"Hurt" by Christina Aguilera by Ellise at a showcase performance

[ellise k]

 

[Draven Grey]

What type of feedback would you like on this?

[Robert Lunte]

Elise,

- Lovely gown.

- Please make sure that whom ever is holding the camera for your videos, that  they hold the video still. When you go to this much trouble to learn a song, get dressed up and perform, you need better content. I understand it is not intended to be a music video, but just to capture the moment to review. But still, it is not too much to expect to have the camera held still. 

- About 2:24 - 2:27 are examples of great vowels Elise. And that means great resonance. There are many examples of you singing with these vowels & resonance. I would suggest that you think about adding a touch more /ou/ as in "would" to the formant shading. It will not change the language vowel you are trying to communicate, but what it will do is add more warmth to the sound color, amplify a touch more and will stabilize your voice even more,... and stronger belt. Even though this is a lovely vowel and resonance, I'm only saying, you can make them even more "boomy" if you add more /ou/.

- Elise,... there are micro moments in this performance where you are singing flat. It is NOT radically out and I suspect that the average ear wouldn't even hear it, but... more trained ears do and that would include judges and producers, the kind of people you are going to start drawing attention to. You need to UP your game Elise in paying attention to intonation at a professional level, because that is what your becoming.

- 3:24 - 3:30 ... nice sob mode ... great weepy vibe here.

 

Elise, you hard work is paying off. You have grown so much as a singer, its great. Keep going. I think you are well on your way to being a professional and singing for a living in your life. This is a lovely performance. But know that it shows two singers at the same time. This performance is showing the earlier singer you are growing out of and fore shadowing the more mature singer you are becoming. It has elements of BOTH.

To keep moving in the more mature direction I prescribe that you get more serious about intonation and you start working on techniques that will build your ability to belt with more stability and strengthen your TA muscles. If you train with me, I can show you how.

Draven... thoughts?

[Draven Grey]

I'm 100% in agreement with Robert. I was thinking exactly the same things as I watched. 

To add, about being flat at moments: From what I could tell it sounded like you were allowing the sound to modify back too far when going into light-mass head voice on the higher notes. This put more pressure onto the glottis, and ended up both pulling the voice down into the throat rather than resonating mostly on the soft palate and opened up the glottis with more uncontrolled airiness.

There are multiple things that can cause this. The most common causes I have seen with my students is closing the embouchure too far and also thinking of modifying vowels as going deeper into the mouth rather than deeper into the soft palate. Often, this is fixed by adding a little more twang, focusing the voice upward, training to keep the embouchure shaped and tuned, and also training to get a very resonant "ou" vowel on the tongue being as far back as you allow the feeling to go (rather than going back to an "oo"). From a highly resonant "ou", I have my students open into other vowels. We often speak relaxed into the hard palate and then sing in a relaxed upward "ou" area focused light-mass head voice a lot before trying to sing a song at full volume or especially before full voice in the upper range. Almost every single time they go a little flat, it's because they let go of horizontal emboushure a bit too much, closed vertically a bit too much, and put too much pressure on their throat rather than the soft palate (up and forward).

With what Robert is talking about for intonation and tuning, you will be able to easily sing in head voice as resonant as you like, and add in only as much TA as you want for the sound you're going for. The correct placement makes it where only very fine-tnue adjustments need to happen in order to change the sound.

You have a beautiful voice. With a little more training, especially above the passagio, I have no doubt you can compete with the big league singers.

I've also coached a lot of bands and artists in stage presence. You're definitely comfortable on stage, it really shows. Now it's time to train hard enough so that when you're performing you don't have to think about technique and can instead focus on letting your whole body get lost in the music. That's a skill all it's own. Critique the hell out of your videos, and start to expiriment with what you've seen other artists do that you really liked and felt their emotion through. The "cool" things that stand out most to you about others are often because you really identify with it and it's already a part of you that only needs amplified more.

[ellise k]

thank you so much for your kind comments and feedback, its always so great to look at how i can improve