Official Vocals thread (READ OP FIRST)

[Jstarfully]

Haha I always had problems with classification lol. My lower range is super horrid for a tenor since I can only sing to around D3/E3.

 

Duuuuuuuuude that's where my lower range goes to and I'm a girl!! Twinsies 

[Jstarfully]

Hello! Sorry for the random question but I was listening to Blackpink's song whistle inkigayo live and was wondering if during jennie's part of the bridge she is flat in the live or in the actual recording as a stylistic choice or something, or if I am just mishearing it completely?

I would put the vid but I am mobile, thank you.

 

I'd ideally like to know exactly which part of the bridge you mean, but I went with the entire bridge part since you didn't specify. As for their inkigayo lives, they've done a few. Like, five, I think. Lucky for you I'm awesome (lol) and after going through them all she does seem to go slightly flat in some of the lives. However in some of the others she hits the notes similarly to the studio version.

 

Unless I am also missing something (I even hummed along with her) it's just the fact that whistle is in kind of a strange key. I actually think it's in a mode, but anyway. When she goes flat in the lives it could be because of this or because of the fact that the melody has a few larger and awkward intervals to sing.

 

 

Taking your question, is it possible to tell if she is better than Rosé?

 

It depends what you mean by 'better'. Jennie's voice, while having some support, is quite pushed, and it actually sounds somewhat 'clunky' and beginner-like in that she doesn't seem to be capable of much as far as dynamics go past simple legato, or at least she hasn't shown it. However, she doesn't strain as much as Rose and her pronounciation is also better. I've also never heard Jennie use her head voice though, or even falsetto. So as I said, it depends on what you define as better.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

Yea, the song is generally weird. The line is a bit monotonous, so that's why it sounds flat.

And I don't think Jennie is better. Her legato is pretty bad and her support is weak and kinda on-off thing. And she strains worse than Rosé tho.

 

Really? I can't think of a time where she has strained as bad as Rose. Like for Rose I can really hear it in the whistle bridge, but even in the aiiyl chorus it's constantly there.

[Jstarfully]

I do think that she strains worse than Rosé, it's just not too obvious. I mean, Rosé supports better than her and through all that nasality and whatnot, I can't think of a time where Jennie actually showed support without pushing the hell out of her voice lol.

 

Like, in AIIYL, I hear Jennie's pushing those notes way more than Rosé does. She's never relaxed but Rosé is somewhat relaxed and has some ease.

 

sent from your mom.

 

For me it's more like Jennie pushes and Rose strains, but I'll keep an ear out when I'm watching them from now on 

[Jstarfully]

Lol

RIPpppppp I know someone who claimed they could sing from C1-C16 as an operatic falcon coloratura tenor virtuoso and it turned out he counted the number of notes he could sing as each different octave.

 

Idk why but stuff like this makes me disproportionately happy as compared to people singing well and knowing about singing lol 

Edited July 3, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

Well as you probably all know (since I've been complaining about it constantly) I'm sick, but I've still been wanting to share something of me singing, especially now that everybody else has been. SO! I dug up (seriously, I turned my bedside table and desk drawers upside down) the CD of my old scholarship performance I did back at the end of high school. I was put up a year, so I was 17, and it was about two and a half years ago.

 

I cut out just the part of me singing Part of Your World (yes, from the Little Mermaid) acapella:

 

 

I'll be over here cringing over my pronunciation and the way I hit high notes back then.

 

Feel free to comment on my technique because I can't hear specific flaws from my past self.

Most of my improvement came from learning to lighten my mix and therefore I can sing higher without straining and I can control volume and dynamics more.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

Slayyyy queeen. Do you go to a music school or something?? It sounds very musical theatre like.

 

I didn't, and when I listened to it like an hour ago after I dug up the CD I was very surprised... and then I cringed because I never listen to myself and I hate it. I still haven't listened to the other four songs I did lmao

Edited July 3, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

How would y'all describe your vocal colour and tone?

I think mine is crispy and bright. Probably a pineapple if I were a fruit and green-yellow in colour.

 

I have literally zero clue I'm so bad at describing stuff like that unless it's something super duper obvious. What would you call mine? 

[Jstarfully]

Well from the SoundCloud you sent, your voice is very clear in tone but with a punch in your voice. I feel like it's orange with somewhat twangy. It has a youthful quality to it, and doesn't have much raspiness. So probably you're an orange.

 

Oooooooh I feel like that's accurate!! You're good at that dude 

[Jstarfully]

I went to bed and when I came back there were like two and a half new pages on the thread but none of the posts were critiques on my technique 

It's okay guys, I'll just be over here eating wonton soup. One day I'll get over it 

[Jstarfully]

Yaaas wontonnnnssss are my fav. I think the reason why no one replied is cause as you noted, that was a very old clip of you singing so your current technique is different. Do you have any new material?

 

I DOOOON'T BECAUSE I'M SICK AND I JUST HATE MY BODY why won't it cooperate with me for once in my life 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

You don't sound like a mezzo to me. You are not nasal, but I hear a lot of rushing. The air management was really like pushed, overly adding air pressure, and you rushed the phrasing and timing on and off. 1:20 "sun" at the end of he line was enunciated like the usual indie singing. The rest, the throat really closed up on those upper notes. You can be somewhat chesty, at least you were back then. There wasn't much mixing going on, I barely hear the soft palate lift and the back of the throat open, the sound just lacked fulness and freedom. It was like pushing to become louder, while fighting the urge of the throat to close the higher you went. Your pitch was generally pretty good, but it sounded like the key was too high for your skill level at that point but you still pushed through it. No nasality, not issues with projection in itself, just lots of air management, openness, and diction to get over. I'd love to hear you give this song another try.

 

Yeah even myself listening back to it that definitely doesn't sound very mezzo-like to me, but then the teachers who called me that were listening to me singing classical music, classical style. I'll let myself judge it again later, but at least to my current ears I'd be a full lyric soprano.

 

And yeah I think the rushed feeling was because: this was the first song I sang in a 15-minute repertoire, I was being filmed, I was singing it acapella, and I was in front of an entire room of 13/14 year olds who I'd never met before watching me. And they were really watching me like I almost never saw a pair of eyes look away and that was terrifying to me lmao :P Essentially I was just very nervous.

 

To be honest I sounded better in that clip than my mental picture of myself back then was, because as you said it was a lot of pushing by air pressure and I had practically no idea what mixing was. I kind of don't even understand how I managed to sound that good with all the things I was doing wrong tbh but maybe it was the fact that I didn't have too many pitch issues and I practiced it for a long time.

 

And I actually am considering doing this over again now, if not for anything else than to just reassure myself that my pronunciation and diction aren't as inconsistent as well as generally cringe-inducing (at least to me) now.

[Jstarfully]

See you can totally judge yourself! lol

 

Hahaha I mean yes but also the things you said I can't actually hear even though I can recognise them once you've said it, as well as know why I sounded like that.

 

Like I know it was zero mixing and a lot of air pressure, but I can only remember myself singing like that, not actually hear it in the clip (except on the very highest note). The rushing I only heard once you pointed it out too :P

Edited July 4, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

For those of you who made your mix chestier, how long did it take for you to recover you ease in Range? I've literally tried making my mix less head dominant and now I'm getting some tension as low as F#4/G4 that's persisting no matter what I do . I'm literally scared to sing above F4 now is my tragic new range C3-F4

 

You still need to be lightening your mix as you ascend. It should be gradual too, so if you look at the picture below, imagine the black is your chest voice and the white is your head voice (also ignore the black border, I had to put it in so you could see the white), as you go up through your range, you'll always have aspects of both as you go from your chest to your mix, to your head voice. You should therefore be gradually lightening your mix as you go up in your range.

 

Essentially, at that F4, try lightening your mix. If it doesn't sound strong, try placing it differently - usually mask placement gives off a sharper, stronger sound. It's also known as 'twang' to some people.

 

[Jstarfully]

You're a classically trained vocalist??

 

Sent from my LG-D852 using OneHallyu mobile app

 

Well, I was self taught for a long time and read a lot of classical theory and listened to a lot of classical music to learn. Then when I needed help to mix properly for modern music, I got a tutor. That was around this time last year, probably. Does that help?

 

Also, how come? Hahaha I'm just curious 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

I had a tutor for like 4 weeks when I was younger cause puberty messes you up. He taught me to sing with 80% head to combat the effects of puberty range loss but I quit after my range kinda recovered so I didn't learn to mix balanced.

 

See I had short stints with at least five different tutors since I was thirteen, but I think I was just unlucky because either they didn't work well with me or there was some other circumstance which meant I couldn't keep working with them. Therefore from when I was 13/14 up until last year when I was 19, I was totally self taught.

[Jstarfully]

I have a question if anybody's willing/able to answer about low larynx singing. When singing high notes with a low larynx, which is pretty rare in contemporary music, are the chest voice muscles automatically engaged, resulting in a bigger, chestier sound than it would otherwise be with a more neutral larynx, or does it just give it a 'darker' sound without affecting chest/head voice ratio necessarily?

 

It gives a darker sound mostly because the chamber of resonance space in your pharynx becomes larger and therefore you get a larger, fuller sound - your placement and resonance is still in your head or mask, depending on your anatomy and technique as well as how high the note you are singing is. Chest muscles aren't exactly activated, they're mostly just there as standard background support - not to the extent they are in your chest and lower mix.

 

But essentially that's what lowering your larynx does - you get a lower frequency harmonic boost, tuning resonance slightly deeper and fuller. Lowering your larynx can even help you with bridging. There's a study that has to do with the influence lowering your larynx has on your voice, but it's a relatively complex text. I'll link it anyway: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811547

[Jstarfully]

You instrument is light you Don't sound like a full soprano to me 

 

My voice is a lot heavier than it comes across in that clip - I'll be posting a new version of that at the end of this week hopefully though. 

[Jstarfully]

Why how old was that clip? 

 

It was a bit over two and a half years ago - I was 17. It was part of my scholarship application  for Uni - I got it but had to turn it down, although I have no idea why they decided to give it to me tbh, maybe my aural and theory skills saved me :P

[Jstarfully]

oop just discussed with matty and seems i'm a baritone after all most likely lolol. There go my dreams of becoming a main vocalist in a group lmao 

 

I'm a soprano, can't relate 

 

Slayyyyyyyvgurllllll slayy. I don't know many mezzos so your voice sounds extra fresh to me lol.

 

Count me out, there can't be any way I'm a mezzo anymore. I recorded myself singing classically and listening back I doubt both the capability and opinion of those tutors who told me I was a mezzo when I was 14-15ish.

 

Then again one of those tutors also went on a rant to me about how men being gay is biologically and medically wrong and they only do it because they've given up on women since this one man she knew came out as gay later in his life, after being married and stuff. 

 

I feel the sams for piano lol. Those eisteddfods got me going through mood swings like..... hopefully one day I can perform not just as a pianist but as a singer too

 

I remember performing the first movement of Moonlight Sonata when I was like 15 and practically crying when I was done lmao

Edited July 6, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

Dayum. What's your range btw and do you use falsetto?, I'm curious about your range since you're a soprano.

 

My range is Eb3 to E6-ish (I haven't pushed the boundary past E6 because there isn't a lot of point tbh) I use falsetto mostly stylistically, but it's actually harder for me to use falsetto than head voice nowadays. My mix goes up to an E5, but on days where I warm up with my tutor I can comfortably do an F5.

 

Oh that's also all me, like, not screaming and stuff. I did too much of that when I was 13-14 and I honestly hate putting my voice through that now haha

[Jstarfully]

I still come from the school where hearing the word 'falsetto' applied to female voices is shocking to me. I think my very first post in this thread ages ago was asking Ahmin about that lol. I've always thought of the registers as being Chest->head->falsetto (for men) and Chest->head->whistle (for women). I don't know that I can differentiate between head and 'falsetto' for women at all. Makes me want to read some sort of scholarly article about the physiology and acoustics behind it.

 

See I was told that head voice and falsetto are the same 'area' of the voice but they're different things, but until I met a classical teacher who taught me how to head voice (lol) I had no idea which was what. Falsetto is that really airy stuff that indie girls do, and head voice is the stronger, sharper, flute-like sound that classical vocalists use.

[Jstarfully]

There's a problem with that tho, I can only use Head Voice not falsetto XD(ahmin thinks it's curious also) Get ready for a heady BTS BOp.

 

Mine is consistently C3-F5( I don't like pushing) but I did produce some out of the blue notes in the 2nd and 6th octave a couple of days ago. I lost G5-C6 after I forgot to use my falsetto(idk how, my falsetto disappeared as soon as I learnt Head Voice) and I haven't rediscovered it idk why.

 

That thing with losing falsetto notes once you learn head voice is quite common, you should gain them back as your head voice develops more 

[Jstarfully]

Also I feel lonely being the only soprano here lol all you tenors and baribros have each other - but at least I have @caipirinhas to be a lonely mezzo along with me 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Jstarfully

[Jstarfully]

Gurllll how long will I have to wait tfutuyfgg. So far I can connect my head to mix quite easy and keep it pure and strong in sound. I thought my vocal cord was broken or something so I saw a doctor and they put a stick down my throat. It turned out I was fine so I thought I was crazy.

 

Boi you just work on that head voice and the register connections - head voice is love, head voice is life.

 

For something unrelated a few years ago, I actually had a doctor look at my vocal chords with a camera. It was super whacky to actually watch them move to make sound when I spoke.