Slow Start

https://app.box.com/s/ryaeam2px0rknr1gkm9p Girlfriend recently got me another mic since my last one broke... finally back to recording things! This song goes up pretty high in its original key. It's pretty new and awesome for for me to be feeling so solid up on my bridge compared to before. Notes: Was trying different vowels and ways to say the words... don't actually like what I did here too much. I need to work on supporting from the very beginning of the song, even if it's a softer start. Gonna hit the higher note chestier in the future, went lighter this time around trying not to crash it. Feedback/suggestions? :)

Thanks for the advice, Owen. I'll definitely keep the harmony reverb in mind when I record a full over of this one. I had fun recording... needed a click track and still had to snap my fingers to tighten up the timing. It is definitely challenging. I just REALLY wanted a proper acapella track to sing the melody to, hah. Thanks for the compliments, Ron! I didn't know I could do celtic melody and harmony either! 'Twas very enjoyable to figure out. The Dubliners song is very interesting... different than my usual, but still really enjoyable. Love the narrative quality to the lyrics. The song definitely sounds in range for me... So glad folk music doesn't have a bunch of C5's and stuff!

I heard this song recently, and was inspired to arrange my own acapella version on the fly. Came up with a 4 part harmony and sang along for a little today. I think this would be an awesome thing to actually finish as well... It made me pay a lot of attention to onsets with the mmmm's.

Thanks, Ron! It is indeed me playing guitar in recording for Independence Day! Oh man, the old originals. Thanks! I'm definitely a bit past my original slow slow start now... thank goodness. Definitely appreciate the encouragement, MDEW. Thanks, Nick! I can feel that in some parts I was more squeezed than I could have been for sure. I feel like it could have been from not enough support on the higher notes, barely staying above the creaky level. Thanks for the advice, Owen! I agree that more competence with these onsets will definitely help. I've begun dabbling with them some, and I think I can attribute a good amount of my progress to the strengthening of certain coordinations with those exercises (and among other thangs). Will continue to work it and see where it gets me. I can now hit the upper chorus line in a full metallic voice here and there, but not with what I would consider any consistency (yet!) I appreciate the kind words as well. The comments about chest voice sounding good is encouraging because my chest voice used to get stuck at D4 or E4 lol

Because it's really uncomfortably hot in my house this morning and I can't sleep. Kinda fun... I give myself a 5/10 on this attempt.

This series of video will help. I would pay most attention to the puppy whimper and the NG siren exercises and practice them diligently.

Oh man, that was good! Hard work paying off for sure, dude. Does it feel good all the way through? Because it sounds good. :P

I've been working on a LOT of things, honestly... hah. Firstly, I built my thin coordination (which I did not really possess at all when I started working on it last year). While doing that I worked on breathing and being aware. Building the awareness of what is going on in all parts of the body and learning to increase the amount of support as I headed up my range helped. I used to get stuck at a certain level of support that would limit my range, and that seems less of an issue now. I overcame the fear of my larynx moving at different pitches and when I use different vocal modes. I've also been making peace with the fact that as I learn to support, I don't have to worry about my larynx position going higher than my previous classical teacher would have found acceptable. I'm also trying to focus on not leaving much stale breath in my lungs (making sure I release extra remaining air if I have any left at the end of a phrase). I work on support and anchoring often as well, which along with the coordination building to learn to tilt (e.g. the puppy whimper sound). I work on rasp by twanging extra and sometimes reducing air flow to get a creak, I believe. So basically... I work on everything as much as possible all the time. As I built up ability my CT-dominant coordination, I've been slowly working on bringing more TA-activity in and just recently reached the point where I can work on songs in that range--this being one of the first. And thanks, MDEW! Thank you for your input and encouragement... I'm going to keep working on it. Been paying extra attention to using the lower abs to pull in even more (supporting extra) today and it seems to help keep me in that "pocket" I was looking for.

That right there... Felipe's droppin' them truth bombs again. Until I started practicing every day carefully, and doing the correct exercises with attention paid to building specific coordinations, the results were slowly there. By the way, I think you are definitely on the right track. Focus on honing coordination and control. Watch singers you admire and pay attention to what they do with their mouths, faces, and bodies as they sing. You can learn a lot from that as well as learning from their sound.

That was good! I like the expression I can hear in your voice. I could not understand the line "May be the chill that autumn brings" clearly when I listened to it. Literally had to look up lyrics and relisten about three or four times and swear I almost heard an "u" (as in boot) more than an i (as in sit)... anyhow, I still enjoyed it!

I really appreciate your compliments, Ron! Also, thank you for your input on the nasality front as well... I don't hear any glaringly bad nasality in this particular recording either... perhaps nico has a different sensibility regarding that. I agree that nasality is a very touchy subject. I allow a certain amount of open nasal port when I sing pop/r&b, but it definitely is not the same as having a sound muffled in the nose. Funnily enough, I didn't know I had the voice or the heart to do this before a couple days ago... I didn't know my voice could even the opening lines or his screams and wails! I doubt anyone thought I had a voice for Marvin Gaye as little as 6 months ago, when I couldn't sing above an full voiced F4 consistently in songs.

Oh man, thanks! You give me hope! I have been trying really hard to get into Marvin's groove... he was so smooth and dynamic! I wonder if the nasality you hear is the mic distance or me... I back way down on the volume and the camera's pretty far away... or is it an open nasal port or the stuffy nosed cold kind of sound? I sometimes try to leave that nasal port open to lighten up the sound a little in stylistically acceptable contexts, but that is a different sound than the harmful stuffed nasality for sure, imo.

I liked the cover, I listened to both recordings, the second is definitely improved. Good work! I know this is still a rough recording (as labeled)... here's some of what I noticed: I find that when you sing the line "There's a place I like to hide / A doorway that I run through in the night" around 1:23, it sounds like you're coming a tad late on the beat to my ear... if it's actually not late, perhaps I could be hearing some doubt/shakiness at the onset that makes it sound unsure. Same thing at 3:54 with "If you open your mind for me / You won't rely on open eyes to see", it sounded like you started a moment late and then sped up the first couple words. Do you feel tight on the "u" in "illusion"? It sounds like it may be a little tight and a smidge flat to my ear.

You did a good job! What you do have now, sounds good to my ear 95% of the time. I don't think the falsetto on the high G's takes away too much from this song, though I have not listened to the original yet. If anything, it may just be coming across a little too airy. Perhaps if you focus on decreasing your exhale rate and add compression, it'll be a non-airy connected note! Have you ever done any vocal exercises involving narrowing your vowels as you go up? (a lot of them have a lot of that... if you do them right) I feel like the two things that could help you reach those top notes stronger would be increasing adduction of the folds (making sure they come together adequately) through certain exercises that focus on balancing adduction and compression. It sounds more like falsetto with air passing over the note than what I would consider a thin coordination (head voice, by some definitions).

I find your vibrato very pleasing sounding, and this is a great song choice... that Amy Winehouse. To take it even further, perhaps find even more ways to add some contrast and shape in your arrangement of the song if that is what you're down for. That could complement any contrast you add with your voice as well.

2nd day in learning the song... my first time trying to sing anything in the soul genre here, and I am a big Marvin Gaye fan. This is my first time singing an actual song with a Bb4 and Eb5... never done that before this week, so this is kind of an experiment into seeing what it feels like to get up there in actual songs vs when working on thinner coordinations and other misc. vocalises. Once in a while, I feel the first verse will fall into a certain pocket that is quite comfortable. I feel like that's when I tap into the Edge mode in CVT terms.. in other terms, just fully tilted twanged sound. I'm not sure if it happens much in this video, but somehow the notes still happened. Experimenting with mouth opening width and size and bite seem to make a difference along with trying to make sure my jaw doesn't jut out too far forward. When I lose a little support is when I really feel the notes get more difficult, hence the moving around in a Ray Charles impersonation lol... it helps me make sure my lower back and rest of my core are involved in supporting some. I love the way Marvin Gaye sings the word "baby" for some reason. No wonder he got all the ladies... I have spent weeks trying to figure out how to get the compression and support close to how he sings it haha... did I get close? How is it to y'all so far? What should I keep working on, and any tips to help me find/stay in that pocket up there? :)

Very interesting take. Are YOU satisfied with your sound color you produced in the recording? It was pleasing to me, but definitely a different approach than Groban. If you're fine with that, then you're good. :)

Hahaha the Red River Rivalry is such a silly phenomenon. And I didn't know you were a Longhorn either! Very cool stuff. What was your major? something dealing with engineering, I'm guessing? And how did you know I won?!

Thank you so much for the encouragement! I really appreciate it... Every day I'm closer to being the singer I want to be!

Info: I was running for a Mr. Asian pageant at my university last night... was really nervous going in because I didn't get to review my lyrics and arrangement much and was doing the rest of the pageant stuff. I forgot the second half of the first verse and prechorus and ended up vamping chords and going through the rest and then improvising to try to fit the 3.5 min time limit. All in all, this is the second time I've sung into a mic on stage for people... and my first time singing an A4 of any kind in not falsetto in front of a crowd... of 100+ people for a prize. My observations: I'm still getting used to making conscious stylistic choices to sing with a more tilted larynx as appropriate for songs. I feel like sometimes I forget... and my sound in my lower register (below D4 areas) end up less metallic in tone than I want. My vowel modification on the OH was way too far toward UH listening back... I watched a lot of performances and covers of the song for reference and I didn't quite get the degree of modification tweaked just right for that. I wanted to get a more tilted larynx kind of sound, more curbing or overdrive than neutral and tried to add bite and tune the formants a little differently with different mouth opening sizes. I feel like my familiarity with that will improve over time. I think I used too much air when singing the word "know" sometimes. I almost forgot the riff for the high note (A4) in the second verse. Almost scared the support right out of me... I would grade myself a 5/10 for that riff/phrase attempt when I probably could've gotten about an 8/10. Feedback welcome!

I'm... really confused right now...

Sounds really good. I like your sound color in the video, Rafael. How did it feel to sing it? Was it tense feeling at all, because it sounds pretty free to me minus some of the parts where perhaps some vibrato would've sounded freer (but could be a stylistic choice of course). It sounds fine to me... better than anything I could've done a few months ago!

Thanks for listening About 3 days into learning this song... a little more solid on the chords and melody. A few flubs. This was the first recorded take I did today, but I have been singing this song about 5 times during that session and have been singing about 7 hours total today. Making an effort to feel a smaller space in my mouth starting E4 definitely seems to help me reach higher notes... I've never sung an A4 in a song, much less an A# (in the bridge)... and I felt like I was reaching them with relative ease. Things I noticed: I felt some lip constriction coming in during a few words like "wrong I was releasing support too early during the first chorus. "Dancing" is too much like "dansing" perhaps... I need to find a balance there. Falsetto came in much more anchored the second time around. "Realize" is a word that I can use to tension because I can really feel the constriction on that word when not relaxed. I can hear some vowel narrowing as I went up... and I tried to keep it going in the bridge, but I think I got excited and forgot a little. Anything stick out to y'all?

Decided to try to learn this song earlier tonight. My roommate's probably already tired of it already. I was pretty scatterbrained trying to remember the chords, melody, and lyrics for a song I'm still not very familiar with, but this feels like it's gonna be a fun one as it shapes up.

All in all, I enjoyed your cover very much. Things I enjoyed: your very natural delivery, emotive expression, consistent pleasant tone. Good sounds. I noticed there were a few notes that were just a smidge flat to me (some of the notes around E4-G4), but it's a very small amount off. It's definitely passable and in a live performance folks would probably not notice, however in a recording it can someeeetimes be noticed if your flatness is not conducive harmonically to the song. I think your natural rasp might be coming significant amount of twang. If that is the case, it should be healthy enough.