Please pile on the criticism - Carrie Underwood cover! ;)

[Ricky29]

http://youtu.be/qQiiY0v9s6ge

Please say what you can about my voice in this pitchy, sloppy recording. I'm desperate for some advice, and do realize that nothing can replace the regular assistance of a proper vocal coach. However, I'm a student and can't afford one. Here are some questions I have that my quich search couldn't answer:

I briefly hit an f#4 and that's about as high as it goes for me. I can scream out a G4 but would empty a room. Is this normal for my voice type? I can only go as low as a G2 without strain. Should I keep trying to soften the neck muscles and continue cracking on G4, or belt out more regardless of strain? Mixed-voice seems to be far away from useable for me.

I'm ashamed of the tone and weight (?) of my voice and feel it sounds younger than my twenty years. Barring my hopeless accent, I'd like to be able to bring country, rock and Rnb on sometime. Should I attempt to emulate styles right away or focus on busting bad habits from years of singing in the shower?

Please if you have any advice or specific exercises, or notice anything fundamentally wrong with my singing, let me know. I appreciate your time, and love this forum!

http://youtu.be/qQiiY0v9s6ge

[Blameitonthevodka]

I like it....not really sure what I can advice for advice since I suck but it was pleasant to my ear

[Ricky29]

I like it....not really sure what I can advice for advice since I suck but it was pleasant to my ear

Thanks! Reckon this place is outta my league judging by the lack of comments.

Cheers

[MDEW]

It sounded pretty good to me. For some reason a Country song doesn't get too many comments around here.

Plus the fact that you sounded pretty good. Nothing stands out that needs fixed to comment on.

Another thing you are singing a song that a female made famous so no one can compare you to the original singer.

That to me is awesome. I believe that we sing what moves us, not something that we can copy to perfection.

You are pretty much forced into using your own style when you sing a song that crosses genders.

Do not get discouraged because you do not get too many comments.

This place is not out of your league. Please submit more.

[Jim Brewster]

I concur with the above comments. Sounds great! You've got some weight/color to your voice, but I think that is a good thing, and yeah, you can do country, rock, rnb, whatever you want.

As far as belting vs mixing the high notes, you're doing what comes naturally, and it's perfectly normal for your untrained voice. My top-end belt note that can sound decent in the right context is around E4.

Well of course you don't want to hurt yourself, and you want to keep it in context. In this song it sounds good, but wouldn't it be great to have control over the volume and tone of that note? All the gradations between a bellow and a squeak? That's the stuff I'm working on, currently in the slow self-study mode, but I'm looking into taking some lessons to speed up and smooth out the process. And you won't find a better batch of coaches for that purpose than right here on this forum!