Official Vocals thread (READ OP FIRST)

[NoelVys]

9 hours ago, ZRH23 said:

Tbh, I'd say the high Averages generally has better support in their midrange compared to Jessica in most occasions. 

Does this include Tiffany and Winter? Or is it just Somin Seulgi and Suhyun. (does Dawon count as a high A? I'm assuming she's more mid-high) 

Asking for curiosity's sake and mental benchmarking on where the lines of development and support quality  between mid As up to low A-AAs stand. They seem obvious but I'd like to see if there's more nuance to it that I initially perceived based on your answer. 

[NoelVys]

8 hours ago, BAZISSINO said:

We still need to hear way more from winter live but I would say yes for Tiffany, Seulgie ,Somin and suhyun 

Sica never sang as fully in her mid range 

 

51 minutes ago, ZRH23 said:

If she were to sing Bb3 - Bb4 alone without any sort of belt notes, she'd probably just sound Mid Average at best.

That's interesting, does "the support quality being mid-A" apply to Seohyun as well? Based on vague memory, I think she can handle Bb3 - Bb4 better than the mid-As can, but do correct me if I'm wrong. I do remember her and Jess seem to have similarly floppy midranges, but Seohyun seems to be edging her there. 

8 minutes ago, Messica said:

Because im hearing Sunny level support.

I'd have to disagree there, my hearing might not be the most developed but Suhyun's sounds smoother and fuller, even with the light coordination similar to Sunny. I'd think that "shakiness" and "isn't controlled" nature of the end of the line seems more on the lines of stylistic choices than lack of development. 

[NoelVys]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:51 PM, Tsukimono said:

So I've been trying to explore my lower register, with just the ah vowel.. What notes do I sound muffled/not as strong? When I see weaker tenors in K-pop stopping at like Eb3/E3ish area it makes me think I'm a bari since I think I'm fine on those notes(?)

https://voca.ro/1a8dURnKbIVS

I'm not sure if it counts as support since I have no singing experience... 

Can you try to post a recording that's less breathy and light? Maybe it's the coordination you're using but the way you sound in the recording you posted doesn't sound exactly better than nor fine-sounding comparative to the usual weak-lows kpop tenor nor do you sound baritone-like, sorry to say. 

Edited July 9, 2022 by NoelVys

[NoelVys]

14 minutes ago, Tsukimono said:

That's usually how I approach my lower notes. I'm still trying to navigate how to sing, at least, without any training. How I can change my coordination? More chest? Thanks haha

I'm not really the best with teaching these kinds of things, but I guess yeah, the mental imagery for that is to "add more chest", or if you want to think of it differently just try to sound bolder  without forcing it. 

(just a quick PSA, kpop tenor lows are notoriously weak, it's not really that high a bar if you keep your tone down to Eb3, most tenors outside kpop can do that and I think there's a tenor in this thread who mentioned they can handle the upper second octave with nice ease and tonality) 

[NoelVys]

On 7/30/2022 at 1:05 PM, galhadineas said:

 

 

isn't jessica's support here kinda questionable? her vibrato sounds weird at 3:25. She sounds tense in the whole perfomance. I don't remember her sounding like this at all

Tbqh she sounds like she's in her usual "underwhelming mode".

[NoelVys]

12 hours ago, galhadineas said:

this youtube channel is so good, the videos are really good

I would just like to say that: same, I love this channel. it's so interesting to see how SNSD's vocal layering used to work and hear the isolated vocals and such

[NoelVys]

Hey y'all, I'm just bringing this here to ask and confirm, Taylor Swift sounds Average recently right? Her midrange I noticed before was dark, solid and settled, so W-A seemed fine. 

(shoutout to the climax note at 5:03, I think that's decent belting there up to Eb5, not "supported" but not super tense) 

But then the performance above has her phrase into and shortly sustain B4s, like throughout the whole (seriously they're nearly everywhere, in falsetto, mix or belt, especially the Wildest Dreams choruses) and they don't sound bad to me (C5s aren't so bad either). Pushed, arguably yeah so I'm wondering now if it's Average-worthy material or just still W-A. 

Either way, it's way better than the Weak tier image people used to or still have of her. (I'm tentatively giving her A3 - B4 but that could change due to someone's take and that the lows could be better) 

Here's some other reference clips 

 

1:11 B4s

Midrange showcase 

Edited September 19, 2022 by NoelVys

[NoelVys]

From what I know, these are the passaggios of males,

it goes 

Voice type: 1st passaggio -> 2nd passaggio (hv passaggio)

(cmiiw if it might sound outdated to the users who are more familiar with the topic of voice typing) 

Androgynous tenor: E4 -> A4 (E5) 

Tenorino (childlike voice and tessitura): Eb4/E4 -> G#4/A4 (Eb5/E5) 

Light tenor: Eb4 -> G#4 (Eb5) 

Light-lyric tenor: D4 -> G4 (D5) 

Lyric tenor: C#4/D4 -> F#4/G4 (C#5/D5) 

Spinto tenor: C#4/D4 -> F#4/G4 (C#5/D5) 

Dramatic tenor: C4/C#4 -> F4/F#4 (C5/C#5) 

Light baritone: B3/C4 -> E4/F4 (B4/C5) 

Lyric baritone: B3 -> E4 (B4) 

Spinto baritone: Bb3/B3 - Eb4/E4 (Bb4/B4) 

Dramatic baritone: Bb3 - Eb4 (Bb4) 

Light bass: G#3 -> C#4 (G#4) 

Lyric bass: G3 -> C4 (G4) 

Basso profundo: F3/F#3 -> Bb3/B3 (F4/F#4)

 

"why do lyric and spinto tenors have the same passaggi"

I honestly have no idea, but I'm assuming spintos lean more to the F#4 area and lyrics to the G4 area. 

 

Some tips:

Tip 1: the note where you start to struggle doesn't always mean that's your passaggio. It could very well just be underdeveloped, weak voice muscles.

Passaggi are areas of the range where one starts to make certain adjustments in the vocal tract (larynx positioning, mouth shaping, the use of bright twanging, the way you say the vowel) just to sing in those notes, especially in the 2nd passaggio. 

Tip 2: passaggi don't always land exactly on the notes, they'll land maybe in between or just a bit above or below. 

[NoelVys]

20 minutes ago, ParkHyoLee said:

It's exactly C4/F4 for a lower tenor and C#4/F#4 for a higher tenor. The passagi are actually very close together despite the actual voices sitting fairly apart (when fully developed, the operatic standard for a tenor is at C5 whereas for a baritone it's at G#4 despite high baritones and low tenors only have passagi that sit 1 semitone apart) 
 

I ended up deleting a longgggg response to an earlier reply again to the forestella thing because I keep hitting clear editor instead of pulling up the saved message  but I personally don't have a super strong opinion either way on whether that person from forestella is a baritone or tenor because he's not particularly advanced (based on like the 2 clips I've heard of him singing in a not so difficult range since isn't he  the "bass" role in the group anyway?) either way so he's not really in my interest range, but one major point that you raised was his speaking voice that sounded potentially like a tenor to you, but I have the opposite opinion that might be shared by a bunch of other tenors in this exact thread that have sent me their speaking voices because Bb3 isn''t really conclusively tenor imo , though again I'm not really arguing in either direction for him. I just wanted to use this as an opportuntiy to give an example of my own speaking as an *obvious* tenor since it wouldn't be right for me to send other people's speaking clips for them but we all are in the same approximate range of each other minus the specific personal speech habits.

https://vocaroo.com/19Wun4Kn5q7T

When we try to use speaking range it's hard when you don't have the real extremes like into the middle of the second octave (which honestly still isn't completely conclusive unless there's a specific level of projection that tenors just wouldn't have) or into the fourth octave where a baritone would be shouting at you but the higher tenors would just be casually speaking  the one question mark for me is when that forestella man speaks on A2, I'm not exactly getting at the very least what a high tenor would sound like, but *real* low tenors are right next to high baritones and that's where things get messed up, especially when we're not talking about advanced singing and it's about speaking voice especially since everyone speaks differently

the blog is flat wrong about many things, unfortunately, and this thread has very deep history (that you all can read actually if you want the tea since I believe all the posts are still up. It's kind of in poor taste to have to bring it up constantly, but how bad the situation was is.. fairly bad) with the blog and pointing out a lottttt of the things it tried to steal from classical teaching and was used incorrectly (or sourced incorrectly). It comes with having to explain a bunch of drama which is the reason why the blog had claimed to have an understanding of classical teaching without actually having the knowledge about it. Baritones are at Bb3/Eb4 and B3/E4, tenors are at C4/F4 and C#4/F#4. One step above tenors are contraltos, then "lower" mezzos, "higher" mezzos,  lower sopranos, higher sopranos, and no women don't just magically have octave long passagi(without context), there's historical context as to why terms like "lower middle, upper middle" and so on exist and why women end up being labelled as having passaggi that are very far apart (literally the major thing is that women in opera sing in head voice and men typically do not unless it's specific roles) but then came a whole lot of discourse that tried to rationalize using the term third passaggi that would differentiate the  contextual difference that second passaggi is used for women (to denote where the voice is actually transitioning to head voice rather than "middle voice" ) and how it was used for men (entering the upper middle voice from the lower middle voice / changes in effort + muscle) and the whole mess that ended up with women having passaggi that are an octave apart. In the context that it's used for men and has always been used for men, where the passagi is only like half an octave apart because we're talking about transitions in middle/mixed voice, the distance for women is the same  they just have higher up voices and the only reason why a bunch of literature / websites cite passaggi that are an octave apart is due to messy voice history (that stems relatively recently compared to the 100s of years of operatic history) and teaching that isn't all cohesive because people insist on trying to change the terms all the time (which is a natural course of events, but so many changes are messy and confusing for this exact reason). The biggest reference I can in good conscience point to would be one person from the thread who used to go by the name of Caiprinhas, I'm not sure if they're around anymore, but she was a spinto soprano who did advanced lower larynx singing in both head voice and mixed and she herself said her turn was at either Bb4/B4 , not the usual F4/F#4~F5/F#5 that gets tossed around (though its possible that some might argue there is a third passagi and that it is truly at F5/F#5, I'm not really keen on participating in this discourse personally since I'm not personally qualified to quantify what sort of labels should be given to specific things(there are many, many people that have done true vocal pedagogy for 50+ years that can go ahead and argue about it), I would just argue that consistency in how terminology gets applied would be absolutely lovely, especially since modern singing has branched off in 234234234 directions when it was very strict and specific and relatively more consistent in history since I guess prestige in passing down the same teachings or something 

Also on the topic of passaggi, these are all with the assumption that genetics and hormones are within regular levels and not referring to men that didn't experience puberty to the full extent the average man does or women with hormonal imbalances (a large portion of cis-women,actually) bringing them below where contraltos are into the typical cis male range. There are cis-female tenors and baritones. I have met quite a few in my time working in speech therapy   

 

Oh boy, these passaggi have made their return again. If the passaggi aren't at specific points that have been determined since 100s of years ago, it's likely sourced from someone who didn't have advanced enough knowledge/hearing in the first place, which is a difficult thing to say when I myself would lack credentials to make specific claims about how things should be labeled  it's just extremely difficult to dispute the exact knowledge that has been properly preserved over centuries and has always been a specific way to produce the most advanced singers and to this day still does, and any attempts to modify the knowledge just lead to the current overall drop in quality of modern opera singers who on average just don't deliver what they used to be able to deliver when they didn't have advanced sound setups to rely on, just the amplification of one's own voice to the max 

Lyrics and spintos have the same passagi because many voices share the same passaggi. the highest natural tenors all the way to medium weight tenors share the same C#4/F#4 passagi because.. they just do (in reference to the standard high tenors and not the "lumped into tenors but never properly underwent puberty" tenors). Lower tenors (the ones with passaggi at C4/F4) aren't just all one size either, there's a really broad range and that's why it's possibly confusing because you might be comparing a particularly high baritone and a particularly low tenor, but their passaggi are genuinely at different locations (high baritones are at B3/E4). There's obviously still differences in weight because that's just how broad voices are and there's complexities to individual sound even when singing in a standardized manner that makes the most use of what the human voice is capable of. Just like how there's a fairly broad jump even from medium weight tenors to true lower tenors like Tom Jones, or from Tom Jones to true baritones like uhhhh lemme just use one of CYs examples beause yall are arguing about Scott Hoying and Hwanhee rn

@1:18 here is a distinct baritone sound where the mixing is obvious starting from as low as Bb3, compared to me speaking Bb3s and up as a high tenor. Which is the exact reason why you really can't say X note for a baritone is equal to X note for a tenor, there's such a broad range even within Baritones and Tenors, let alone comparing Baritones to Tenors or the messy comparisons to Sopranos

Passaggi do land on specific notes, it's just hearing passaggi is actually a fairly advanced skill because it really does take many, many voices that you've listened to with plenty of experience differentiating specific nuances that might be individual to each person that might make it appear to be at different locations. Voice typing was historically done with low larynx, full chest voice singing in opera, rather than trying to guesstimate the (relatively) thin singing and ambiguous larynx position done in 234234234 styles which all have different tongue/throat/mouth positions/vowel shapes/etc. That's why typically the discussions should be about tenor vs baritone, but even that gets confusing

That's actually a much more nuanced perspective than the one that I read about, thanks for that and the learning experience! It's really interesting to read about a different perspective on a topic as broad as voice typing. 

1 hour ago, BAZISSINO said:

What is even that lmao

A rephrasing of "really really high tenor", someone like Alex Newell ig.

1 hour ago, BAZISSINO said:

Are those your tips ? 

The first one is mostly gathered knowledge, the second one is from somewhere I read. Is there anything I got wrong there? 

[NoelVys]

19 hours ago, fire_dagwon said:

albeit the most tenor-like one I've ever heard.

There are a lot of tenor-like baritones actually, one of the users here that popularized the baritone-tenor discussion has a list of that in the thread. Just so you can make a comparison, Troye Sivan is probably the most tenor-like baritone I've ever heard. 

 

Another one is Chris Martin, Coldplay's lead singer, who I think a lot of folks agree is a baritone. Ahmin himself also sounds very tenorish with how light he goes, but he's a baritone.

These guys are really tenor-like to the point I doubt their baritone status, but they're included in that list of light baritones: Liam Payne, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendez, Charlie Puth. 

[NoelVys]

3 hours ago, fire_dagwon said:

Michael Buble

Isn't that dude a tenor? I remember his E4s and F4s sounded less intense that what I'd expect a baritone to pull out. 

3:42 E4

3:49 those F4s sounded both easier, lighter and less intense than John Legend's and Chris Martin's 

3:20 E4

1:49 F4 in "red" "glare" 

2:25 F4

Edited September 22, 2022 by NoelVys

[NoelVys]

On 9/29/2022 at 1:30 AM, Tsukimono said:

Nayeon <= Rose

I know you put a disclaimer that you took a guess but I'd like to make the case that Nayeon's safely above Rose. 

 

The C5s near 3:03 and 3:47 isn't that bad for a W-A

The midrange near 1:11 isn't bad either. 

Her whole recording session is probably her best material of recent years. Her consistency has also proved a bit better now, but of course the tongue tension, high larynx and unsettled development can get too in the way sometimes. 

(some might argue Nayeon > Giselle too but I'm not too sure about that since I haven't reviewed Giselle a lot, nor is there a lot of material to review about Giselle) 

[NoelVys]

On 10/7/2022 at 9:40 PM, spicyssamu said:

B#4s

Just an FYI just in case some don't know, this note is the same as C5 in music theory, but I think the OP meant B4/C5

Edited October 14, 2022 by NoelVys

[NoelVys]

On 10/4/2022 at 11:38 AM, DoraemoNobita said:

Voice type aside, does Chris Martin support?

So this question plagued me a bit for a few days, but I think he does based on just the one F4 I sent before

I don't think your usual underdeveloped baritone can pull off an F4 like that without much development below, nor does it feel like a one-time thing like Yuju's F5 with how long he sustained it, but maybe I might be mistaken lol. Cmiiw @ZRH23I'm not exactly sure if he supports the notes below, especially anything above F4, but here's some clips I compiled. 

I think this performance shows a summary of what he can do from what the vids I've watched: lots of decent mixing for his voice type, half of the time he's in the fourth octave and moments of singing up to G4 in mix/belt, and ofc some falsetto parts. Overall, the style of most of his songs really. 

1:02 he did one of those runs that also slide up from C#4 to G4 here, pretty throaty tho. 

So here at 1:10 is the chorus, and the lyrics go "so high (C4), so high (D4), so (momentary F4) high (Eb4)" 

1:21 does it again an octave lower so lows exposure i suppose, even if it's only a C3

1:37 - 1:52 does the same note pattern of C4 - D4 - Eb4

The same note succession from 1:02 is repeated here in 2:07, but the higher he went the rasp became more evident especially in the G4. 

2:15 chorus so same notes from earlier

2:52 C4 - D4 - Eb4, Eb4 - F4 - G4, Eb4 - F4 - G4, then rock n roll stuff

 

0:14 - the C#4 phrasing of the verses of the 0:44 song (you're a sky, you're a sky full of stars, I'm gonna give you my heart... ) 

0:47 - 0:55, 1:07 - 1:10 the F#4s (I don't care, go on and tear me apart... I think I saw you) phrased one after the other rapidly on the last one, might not be supported but respect to the fact he's singing constantly in F#4. 

Same formula throughout the whole song.

I don't think he's the exact technician though, his style of singing isn't exactly the smooth legato type, or the rounded vowels type so I'm not sure how high he'll be placed in the tiering system.

There's also the added fact that these materials were half a decade ago

A recent clip from him 3 months ago
0:24 - 0:52 verse

0:58 momentary showing of the F#4s

Here's their recent concert, at 42:03 he performs a ballad song, still relatively the same quality. 43:57 was a not bad E4.

Ig at best he won't really get past AA, right? 

[NoelVys]

On 11/21/2022 at 1:12 AM, ZRH23 said:

I’d personally say he’s around Average maybe. I don’t hear anything AA bout him unfortunately. 

Oh that's sad, I would've liked to see him in AA at least considering the fact he's always mentioned along with Scott Hoying and John Legend (who afaik are both P-tier) when talking about pop baritones. 

I'd like to ask further about the F4 from the first video I linked tho, a friend of mine and I are still confused about it. Is it just deceptively "full-sounding" because his voice is heavier and the reverb is working in his favor? 

Lastly, do you have any thoughts where Seth MacFarlane might place on the tiers?

Thanks for responding! 

[NoelVys]

Hi @BAZISSINO, I think you're the right person to ask this, since I think you're fairly familiar with all three. (but anyone can answer if they so please)

I've heard fairly similar things about the three but in your opinion, how would you rank Kim Yeonji's, Celine Dion's and Lara Fabian's hvs?