jonpall

Thanks for the comments on the Bon Jovi song. That was cool. I actually tried to sing the AC/DC songs using that same style as in Bed of roses but I had such a hard time doing it (me being a beginner) that I switched in mid-take into a more Brian Johnson on-a-bad-day falsetto gravelly sound just to make it through the song . Then I did a few other takes with that sound and picked the best one. My goal IS actually to be able to sing those AC/DC songs with a similar sound as in my Bed of roses recording.

Seventh Fear. No offence taken. I know perfectly well that I can't sing this song live without butchering it - yet. And this was the best take. So I won't put a song like that into our set list for a long time. I have to be nailing it very well many, many rehearsals in a row before I'll do that. But hopefully, by working on it a lot, I will eventually be able to sing stuff like this. That's pretty much why I posted the song here, so I would get comments on where my problems lie and how to fix them. It would be cool to hear your take on this song so I can understand better what you're saying, though.

Agreed with Joshual here. It sounds like you have a pretty good grasp on that style of singing, i.e. high pitched, twangy, clean voice. Well done! I don't think it sounds like falsetto. I personally tend to gravitate towards a bit more raspy style of singing, actually where singers blend rasp with clean sound, f.ex. sing the song mostly clean but add rasp for certain key words or phrases. I also try to tend towards voices with both high and low overtones. Guys like Rob Halford often have too little of the low overtones for my personal taste, but that's just me. I think you were on pitch and I didn't expect it to be this good. I think if you were to add slight distortion on notes here and there, it would sound even better and really sell the song to an audience. Again, just my personal opinion and note that I'm certainly no expert on this and not a vocal coach, just another singer. Cheers!

Olem, I got so many adware popup windows that I kind of hesitated to use that site. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I smell viruses all over that site. Could you upload it onto www.box.net or www.speedyshare.com ? Sorry :)

It sounds like you're really nailing that song, and that's no mere feat, but it's a bit tough to really tell how well you're doing because of Rob's voice in the background. Is there a chance for you to get a backing track of this song with the vocals removed? I know that some of that stuff is free and some you have to pay for.

Your voice has a very pleasing sound and you're spot on pitch. Like analog said, you really own that style of singing. I liked it a lot. Very professional sounding and something you could listen to over and over. Cheers!

If I could sing a bit better and most importantly do this on a consistant basis without getting very tired, especially with my support, you might want to get envious. But I really can't get near this level with my band yet, although I'll do my best to train hard so I can. But that's quite a compliment coming from such a good singer as yourself, Jens my friend. I also still listen to some of the music you've introduced to me, like Kamelot, so thanks a lot for that and all the vocal help!

Thanks, joshual. Maybe you could send me a line on email or MSN?

I tried recording the song Highway to hell and failed miserably. Well, I'll try again after a few days. Just goes to show I'm far from being able to master this style of singing. It's usually adding distortion to higher notes that gets me, although I'm able to do it sometimes.

Wow, thanks so much. That's very helpful, man. Yeah, this is a very new way of singing to me, but my wish is simply to be able to sing the songs I love and many of them are pretty tough :)

It would be cool if g0dvollie could comment on this one because I recorded this specifically after he mentioned that more power was needed for my high notes in the AC/DC songs in my other threads - but the more who chime in, the better. I was trying to be less heady this time for the high notes, but I'm pretty sure I'm not nailing this style of singing yet, because it took a lot of effort and this is the best take. I have the feeling that this time I'm being too chesty, or lack twang at certain parts, I don't really know. It also bothers me a bit that I had a cold but I hope you can look past that a bit. I'm using mostly ideas from Jamie Vendera's Raise your voice, 2nd edition here. Maybe I just need to work on his program for a few more months to see improvement. g0dvollie's ideas on twang and an open throat interest me a great deal as well. g0dvollie, maybe you could send me a line on MSN Messenger if you have it? I'm j_g_thorarinsson@hotmail.com. Here is the recording: http://www.speedyshare.com/files/21850153/Dazed_and_confused_cover_.mp3 Any thoughts on how I could improve that (as it's boarderline blasphemy to even come close to butcher a classic like that), would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you could suggest any exercises for me at this point in time, if you have the time to do so. Respectfully, jonpall.

My Bed of roses and some other experimental stuff can be found here: http://www.reverbnation.com/jongunnar I'm also doing some guitar covers there, like Steve Vai's "For the love of god", as I started out as a guitarist, but the audio quality is bad on that tune and there is no backing track like there is for Bed of roses. Still, you should be able to hear pretty much every detail. But right now youtube seems to be having some problems. Or maybe it's just me.

No problem at all. Youtube is maybe the best place to put songs on, so just for the future, I need to know how to do this I'll let you know how it goes.

I was trying to do that yesterday but I'm having a real hard time posting mp3 files on youtube. I also tried converting the mp3 to a wmv file but it didn't work. I'll try again now and see what happens...

g0dvollie, thanks a lot for the help. I think you're absolutely right - I'm losing my connection and switching to some type of neutral-falsetto type of sound. I seem to be able to fix this if I pause a bit between the lines. However, for some reason I find it very hard to distort by twanging harder and harder until a distortion appears. The only way to distort HIGH pitches for me at the moment is to do what Jamie Vendera says and that's to move the sound further back in my throat, into my soft palate, increase my downwards support, and think slightly evil But maybe that's just another way to describe overtwanging? Thanks for the tips!

Yeah, english is not my first language And I agree with your that these sentences bother me a bit and if I was recording to put on an album, I might re-do those parts. Hope you have fun in beautiful Canada, be it in Vancouver or elsewhere!

g0dvollie, you're spot on. This is exactly what I dislike about that recording, although I think it's slightly better in You shook me all night long than in Money talks. It's too falsetto-ish and too breathy, which means that it's hard for me to sing those decending lines from B4 to G4 without sounding like a witch (or Brian Johnson on a very bad day, when he sometimes sounds too falsetto-ish. In the early days, he rarely did, but later he sometimes had that sound). But I'd very much like to get rid of it. I can actually do it, i.e. make it sound better, if I take pauses between the lines, because my support hasn't been perfected yet, along with how to grit high notes - but now I think I know how to do it and I'm going to practise like mad. Thanks, dude!

Joshual, those are very valid points and thanks for pointing them out because then I can try to fix them. I do think that they're not THAT apparant in the song Bed of roses (being about the only recording I'd dare to show to people outside of this forum) but both those issues are things that I've had problems with in the past. Thanks again for the help, Joshual. Thanks Jens, for the kind words. Much of my improvement has come from the help from you, dude.

Your first live performace? Wow, it doesn't sound like it. Very good my friend! I think you have a great voice and most of all, it sounded like you guys had fun - I like your band. As for any tips for improvements, I'm afraid I'm not qualified to give you any, but it seemed to me in the first clip that you tended to raise your shoulders at times and that can cause constriction, especially for higher notes. Maybe I'm incorrect. But still, Bruce Springsteen did that all the time and he's awesome ;)

Would it be too much to ask if we could change the subject and discuss the recordings?

I'm sorry if I offended you, David. That wasn't my intention. But I can't see the difference between my threads in this part of TMV and the ones from other people. I didn't put the usual "any critique would be good" or "could you tell what's wrong and how to fix it" disclaimers because that's kind of the point of this section of TMV and I don't see the need in typing in all that for every post. I stated what I think is wrong with my singing in those clips because I know that sometimes singers don't realize that they're doing something wrong, just so that people wouldn't have to explain that to me in lengthy detail. Like f.ex. sometimes singers are very out of tune but they don't hear it. Notice that I did not suggest how to fix my problems. But that is actually what I would like to hear from people, some exercises or something they think could be the remedy. So far I've received both support and critizisms for my uploads and the critizisms have been very helpful and I've worked on them. Maybe you only see the praises? This forum has been very helpful and friendly and I feel that I've improved since I joined it about a year ago. Appart from maybe "Bed of roses", none of the songs I've uploaded are sung good enough for me to show them to people other than guys on this forum that I trust not to rip me apart but give constructive critizism and a few friends. Cheers, jonpall.

Hi guys, I just recorded myself singing Bon Jovi's "Bed of roses" over a backing track and also AC/DC's "Money talks": http://www.box.net/files#/files/0/f/32098742/1/f_416047422 It's fun to be able to sing a bit and not just scream throughout the song I normally sing so many rock songs with my band, you see. Here's Money talks: http://www.speedyshare.com/files/21750894/Money_talks_Johnny_.mp3 I'm still not good enough at thickening up my sound a bit during decending melodies through my passagio when I'm using distortion, i.e. I don't change as much from head voice to chest voice in the right places here - so I actually sound a bit too much Brian Johnson (on a bad day) for my liking. But I'm going to work hard on fixing that. It has a nice G5 scream in it that I don't think is in the original recording but I've heard Brian do it on other songs like Shoot to thrill. Recording stuff like this is much more helpful for my voice than I thought it would be. Lots of love and keep rockin', jonpall.

Thanks for the kind words, all. It's especially cool to get this kind of feedback from such awesome singers as yourselves. I just can't do this shit well enough on a consistant basis to do it live yet, but with more training and the help I've received from this web site, my hopes are up Keep rockin'!

Anyone care to comment?

Hi guys, I'm going to post 2 clips of me singing very difficult songs that I recorded yesterday, U2's "Pride (in the name of love)" and AC/DC's "You shook me all night long". Those performances are not good enough yet for me to ask my band to perform them live, IMO. But hopefully, I'll get to that level one day. That would be pretty cool. I'm posting this both to record my current skill level, which has been increasing and possibly to get some feedback from you guys if you spot any obvious errors in my technique. The first one is Pride (I used the very first vocal take, unedited): http://www.speedyshare.com/files/21707456/Pride_Johnny_.mp3 And here's You shook me all night long: http://www.speedyshare.com/files/21707461/You_shook_me_all_night_long_Johnny_.mp3 That one is VERY tough to sing and I can't really do this on a consistant basis. This was the fifth take, although it's not edited in any way, so it's pretty much a live recording, just like Pride (in the name of love). There are many places in here that I really dislike, particular in the beginning, but still I think there are ok runs here and there. I'm tempted to go back and at least re-record the first half of the first verse but I'm not going to because I want to hear what I can do in a single take. But it was really fun to record. For both songs, I got the backing tracks from the net. Now, if anyone of you actually like those takes, it would be a pleasant surprise for me, but the point is that I want to improve and eventually be able to sing slightly better than this all the time. With regards, jonpall.