Critique My Singing~!

[PotentialSinger12]

I covered James Arthur's Wrecking Ball cover of Miley Cyrus.

Please help me improve my singing voice! I feel like something is holding me back from having more volume or a more developed voice. What do you think?

Thank you very much. <3

[berniemcpeak]

Hmmm... where to start.

I'm going to give you my honest opinion. And it's not going to be pretty, but I give it to you in hopes that you will take it for what it's worth and look to improve yourself. I mean, that's why we're here right?

I'll start with what I thought was positive in your performance. Your "feel" or "passion" or whatever you want to call it. You came across as very passionate in your singing.

Now for the bad...

Almost everything else. You pitch was both flat AND sharp in areas, but mostly flat and honestly it sounded like you're a bit "tone deaf". And you put WAY too much emphasis on trying to vibrato your voice and make it "gravelly". You need to learn to hold a note before you can carry a tune. You might want to try picking up a tuning app and work on hitting notes and holding them cleanly. Trying to vibrato before learning to hold a clean note is like trying to drive a sports car without ever having had a driving lesson. The result will not be good.

I think you can remedy these things with some patience and practice. Basics first. Keep it simple. And work your way up from there.

I'm only being honest in my opinion and not trying to be rude or hurtful. Other opinions may be different, but this is mine.

Eric

[PotentialSinger12]

Thanks, bernie, I agree. I've played guitar for years but am just now starting to practice singing, so I definitely agree that my overall voice is very rusty. Do you have any suggestions as to exercises that can help me on pitch, carrying a tune, etc?

Thanks for the help, I'm taking everything into consideration to help build a stronger voice.

[berniemcpeak]

You're welcome Potential. If you have an iphone the following link lists several apps to help you with pitch and tone. Even a simple tuning app for guitar can help you. Heck, your guitar (tuned, of course) can be of great help to you simply by plucking notes on the strings and matching them with your voice. And remember to do it "cleanly". Don't worry about vibrato or any extraneous effects. Simple, clean notes. Once you've mastered them yo ucan start working on scales to help increase your range.

[PotentialSinger12]

I don't have an iphone, but I'll definitely work on matching my voice to my guitar. Thanks for all the help, I hope to come back soon with much improvement!

[Enander]

What berniemcpeak says is true, and I will try to take another approach

I've "bolded" the key parts if you dislike reading! Haha!

Yes, this song is way too hard for you. You need to practice on something much simpler. There are A LOT of subtleties to singing that beginners and non-singers don't grasp. Hell, there are things even the most accomplished vocalists are missing.

My point is, there's just too much happening in this song for you; you're unable to wrap your head around it, and you need to really understand the melody to sing well. I mean, how can someone do something they don't understand? Sure, Lady Luck might be on one's side at times, but she's an erratic lady! Haha!

I don't know if this will help you, but if I'm able to DRAW the melody I know I'm ready to start sing it! I don't actually draw any melodies, but if someone (for some reason) asked me to, I could.

I visualise melodies as a line travelling to the right, and a high note means the line will travel upwards a bit (and a lower note mean a travel downwards). I even incorporate techniques to my "canvas", but that's not really relevant here.

My point is, it's not an exercise in drawing but and exercise in understanding the notes and their relationships between each other. If you can't hear/understand that, let's say, a single syllable contains two notes and how far from each other they are, you can't sing it! You'll probably end up singing a single not somewhere between those two before-mentioned notes or something!

You need to really LISTEN to the singing you'd like to emulate, and sadly (I don't mean to be rude), but I don't think you can hear what you need to hear in complex songs like James Arthur's rendition of Wrecking ball just yet. You will just hear it and think something along the lines of "Wow! That sounds so great!", but having a hard time pinpointing exactly what makes it sound so great.... even less, mentally draw how the melody looks like correctly.

I've only heard his rendition on a German radiostation, and his performance contains LOADS of 1/32 notes (in some wails even 1/64 notes).

Well, let's come down to earth a bit...

Of course you don't need to master every 1/32 note to be a functional vocalist! Haha! I'm just pointing out the complexity of some vocals, which is very easy to miss and misinterpret.

To listen and understand vocals is not easy, but once you can listen and understand it is soo much easier to learn it.

It's like having instructions to something but being unable to read. Once you learn how to read properly you'll understand the instructions and is able to carry out whatever the instruction is for!

When you've figured out the melody, start out slowly! As a guitarist I'm sure you'll understand this tip!

This is of course only my view of things, but the meaning of my post (i.e really understanding the melody) is a crucial point! It's just a matter of whims and fancies how you choose to approach it, and the above is just mine, which might be a good starting-point