Will I be able to sing "See You Again"?

[VojtaNovy1]

Hey everyone,

I am 17 and I have been singing for about 1 year (never sang before, not even in the shower, but I have played guitar for a really long time). Yesterday right before my vocal lesson with a local teacher, I though I could sing See You Again from Charlie Puth. I spend about 2 hours singing the song before I went to the lesson and pitched the idea to my teacher. I sang her the song and she said that it's a lot beyond my range and comfortable zone and that I shouldn't sing so high. She said that I can try singing it, but it will never sound good. That kind of hurt, because I like rock and pop songs and both are mostly high pitched songs. So I recorded myself at home and I am starting to disagree, which I shouldn't since she is the teacher and I am just a student. She had a problem with the high falsetto part, which I think is not that bad considering I have never used falsetto (I love the chest belting). She was okay with the "It's been a long time" and "We've come a long way" parts though, which to me sound terrible.

So to sum it up, I want to ask all of you what you think. Do you think I have the voice, potential to sing these high notes? Or should I stick to someone like John Mayer, John Lennon, Michael Buble and bring the song down when I want to sing pop/rock songs (for example Charlie Puth or Freddie Mercury)?

https://soundcloud.com/user-711959095/see-you-again-experiment-2

 

[Draven Grey]

Of course you can sing it! 

Allow me to address a couple of things before praising you on your incredible voice. Reading the things your teacher said to you, I'm infuriated.

Let me ease into it from the least to the greatest offense. First, that's not falsetto, it's light-mass head voice. Falsetto is a vocal mode defined by being open and airy, usually within the head voice range. Jo Estill defined vocal modes in the 1930's, and any teacher above $50/hr should know the difference between falsetto and light or disconnected head voice. But that's not the main issue here at all. Telling you it's outside your vocal range is saying she doesn't know how to train you to sing that high. Is she working with you on bridging and connecting the voice?Saying it's outside your comfort zone, as if to say you should stay within your comfort zone, is a way of saying she doesn't want to or know how to train you to do what you're wanting to do. But saying it will never sound good? She's projecting her insecurities on you, and you need to find a better teacher, and not be afraid to tell her why you're looking elsewhere. A teacher should never think that of a student, MUCH LESS say it!

From some that knows how to train you to belt that high, or use any type of voice you want to that high...
You have a great voice. Yes, you have some work to do on resonance, relaxing into your upper range, and opening your diphthongs (e.g. "Way" as /w/+/eh/+/ee/, the /ee/ should only be the last 5%, not really sung),. However, your current sound color reminds me of Paul McCartney in his prime. That's incredible! Great job! 

If you're good with self-study, I highly suggest Robert's Udemy Course. If $20 is too much right now, even just looking up Cry or various other videos on Robert Lunte's YouTube Channel will help. I'll be recording a video this weekend about increasingly range as well, that addresses cry vocal mode and exercises to do that will increase your range. Cry and lifting resonance into "up and out" soft palate resonance usually increases a students comfortable connected range by 5 to 7 notes immediately.

 

[VojtaNovy1]

2 hours ago, Draven Grey said:

Of course you can sing it! 

Allow me to address a couple of things before praising you on your incredible voice. Reading the things your teacher said to you, I'm infuriated.

Let me ease into it from the least to the greatest offense. First, that's not falsetto, it's light-mass head voice. Falsetto is a vocal mode defined by being open and airy, usually within the head voice range. Jo Estill defined vocal modes in the 1930's, and any teacher above $50/hr should know the difference between falsetto and light or disconnected head voice. But that's not the main issue here at all. Telling you it's outside your vocal range is saying she doesn't know how to train you to sing that high. Is she working with you on bridging and connecting the voice?Saying it's outside your comfort zone, as if to say you should stay within your comfort zone, is a way of saying she doesn't want to or know how to train you to do what you're wanting to do. But saying it will never sound good? She's projecting her insecurities on you, and you need to find a better teacher, and not be afraid to tell her why you're looking elsewhere. A teacher should never think that of a student, MUCH LESS say it!

From some that knows how to train you to belt that high, or use any type of voice you want to that high...
You have a great voice. Yes, you have some work to do on resonance, relaxing into your upper range, and opening your diphthongs (e.g. "Way" as /w/+/eh/+/ee/, the /ee/ should only be the last 5%, not really sang),. However, your current sound color reminds me of Paul McCartney in his prime. That's incredible! Great job! 

If you're good with self-study, I highly suggest Robert's Udemy Course. If $20 is too much right now, even just looking up Cry or various other videos on Robert Lunte's YouTube Channel will help. I'll be recording a video this weekend about increasingly range as well, that addresses cry vocal mode and exercises to do that will increase your range. Cry and lifting resonance into "up and out" soft palate resonance usually increases a students comfortable connected range by 5 to 7 notes immediately.

 

Thank you so much for your answer.

I need to ask you, is there a good video on what is the difference between falsetto and head voice? Cause I thought I understood it, but as I can see now I was wrong all along. I watched this video and though I got it, but if you are right, then you've confused me. And teacher told me as well that the "And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again" part is a falsetto.

About the vocal teacher, she never told me anything about these stuff. I don't even know how are these things called in my native language (Czech). We usually just warm up and they I sing a couple of songs. Sometimes she tells me it was good and then we go on, sometimes we correct some notes, runs that were not in pitch, a lot of times she tells me to sing lower songs, because my voice sounds good there, but I always disagree there. And yes, she does say that I should sing inside my comfort zone and when it will sound good, I should move higher and I do partly agree with her, cause I do think it is important to sound good even at around G3, but I should train the high notes as well.

All I have learned, I learned from watching youtube videos and picking, what seems to work for me. I don't really want to stick with one course as there are so many and sometimes, the teachers can be wrong. For example I saw Ken Tamplin (he is always in the recommended videos, don't really like him, but he did show me the lip roll warm up) and I saw the lizard tongue thing, which was just weird. 

It really flatters me to hear my colour sounds like Paul McCartney but I have a long way to go  But truly thank you, as almost everybody I didn't really like my voice on the recording.

I did hear about Robert Lunte and I am thinking about watching some videos or even buying some stuff. I did spare some money and I really want to train my voice to sing pop/rock with ease and beatiful tone. But I think that Robert sings a lot different than I would want to sing. He uses a lot of screams and distorted sounds and I am not really into that. I do like it sometimes (John Lennon, Oasis), but just subtle use of it.

[Draven Grey]

On 1/4/2019 at 2:26 PM, VojtaNovy1 said:

Thank you so much for your answer.

I need to ask you, is there a good video on what is the difference between falsetto and head voice? Cause I thought I understood it, but as I can see now I was wrong all along. I watched this video and though I got it, but if you are right, then you've confused me. And teacher told me as well that the "And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again" part is a falsetto.

About the vocal teacher, she never told me anything about these stuff. I don't even know how are these things called in my native language (Czech). We usually just warm up and they I sing a couple of songs. Sometimes she tells me it was good and then we go on, sometimes we correct some notes, runs that were not in pitch, a lot of times she tells me to sing lower songs, because my voice sounds good there, but I always disagree there. And yes, she does say that I should sing inside my comfort zone and when it will sound good, I should move higher and I do partly agree with her, cause I do think it is important to sound good even at around G3, but I should train the high notes as well.

All I have learned, I learned from watching youtube videos and picking, what seems to work for me. I don't really want to stick with one course as there are so many and sometimes, the teachers can be wrong. For example I saw Ken Tamplin (he is always in the recommended videos, don't really like him, but he did show me the lip roll warm up) and I saw the lizard tongue thing, which was just weird. 

It really flatters me to hear my colour sounds like Paul McCartney but I have a long way to go  But truly thank you, as almost everybody I didn't really like my voice on the recording.

I did hear about Robert Lunte and I am thinking about watching some videos or even buying some stuff. I did spare some money and I really want to train my voice to sing pop/rock with ease and beatiful tone. But I think that Robert sings a lot different than I would want to sing. He uses a lot of screams and distorted sounds and I am not really into that. I do like it sometimes (John Lennon, Oasis), but just subtle use of it.

The difference is as I said. Falsetto is a vocal mode that is characterized by being open and airy. It's a "false voice." Head voice is a range. Within head voice, you can have difference levels of push/mass, compression, resonance, and chest voice musculature mixed in. Sadly, there are a lot of teachers who think falsetto and head voice are the same thing and use the terms synonymously. In that part of the song, you're singing in what I would call light-mass head-voice. 

A warm-up and then singing songs while she "fixes" various parts of your song isn't training. That's what you should be training to be able to do for yourself. However, I've had many students with whom that's all they wanted to do. Have you communicated clearly with her what you would like to train for?

Also, training to bridge and connect your voice into the head voice range will do amazing things for your voice. Training above your bridge utilizes many more muscle groups, requiring you to learn much more fine-motor skills and fine-tuned coordination. Even for my students who mostly sing around E2, I still train above their bridge over half the time, because of how much coordination and strength you can build by doing so.

I like Ken, but his technique had me straining my voice in higher pitches. Robert's course is far better, and much more comprehensive, especially if you focus on learning the onsets and acoustics, and jump into the training routines as soon as possible.