Please someone give some honnest response to my singing

[jstcroix]

Dear people,

I am singing since I was 12 and I have had some singing lessons along the way. I am 40 and still very insecure about my singing so I would love to hear from you out there who know about singing how my singing comes across to you and what I might be able to do to better it. The videos are home taped so no professional videos. I just ast week started to go to open mic nights and maybe my insecurity will go away

My style is mostly country/folk I think it suits best with my voice.

Please check me out on you tube

http://www.youtube.com/user/jsaintcroix

Thanks so much for responding,

Jolanda

[Freddie]

I cant specifically come up to something you should improve. Maybe to cut it loose just a slight bit more, just to make it more interesting. There is nothing to be insecure about!

[kalapoka]

Hi, you sound pretty good to me! keep singing!

Fahim

[Steven Fraser]

I am singing since I was 12 and I have had some singing lessons along the way. I am 40 and still very insecure about my singing so I would love to hear from you out there who know about singing how my singing comes across to you and what I might be able to do to better it. The videos are home taped so no professional videos. I just ast week started to go to open mic nights and maybe my insecurity will go away

My style is mostly country/folk I think it suits best with my voice.

Jolanda: I listened to 'Crazy', and liked the rendition overall. You have the feel/style of the song down very well, and vocally you do fine.

There are a couple places to slightly improve the tone consistency. After the modulation, in the final section, there are a couple notes that are pitchy. Check those out. Also, the last note is suddenly softer. Make sure that it is as clear as the rest of that section.

For the benefit of your 'open mic' nights, I think there are two things, aspects of overall performance, that you can improve quite a bit, but they are not about your vocal rendition. They are about your two most prominient movements during the song.

First, I found the continuous motion of your left hand and arm to be not expressive at all of the song lyric... just a distraction. My recommendation would be to only move that hand when the particular motion reinforces the communication of the lyric or the emotion being sung.

As an approach/exercise to work on this, try singing the song with your left hand holding on to the mic cord at your side the entire time. Just let it be still, except for the one place that has the most intense emotion in the song... wherever that is. There, and just there for this time, let go of the mic cord, let the hand rise, hold it somewhere out in front of you, and shape it/move it in a manner that is expressive of the emotion you wish to convey at that moment... pleading, hope, 'go away', pain, rejection ... what ever that emotion might be, and then let it return to your side or to holding the mic cord. Repeat the exercise for the 2nd and 3rd most intense places in the song. After a while, you will get comfortable to moving that hand and arm in a manner that amplifies your meaning.

You can go another step further with this idea if you get a mic stand, and sing the song hands-free.

The other aspect of performance that I believe you can re-think a bit is the dancing, though you look just fine doing it. If you were singing this song in front of a band while people were dancing, what you are doing is just fine. However, when you are singing it for people who are only listening and watching, as in a concert, karaoke, or whatever, the dancing will be a distraction at the current level of motion.

As a way to approach this, try 'dancing on the inside', that is, move with simple weight shifts in time to the music, rather than by taking actual steps/footwork as you are now.

I hope this is the kind of feedback that you were seeking.

[jstcroix]

Hello,

Thank you all for responding. It's nice to get some honest opinions from you out there.

Yes Steven you are right about the arm movement. I just do it automatically and after when I looked at the video I noticed it's distracting and annoying lol. I will for sure work on the tactic you mentioned to get rid of that and the same for the dancing.

It feels so good to hear from people who know what they are talking about that you are good vocally. This gives me some more confidence knowing I am not waisting my time on something that is never going to be anything.

Thank you all so much.

Jolanda

[Seventh Fear]

Hi just listend and couldn't hear anything bad at all but if you do another Video could you have less reverb because it's like your hiding your vocal behind the effect and the Dido song i couldn't hear your vocal all i got was a wash of effect. this is what a lot of singers do when they are insecure about their vocal and you have a voice that don't need as much.

Well done if you would like any backing tracks let me know and i'll email some over as I collect them as a kind of hoby :D