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Empty Chairs - Great emotion in your voice. I understand how it felt or sounded different in your head than it sounded in recording. I found that effect when I did "Sweet Child of Mine." For me, most of that song was mixed, with the higher parts being head tone, but I think I was still mixing a little. In playback, I couldn't hear any passagio or transition, which I guess, is success. In that case, your instincts maybe what is needed to accomplish the range. When I was younger, I would try and match timbre. But it helps to remember that a high note is a small note with a different resonance and resonating space than say a basso profundo grumble. That is, to access the higher end of your range may require a resonance different than that which you may have at, say, B2. For example, if you could D5, I doubt you're going to sound like you do at middle C. Don't let that scare you off.

This Town Ain't Big Enough - First off, even in falsetto tone, for we all know falsetto is a tone, not a range, it is difficult to pull off a split-arpeggiated melody with staccato lyrics that include full gutteral and labial stops. And that was in mid-tenor, no less. Man, you've got some chops. Someone should pimp-slap Andrew Lloyd Weber and his compatriots for doing things like that. Anyway, your only weak spot was the ending note. And not because it was out of range. But because you backed off the breath. As Graham Hewitt once said, if you can sing it soft, you can sing it loud. It just depends on the air pressure, the resonance, and the proper tension on the right part of the vocal chords. I noticed your timbre was more open-throated on this song, less bel canto. So, in traditional opera, you may be baritone to mid-tenor but I think in pop music and contemporary theater, you might be full tenor. And I think you are having an easier time in pop tenor because the shape of the mouth is more open an lax, where the vowels are shaped in the back of the mouth rather than with the mandibular muscles and the lips. In fact, I bet it's harder for you to sing pop baritone since you are so used to the bel canto in that range. Next time you do this song, hit the last note with a gut punch, like your swinging to bat the ball out of the park (center field into the parking lot and knock out someone's windshield.)

Sea Fever - Well done. Your voice is entrancing in that one. Obviously, of course, you were in your element, material-wise. If you were having a crack or weakness, I couldn't hear it. As for the effect of upper range becoming easier to manage, that can happen. From 1974 to 1987, I thought I was baritone. Then I started studying voice and learning about resonance and breath control and found out I was a tenor. At least in my favorite genres, hard rock and heavy metal, with a smattering of pop, which I think is reflected in the submissions I have put up so far in the critique section. I think part of the difference is the expected venues for different types of music. Bel Canto opera, your style, is designed for the singer to sing in an acoustically shaped hall with no electronic amplification. As opposed to "Bat" which is often song into a microphone and indeed, many pop singers are kind of weak and thready in the upper range and the lack is hidden in the amplification and the equalization applied to the vocal mic. It's also not uncommon, I think, for someone to be capable of two ranges. I can go from high tenor down to baritone and once in a while, I can hit upper bass. Especially if I have a cold.

I listened to "Bat out of Hell" first, as the piece is most accessible to me as a cultural reference, though I have seen Ol' Misery, too. Maybe I have lived a sheltered life but I had not really heard an opera singer do "Bat". Though I appreciate that "Bat out of Hell" is essentially a rock opera. Indeed, Meatloaf (Michael Aday) certainly looked a crazed opera singer in the edwardian tux shirt, hankerchief in one hand. I'm not exactly sure where you are resonating most of your range. It sounded chest for baritone and lower tenor. Mixed for mid tenor and you had to change resonance for the upper tenor and that you were a little uncomfortable with it, not because it was impossible for you to do but because it took you out of the bel canto technique. Which may be problematic because of the lyrics at that part of the melody. That is, you were on pitch, like a true singer, doing what it takes to hit the note, but at a cost of leaving behind the resonance you were used to using. Is the question how to achieve that part of the range while still using the bel canto technique? I just know how I hit that range if I want the full tone (depends on the effect of the song). Which is full head tone, with the back of the tongue curled to bolster the resonating space. You might start that note in falsetto and approach full as you become comfortable in how to resonate and still have your distinctive sound. Sure, you will sound weak at first. But it's the way I teach helpers how to bend pipe. You take a bender and a pipe and knock yourself out making a metal pretzel out of it. In so doing, you become comfortable with how the bender does what it does. By the end of a couple of sticks, you can bend anything you desire, rather than just by accident. In the same vein, I would say, experiment with that in falsetto, until you become comfortable with where the note is in whereever you are resonating. Then you can make minute adjustments and get back to that "Pavarotti does Mozart's Requiem" vibe that was going on.

Modern because the lyrics and melody are contemporary, rather than from the 1930s or 40s. Torch singer because many of the songs are of unrequited love or love gone astray, where the singer, as the solitary actor in the story of the song, still carries a torch for the loved one. It's from an old american phrase "to carry a torch" which is to hold onto a love or still love someone or something long after it seems such a relationship is is useless or none-forthcoming. Ergo, modern torch song singer.

You and some of the other singers here already have talent and the ability to be making records. It just takes a little push. But I see that you are already out there. I listen to all types of music and I think there is definitely space out there for you.

And thank you for the kind words. I'm not a vocal teacher or anything like that. I am, by profession and trade, an electrician. But I have been playing guitar for a really long time and singing for a really long time and I can remember the hurdles I have crossed and some I still cross. For example, when I am teaching a helper how to bend pipe and I see him or her about to do something that won't bring them success, I stop and think to myself, what I am doing that's right that I haven't taught them? Well, it appears that I can hear what someone is doing and relate it to a problem that I have had and got through. At the same time, I can have a problem and read someone else's viewpoint and think, yeah, that's it, now I understand. Once in a while, I even manage to learn from myself. Or try something different to get around the limitations of my recording equipment. AC/DC songs sound like they were made for belting. But really, I think, you can achieve what you want to achieve whether it's in fully resonated head voice or belted chest voice. One of the best analogies I have found is that the voice can be thought of like a guitar string. A high note is a shortened string (by pressing near a fret on the neck) and stouter pick attack (controlled and applied air pressure) and resonated in the chamber of the guitar (whichever applicable resonating space in your body, such as behind the nasal cavity. What I have also found helps to support the head voice resonating chamber is to allow the back of your tongue to curl a bit. This creates a resonating space. It's part of the inner "smile" you create when you smile big. Many people think Axl Rose's grimace is for stage effect of emotion. It is not, it is to move the muscles in the back of throat to create the right resonating space. Be confident that you can do it because, believe it or not, you are already there, just use that confidence to "unleash the beast."

Good analogy, the bagpipes. I have found that breath control, along with resonance, leads to volume control. And, counter-intuitive as it sounds, sometimes resonating behind the sinus leads to getting away from nasal sounds. Just like, a high note is a small note with limited and controlled air, rather than an elevated larynx and marine drill sgt. hoarse shout.

I wanted to highlight your point so that it doesn't get lost, accidently. The Bon Scott and Brian Johnson sound is an integral part of AC/DC. I have "Highway to Hell" as a ringtone on my cellphone. That being said, Bon Scott was not a trained singer and his range was limited, albeit in the high end. But the sound he had fit the unpolished sound that was needed. Brian Johnson actually accomplished more range but has struggled to stay in the tenor range. But he, too, has a tone that is more important than being a technically accurate singer. I totally agree, Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson are better singers but their sound would not have fit AC/DC. Just as the sound of the original singer for Iron Maiden was a punk rock singer and not really suited for the neo-classical song construction of Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing. Bruce coming along was just what they needed. And, yes, I believe in having fun. I wouldn't rule out music as a career for me, but it will be on my terms. So, I agree with you, this should always be for fun. As Ronnie James Dio said, "I get to do what I love to do, every single day. It doesn't get any better than that." When I sing "Highway to Hell" and "Longway to the Top," I don't try to imitate the timbres of Scott or Johnson. I don't think I could, really. I concentrate on hitting the notes, usually with full volume, as I am often singing over my own guitar.

The gospel link kept throwing me to the login page but the jazz link went right to that one. And I liked it. Your voice has the velvety smoothness of Roberta Flack and the range of Sarah Vaughan. You even have some of that Sarah edge and sensibility, yet it's all your own. I also like your transitions from full tone to falsetto and back, again. I think, in opera, it's called sotto voce. One of my prize items is an original ceramic pressing of "Lady Sings the Blues" by Billie Holliday. You make me think of that and I could easily see you as a modern torch singer, as Rod Stewart has become these days. I would say keep on with what you've get, get yourself recorded and start selling albums. Don't bother with meat grinders like American Idol or other "talent manufacturing" mills. You have a professional sound.

I think you sang it stronger than Klaus Meine. In the original version, his is more nasal, with a full head voice but "wasting air" which pulls back on the volume and gives him the rasp he was going for, whereas you were belting in mixed voice, a testament to you being a natural tenor, at least in sound, and giving it a sonic blast. That is, you were singing properly and fully resonated. It is Klaus who may have been using the crying resonance to reach that range at the soft volume he was creating for the song.

I think you nailed it. Much better pitch control because you had diaphragmic pressure matching the ends of the range you are in. Definitely the thing to do in varying the outputed volume in recording, rather than trying to pull back on your own physical volume. I couldn't hear any pitch or resonance problems at all and I think you were wise to stay in head voice, where you could control your resonance. The echo only helped. Some may think echo is a crutch. It is not. If you were off pitch, the echo would have highlighted that. Instead, it gave the fullness to your notes. Don't worry if you sound just a smidge different than Johnson. That's a good thing. Jesse Dupree of Jackal has a similar sound and I could see, as a member of the buying public, buying your stuff. Even for myself, I can't figure who I sound like. On my own song, "Time," I think I sound a little like Ronnie Van Zandt from .38 Special. On "Highway to Hell," I sometimes sound like a hick. I think that's from the way we pronounce the word "highway" in Texas. Speaking of which, I've been meaning to redo that song through Audacity to see if I can get a better version. You will find that I don't sound like either Brian Johnson or Bon Scott. But I admire the tone or timbre you have built in these recordings.

Great effort. It sounds like you were able to rip a track and knock down center panned vocals. At first, you were breathy and you had a problem at your passagio and some mixed voice. Sometimes, for grins, I will start as low as I can go and range up in pitch, trying to smoothly adjust where the resonance is to eliminate passagio and voice breaks. But even Johnson's voice breaks and they keep it in the recording because, emotion-wise, it's gold. So, don't be afraid of that. In the second part of the song, you got better and here's why I think I it happened. At the beginning, you are holding back and not fully engaging the diaphragm. So, no matter how well you've zipped up your vocal chords, there's not enough pressure on them to maintain even tone and it causes the breathy, kind of thready sound. Later, you really get into the song, adding some of your own lyrics, making it yours, When you did that, you gave it the gut punch, literally. Your diaphragm exerted more pressure, which fully utilizes the shortened vocal chords. A high note is a small note, resonated properly, but with the required pressure to cause the vibration. So, yeah, you distorted the mic response but who cares, you hit the notes with a solid blast on pitch and with a fuller tone. I find, at that end of the range, there is no choice but hit it full tilt boogie. And that's where you sounded the best. So, I would agree with others. Always start out in head voice to get your pitch. But also, hit it like you are swinging to bat it out of the park. It sounds counter-intuitive but by engaging the diaphragm fully, you are getting full use of the air, which makes you less breathy. Edited to add: I think you improved on the pitch problems, probably by following the advice of staying in head voice to get the right pitch. Now that I think back to your previous recording. Your pitch was better on this second, just go ahead and put your gut in it from start to finish.

No prob. It's mainly due to the equipment I have. A small desktop mic. Yes, I do have a nasal quality at times, depending on my sinuses. As it turns out, while I was recording this one, I was coming down with a cold. I held back on the upper notes on this song because it was mainly sung low, to begin with. Costello's live performances actually use the higher notes more often than the studio recording.

Well, you're at least a light year ahead of me in equipment. But I aim to gear up when I can.

I've been singing a while and I noticed these things in myself. As in, been there, done that. As for the proverb in my sig, that has to do with the history of my favorite breed of dog. My favorite breed is Siberian Husky. My dog is a mix of Siberian Husky and Lab, mostly Siberian. Short history lesson. The chukchi people of far northeastern Siberia have bred for almost 3,000 years a dog known as the chukchi dog. During the end of the 19th century, Russia took over control of those provinces but they had a hard time pronouncing chuckchi words. Instead, they would say huskya (hoosk-yuh). Americans, such as Leonard Seppala (founder of the Seppala line) were part of the later trade routes between the alaskan territory and Siberia, sailing across the Bering Sea. Well, he another americans couldn't pronounce huskya, so they said husky. Since the dog came from Siberia, it became known as the Siberian Husky. The proverb I quote is one of the central beliefs of the chukchi people. If you care well for your dogs then they wait to pull your sled to heaven when you pass away. It's a quaint way of saying "What goes around, comes around. You get as you give."

I can explain the funky vocals. See, I vary volume as well as pitch but this was recorded on the digital camera with a little mic that can be overloaded by a breath. But I am trying to update my stuff with Audacity as best as soon as I can.

Right on about Mutt Lange. And you stated more clearly what I meant about getting his voice framed with the right mixing. In a studio, or even these days of computerized recording, there's an acoustically sensitive sound engineer who can vary the eq on a track as well as its prominence in the track. What most of us have is backing tracks and hopefully a halfway decent mic, except in my case of not even that, just me, a guitar, and a desk mic. Anyway, I can do some mixing with the software but any tack I create is limited by the mic. Not so in a studio. Professional mics that use coils instead of piezoelectric diaphragms. 32 bit to 32 bit recording. My copy of Audacity records and plays back at 32 bits with a sample rate of 41k. That's fairly decent quality. I can playback and think, "well, even I think that was okay." But it exports to a .wav file that is signed 16 bits. Then I have to save as a wmv in moviemaker in order to upload to youtube. So, a little is lost in each conversion, as opposed to being to simply record direct to computer and share that file. Well, modern recording equipment can at least either match the bitmap or at the least, maintain a high sample rate, as close to 41k as possible to catch as much of the data. As for mics. The desk mic I have is a slight bigger version of the mic in my digital camera, the camera that is dwarfed by my hand. It is a condenser mic. it is an electrically charged semiconductor diaphraghm in conjunction with a capacitor (hence, condenser). Because it is physically connected to the circuit, it can't take much of a charge or do much at such a low level of power. In addition, it is physically small, less than 5 mm across, operating similar to a mic in a cell phone. A pro mic will often have a voice coil set up. This is a large rubber, mylar, or paper diaphragm, sometimes up to 2 inches across, which is larger than 5 mm, that moves a magnet. This magnet moves back and forth inside the field effect of a coil of wire that is already carrying the current and voltage it needs to drive an amplifier stage. Bot the diaphragm and the magnet in coil have a larger range of response to both pitch and volume. What that means is that htey are less likely to distort or clip off bits of the input signal, as a condenser mic will. There's a limit to how fast a condenser mic can vibrate and how deep. You get crackles and a flattening of the recorded signal.

I was going to say, and others beat me to it, that you do have something of a Brian Johnson vibe going on. This was a good recording. You sounded breathy at first. But, in the second half of the clip, you zipped up the chords a bit and sounded even stronger. I've noticed that you annunciate more clearly than Johnson. See if you can try it just a little "sloppy." Sometimes, that's the sound that is needed. Dupree, of Quiet Riot, related how their producer on Metal Health wanted them to cover the Slade tune, "Come on, feel the noise." None of the band liked that song nor were they fans or inspired by Slade. So, they said, "we'll do it crappy." The song you hear was done live in studio, no double tracking, in the first take, with Dupree sounding as "dirty" as he could. Instant hit. When I do "Highway to Hell," I can do it clean and get compared to Justin Hawkins. But I can do it sloppy and have a lot of fun with it, too. Anyway, I think you're doing fine. I bet it would be astounding if you had some time in a studio with some decent mixing to shape and frame the voice. You have the range and timbre to do this style.

Hey, Kalapoka. I thought you sounded just fine. You hit all the right notes that I could and you had some problematic acoustics to deal with in that hall or luncheon room or whatever it was. And yet, you were still on key, with a free and easy voice with a clean, pure tone. I didn't really notice a problem with your accent. Nor is having some accent a detriment. Klause Meine of Scorpions not only sings with a german accent but some of the lyrics are structered with german syntax. Their hit song, "I want to belong for you" is phrased exactly how you say it in german, which is "Ich wuensche fur dich belongen" (yes, I studied german at one time, per part of my heritage.) What I hear is that you speak english correctly, which is often the case. Many singers sing without accent. You have great stage presence. You may have been nervous but I didn't see it. Well done. Maybe, sometime, you can return me the favor and see what you think of my submissions.

This song was originally written by Nick Lowe as a slow, soft hippie kind of ballad, in the folk song tradition. It was even sung low, in the key of G. Then a young british upstart by the ubiquitous name of Elvis Costello took the song, put in a punk rock beat, rockabilly guitar, and a new wave vocal style and it became a monstrous hit. I transposed it to the key of A for myself by using the capo at the second fret on my guitar. The style is rough but like Costello, I like belting this one out.

Thanks Qdog. And, as an aside, you forever have my respect for your service to our country. I was raised around the military and the only reason I couldn't serve is because I was a 4-F (medical disqualification). Asthma, believe it or not. In the 70's and early 80's, you couldn't enlist if you had asthma, at the time. Anyway, one of my other postings in this section is "Brandy" and dedicated to important people to me that were in the Navy. But I also give it to you.

In another thread in performance coaching, Q Dog was talking about trading lyric and songwriting ideas. I mentioned a song I wrote, original copyright 1990. I recorded the beginning of it some months ago on my little digital camera. Here it is. For some reason, I've got a Lonnie Van Zandt (Lynrd Skynrd) sound going on in it. Is it because I live in the south? I was born in California but have lived in Texas since 1974.

If your pic in the song links is any indication, I'm probably old enough to be your father and have probably been singing longer than you have been alive and I am still learning. And so will you, always. But you've got a heck of a foundation, at least in my opinion as a member of the buying public that buys music.

I know how criticism feels. So, like I do with crews that I am in charge of, I prefer to reinforce the good stuff when I see it. Your best sound on a first listen was "Inside Out" by Eve 6. Especially the first half of the song. I think you got to excited and went off pitch later because you were so into it and missed the tonal cues of the backing track. It's happened to me a few times. Usually, I go sharp when I can't hear the music and I'm caught up in the lyric and melody.