KillerKu

It pretty much just rocks. It completely succeeds at southern rocking. I especially liked the bridge at 2:31, things got a little blue and super passionate sounding, it added a great contrast to the rest of the song. Your slide solo rocks to the end.
 
I think you're kind of just above technical criticism if this is what you can do. You've gotta keep rocking. I'm pretty sure where you're at right now with voice, you have to ask yourself more what singing means to you and how it fits into your life? Whatever else you want to achieve with your voice is likely optional. This works and it works well. Congratulations on getting there, man.

It pretty much just rocks. It completely succeeds at southern rocking. I especially liked the bridge at 2:31, things got a little blue and super passionate sounding, it added a great contrast to the rest of the song. Your slide solo rocks to the end.
 
I think you're kind of just above technical criticism if this is what you can do. You've gotta keep rocking. I'm pretty sure where you're at right now with voice, you have to ask yourself more what singing means to you and how it fits into your life? Whatever else you want to achieve with your voice is likely optional. This works and it works well. Congratulations on getting there, man.

An original southern rock number called "Hey Bartender".    I did all vocals, plus slide guitar from 2'44 through to the end. All the other stuff is by my friends at www.musicianscollaboration.com.     I tried to make myself a little less British and bit more American, but I don't think my usual accent in my singing is all that strongly British anyhow?. By Jove, Tally Ho!   As usual, constructive criticism is welcome.   George

Hey guys, 
 
this is my first time ever sharing my singing with someone. 
In this case one of my favourite songs at the moment: Valentine's Day by Linkin Park
Constructive criticism is very welcome, I want to get better
 

 
 

Thanks Killer, I understand what you are saying here. I have always felt that Elton was singing Yellow Brick Road with a lighter coordination. It seems conversational to me and Levon is a more Emotion driven, at least the chorus. "He Shall be LEVON" is a declaration. Like he is something more than just a man. Kind of like when someone's' favorite sports star gets the winning goal or scores the winning point "He's THE MAN! WHOO Yeah MY MAN".  At least that is the way that I perceive it. That may even be why I attempt to sing it with a heavier weight.
   Having said that, I have never been the type of person to get carried away over anything so I would not know how to express that type of feeling in that way.

This was recorded recently with my band in a friend's home studio.
 
I'm singing the lead vocal, and all the backing vocal parts are also me - these might be incorrect though - it took me forever to figure out the harmonies as I don't have any real musical theory knowledge  :-(  They sound ok to my ear but that could just be me!!
 
In particular I struggled with the high notes on the lead vocal - especially the "I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might" before the choruses.  The more I listen back to those sections over and over, the more I dislike the way I sang them.  
 
Any tips or feedback - good or bad would be much appreciated!
 
https://app.box.com/s/bhaem69pl50osrr4yola
 
Thanks guys
 
Sean

What? All this grief. Well, go ahead and call me an uncultured redneck. I thought it was just fine. Then, again, I don't have a need to prove myself to be an expert. I am just a guy who spends hard-earned money on good music. And I would buy this.
 
And I live in a small town where people would love it if someone could sing this as well as you did, bono, in their church. No, I don't go to church but I appreciate a well done performance. Then, again, what do I know? I prefer Bon Scott to Brian Johnson with no offense meant to Brian. 

Now I'm really nervous posting this, because the audacity version of my voice doesn't sound good to me   Anyway, here it goes:
 

 
I hear i'm out of tune in some places, but the good thing i guess it would mostly be the chest voice (except the highest notes).
Anyway, it should be a more objective picture (sound) of my voice, so thank you for great advice, KillerKu!

When training voice, everyone will stumble across tension here and there. The goal will be doing your best while keeping it to a minimum, while still exploring your voice. Some styles would have more muscular activation than others, but the keys are to try to never go hoarse or feel pain, if it feels really sore or wrong, you want to change your approach. Sounds like you're already trying some of this.
 
You've got a really good point on the software settings over the mic. Can you download the Mac version of this program:
 
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
 
And simply record yourself speaking or singing a little into the mic? Nothing fancy, no reverb, none of that stuff. I don't use Garageband so I can't help with settings there, but there is pretty much a 'record' button in Audacity if it knows which mic you're using. That would give the clearest picture of what is the mic and what is the recording program settings. It could be that live performance mode turns on some serious cheesy karaoke effects.
 
You'd sound best with a little reverb, a little touch up but the super effects sound like a 10 dollar karaoke machine. If it ends up being the mic, we can look into cheap, but good possibilities at a later date. 

Hi KillerKu,
 
thank you for your comment!
yes, this one is my most recent one on soundcloud. I'm glad to know there is some progress.
 
No, this tone didn't feel strained. This would be actually the most comfortable tone for me, but if i go on higher and louder notes, i would definitely feel some tension. It shouldn't be there, right? That's the way i'm practicing now - trying to catch that feeling when my voice goes distinct and smooth and at the same time produces no strain. Not sure if that would be the right way tho, am considering to find a teacher who would tell me 
 
I wonder if some settings on recording software might help to produce a better sound (I'm using live performance mode on Garageband on mac), because i'm not really so deep into my singing hobby as to buy a new mic yet  maybe after i find a good music studio and take some lessons, i'll make a studio recording.

You could likely safely dial back some of the nasality without losing distinct identity. Owen Korzec gave really good advice. I've never sung with this much nasal placement, I used to over lift my soft palate maybe too high. A really quick fix for me at least is to go between an uh like 'duh' (tends to dip larynx slightly) and ah (like open up and say ahhhhhh at the doctor). Training it more specifically for singing could be a lot trickier.
 
I think the best thing you could do is experiment with the advice, and compare the results yourself. Your style of singing here is extremely nasal, but it's also from the heart. There are some styles of singing that are a lot more nasal than others. It's heavily influenced by cultural upbringing, so if you were born in traditional Chinese culture people might react differently:
 

 
For western pop radio you should maybe keep your eye on Serj Takian. Western audiences already find his sound 'weird' or strange or 'exotic', but there are audiences for him:
 

 
I'm not a huge fan of System of a Down, but I like his voice for its distinctive qualities. I like yours too, but especially in the heady area it's extremely nasal. It's a bit much for my tastes here too. Anyway, the way it works, is each culture will have a normative average of sound preference at any given time and highly nasal sounds are not what current culture is looking for generally. Generic culturally appealing sounds tend to be 'safe' and can be mass marketed over a wide audience, but can also be bland. Unique sounds divide audiences, but can also hook audiences in deeper to the artist. You'd have to figure out what you are as an artist and what is important to you.

You're WAAAAY too nasal, that's why the tone doesn't sound great. The back of your throat is extremely pinched up, just take a look in the mirror singing with a tall mouth and you'll see it. You need to work on raising your soft palate a lot more, and perhaps relaxing your tongue down a bit too, but mainly the soft palate needs to raise and close up the nasal cavity so you can place the resonance in the back of your head instead of forward through your nose. Aim for an very tall opening in the back of the mouth behind all vowels and for none of the air/sound to come through your nose, you want to get it to where the tone doesn't change if you pinch your nose while singing vowels. It's a very hard thing to coordinate and may take you many months to fix completely but good luck on your journey!!!

To answer some of the questions you asked Jarom - it's happening through the entire song and lowering the larynx is NOT the solution. It can sometimes be a symptom of the solution, it is natural for the larynx to lower as the soft palate raises, but to keep a long explanation short, lowering the larynx alone won't fix the tone problem for you.

Your vowel mods are hard to hear through the nasality but I would bet they aren't that weak - you are actually doing pretty well, this nasality is just covering up the beauty of what you've developed - once you open up that back of the throat over months of really focusing on that concept, I think you'll be pleasantly shocked by the difference!

I think you and others might be surprised at what a difference a halfway decent mic would make. Another member of the forum would mix a few of my songs for me. First time was with a cheapie desk mic that you can get at Office Depot and the second time was with the studio condenser mic. The difference was night and day.

Really beautiful voice. You have a great vibrato and the accent is charming. I remember one of my marketing professors telling us that a lot of people see their accent as a disadvantage, but it doesn't have to be. If you sound confident, the accent will actually make people listen to you actively and more carefully. I really like your voice. I hope you are getting out there and sharing it with people who pay you money, so you can make a living and keep focusing on your music. You have the potential to be a really huge voice once you carve out your path.

I sing pretty comfortably in the E4 to G4 range with various styles (creaking rasp, chesty shouting, super twangy and witchy, falsetto, extremely heady, crying stuff (guess it's closer to a mix voice). So I've hit G4s in like maybe 20 different ways now.
 
If an approach works for a singer, it works. I'm the type of person that separates efficiency from 'good or bad' technique. I don't believe there is a 'correct' way to sing anything. Correct for opera, folk, jazz, punk, roots rock, pop, soul, smooth RnB, modern pop, country, and metal, are all already different in the public's mind, so correct for each singer who may not even be singing one of these genres is a pretty huge stretch.
 
Some singing schools have a 'sound ideal' and some don't. SLS works for you so you should use it. But have you looked into some other vocal study programs intellectually as a curiosity?  Even the one that seemed the least emphasized on sound ideals (Complete Vocal Technique) has had to revise things, cause they were too limited in the amount of vocal modes the voice could produce and had to create subdivisions in modes between their origin concepts. The voice could do too much.
 
Rob is constantly working on his TVS stuff from the sounds of it. Puts huge work into staying up to date for singers. It's a really broad instrument. Just because you or I might not know how to make a sound comfortably ourselves, doesn't mean someone else doesn't have a technique that can create this sound comfortably or healthily. Sometimes we simply can't do it cause we ourselves didn't learn the technique, other times it really is uncomfortable and feels like crap in their body.

I don't really understand either/or situations with voice. A lot of my singers don't really modify vowels much at all.
 
Most support fairly well, but not all do. Neil Young might do a good version of this song with a wavering falsetto.  Bruce Springsteen probably might do a good one with a pulled chest sound. A young Bowie might use a very slightly strained nasal sound during the Ziggy era. Old Bowie might use a lower larynx, kind of woofy sound with mad vibrato and wail up to it.
 
I do believe I understand the suggestion, but 'necessity' is a pretty strong concept. Not really sure what Bono wants. He's a cool guy, with a cool voice. I don't know if he wants things to be one way or another so if it's a detail like how he hits a note, I'd figure he knows more than I do. It probably could be done more efficiently with less effort the way you're describing though.

KillerKu, if he sings this way by choice but at the same time knows how to sing it "correctly" we are fine. In that case it is a stylistic choice. But I'm not sure this is the case.
 
A lot of singers sing with bad technique and some people call it style. In my opinion it is still bad technique... Bono, I'm not saying you have bad technique btw
 
If he was to sing a song that lies more heavily in the E4-G4 range with that same approach it would not feel comfortable to him and not sound good to most people.

I would have never picked this up in a million years. Is this the Speech Level Singing stuff? You two in the secret club. Laryngeal control, no shout. I liked it Bono.
 
For my tastes, I might have preferred even more shout, so I dunno what to say on a technical level as it sounded pretty controlled. But I'm not about to say 'stop controlling your voice so much' as singing advice on a singing forum.
 
How does it feel in your body? I guess that's the question, if you were to follow Sexy Beast's advice and compare it to what it felt like to sing? What did it sound like to you? Very interesting.

Hey guys, this is my first attempt to this beautiful gospel song.
 
Please let me know what do you think
 
thank you!
 
 
https://soundcloud.com/matias-azar-1/amazing-grace-my-chains-are-gone-cover

Hey Bono!
 
Your vowels start to go wide and the larynx too high in your 1st passage (top notes in the song). You are making it but the tone becomes strained and shouty. You loose the nice warm tone you have in your lower range which I like. A couple of tweaks and this cover will be very good

Ok... Starting off here. I'm not pro vocal coach. And if this suggestion sucks, throw it away.
 
I'm hesitant to touch that voice that I admire in any way. Having you here is like having a classic radio station. But I have a suspicion both issues might be related to your vocal style on both parts. Breathier sounds in general dry the throat quicker by blowing more 'air' across the area. Think about other wet surfaces, how blowing air can dry them a bit. The voice is similar, breathier voices are in generally more tiring and drying.
 
A breathier vocal style can also lower the break point where you might transition to a falsetto ish (yes women have it too!) due to excess pressure from breath and not enough closure in the vocal folds. You mentioned in another thread envying another singer's high notes, and as far as I'm aware the voice will hit a wall at some point where range is limited due to breathiness for these reasons. So when we include breathy qualities, we always sacrifice some range in favor of style.
 
So my first suggestion is to please don't stop singing with the sexy, sultry, breathy tone, (pretty please?) and abandon it in favor of squealing high notes once you learn the trick. I really like your voice. But maybe look into experimenting with less breathy phonations that you might be able to work into your style as well, and learn how to control the amount of air a bit in your voice? 
 
The most efficient exercise I know of for quickly finding a less breathy phonation is to say a vowel very very very very quickly. Like as briefly as you possibly can. 'O' instead of 'oh.' Turbo quick, quicker than you think you can do. Most people will automatically make a less breathy sound. The most important thing is you need to make sure the phonation still feels relaxed and comfortable as you can push the voice too far and 'press' the phonation. You want a comfortable tone that works well for you.
 
Anyway, from a really short vowel you can gradually extend that sound out. If you do that onset exercise, you might hear a little tic, (glottal action, you can hear this in like country and pop singers sometimes when they onset their vowels) which in the long term is probably not desirable for your style. So you'll likely want to include an invisible, very tiny H (so small as to be almost not there) to soften and cushion that sound.
 
Basically, that's the best I can do for you as 'random singing guy.' You should probably get a great teacher if you don't already have one since you are starting a professional journey, a professional to keep you healthy and spot check you would be really valuable. I'm not gonna be a pro and I'm fairly poor, so I'm gonna sing as an amateur as carefully as I can. I make sure I never go hoarse and my goal is to have improvement in my voice every time I sing.
 
But you're already going pro with gigs! So you need to take extra care of your pro instrument. And thanks for sharing, I love it, including the crack. They are endearing whether you like them or not.

Thanks so much for explaining that in detail to me.  Someone had once mentioned vocal fold closure to me, but a lot of the technical stuff goes over my head.  I'm going to look into it more and try the exercises. 
 
I always imagined i'd sound like Bessie Smith once i learned how to access my natural voice...big, loud and all woman... and i was pretty disappointed at first once i started hearing myself.  But i've come to terms with the breathy girliness of my voice...i just need to learn to manage it better, so i don't run into the crackling.  So i'm very greatful for the advice.  You're awesome and thank you for listening and the thoughtful feedback

Alright, yeah I wasn't sure. I do think a proper bed track would help a lot. That does sound like a worst case recording scenario. We'll get a better picture sometime soon.

Blackiejane, only a thing to say: what a beautiful voice... keep singing forever... 

Ok... Starting off here. I'm not pro vocal coach. And if this suggestion sucks, throw it away.
 
I'm hesitant to touch that voice that I admire in any way. Having you here is like having a classic radio station. But I have a suspicion both issues might be related to your vocal style on both parts. Breathier sounds in general dry the throat quicker by blowing more 'air' across the area. Think about other wet surfaces, how blowing air can dry them a bit. The voice is similar, breathier voices are in generally more tiring and drying.
 
A breathier vocal style can also lower the break point where you might transition to a falsetto ish (yes women have it too!) due to excess pressure from breath and not enough closure in the vocal folds. You mentioned in another thread envying another singer's high notes, and as far as I'm aware the voice will hit a wall at some point where range is limited due to breathiness for these reasons. So when we include breathy qualities, we always sacrifice some range in favor of style.
 
So my first suggestion is to please don't stop singing with the sexy, sultry, breathy tone, (pretty please?) and abandon it in favor of squealing high notes once you learn the trick. I really like your voice. But maybe look into experimenting with less breathy phonations that you might be able to work into your style as well, and learn how to control the amount of air a bit in your voice? 
 
The most efficient exercise I know of for quickly finding a less breathy phonation is to say a vowel very very very very quickly. Like as briefly as you possibly can. 'O' instead of 'oh.' Turbo quick, quicker than you think you can do. Most people will automatically make a less breathy sound. The most important thing is you need to make sure the phonation still feels relaxed and comfortable as you can push the voice too far and 'press' the phonation. You want a comfortable tone that works well for you.
 
Anyway, from a really short vowel you can gradually extend that sound out. If you do that onset exercise, you might hear a little tic, (glottal action, you can hear this in like country and pop singers sometimes when they onset their vowels) which in the long term is probably not desirable for your style. So you'll likely want to include an invisible, very tiny H (so small as to be almost not there) to soften and cushion that sound.
 
Basically, that's the best I can do for you as 'random singing guy.' You should probably get a great teacher if you don't already have one since you are starting a professional journey, a professional to keep you healthy and spot check you would be really valuable. I'm not gonna be a pro and I'm fairly poor, so I'm gonna sing as an amateur as carefully as I can. I make sure I never go hoarse and my goal is to have improvement in my voice every time I sing.
 
But you're already going pro with gigs! So you need to take extra care of your pro instrument. And thanks for sharing, I love it, including the crack. They are endearing whether you like them or not.