical issues. We don't know exactly why she regressed, it was kind of sudden.

[BAZISSINO]

Bless your ears with those vocal queen. SoHyang took the crown from HaeRi and become the new queen, she is too strong to be defeated unless some legend / well-known vocalist appear.

 

I think SoHyang's upper belt range skill is just unbelievable, compare with HaeRi, you can clearly hear the different 

 

I know SoHyang use the right technique but all her songs are extremely difficult with those super high notes, i wonder if she continue belting those high notes for a long time, could her vocal cord be damaged? And she is a cancer survivor too, you can see her trouble and tired easily in some performance in 2015-2016. I think she has a good health condition right now though...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y65Vs6hT3Go

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4eQrX4T_6U

She use a very healthy approach in her Singing in general and mixing especially so i don't see how she can damage her cords 

[miwa201]

Can somebody tell me roughly how Dreamcatcher/Minx's Siyeon is doing?

She's the one in blue sweater, see 0:31, 1:38, 2:10, 2:25.

[HotTea]

Wait but Hyorin didn't necessarily regress because of technical issues. We don't know exactly why she regressed, it was kind of sudden.

It's like 99% sure she regressed because she went throught a mental breakdown.

[Celest]

Hyorin's voice has definitely begun to come back and hopefully she begins showing off her pipes during Sistar's upcoming comeback.  Her voice is definitely one of the very best of the best in my opinion: her timbre, her tone, her belts... they give my ears orgasms, I swear!