Gina Ellen Vocalist

Thanks man :D

Hey Guys. Just made a new youtube video and would be great to know what you'll think.

As always, Constructive criticism welcome with open arms!!

I think your slightly confused about what head voice is. It does resonate in your head, but it is also higher in pitch, higher than you were singing in that clip. You were singing in your chest voice in that clip. It's not just a change in tone quality for the same pitches.

But like tommy says, walk first before you run :D

head voice is a different group of pitches. Higher in pitch. The highest note you sing there is an F#3. Keep singing a scale up from there without pushing and your likely to come to your head voice between D4 and F4. Or you could try making some high pitched noises. Try woohoo like an excited little girl!!!

Did you find the nasality stuff useful?

It sounds to me like this is all in your chest voice tisul. What was making you feel like it was head?

The timbre of a note can be changed using subtle adjustments inside your vocal tract. When a sound is nasal the soft palette (soft tissue at the back on the roof of your mouth) is usually lowered. For nasal consonants it's lowered like NG and mm You could try some exercises to lift it on the palette for vowels. Try going slowly from NG (as in siNG) to ah. On the NG sound you should feel the back of your tongue touch your soft palette. When you slowly move to the ah sound concentrate on moving the soft palette up instead of moving the tongue down. You can check if the vowel is nasal by gently blocking your nose with your fingers on the vowel. There should be little if no change to the sound. If the sound changes or disappears completely then the nose much be coming out of your nose (I.E is nasal)

I hope this makes sense. If not, let me know and i'll try and explain it better!

coool. This is super sweet Rob. Vocally amazing and glad I have a fab coach like you

If i'm going to be super critical ....... (just some theory things) There are a couple little runs you do at 2:28 and 2:40 that I think you sing E5,Eb,C,B. Personally I think the run would be better E,D,C,B as this fits in the key Am. The Eb sort of popped out to me. Hope you don't mind me saying!

Better carry on working on those F5's for that Aretha Franklin song!

There is much hope . That will be fab and great in 2 days. Believe that and the performance will be great, well done.

Wicked, and that's coming from a complete non rocker!! :D

hey, I liked it. honestly would prefer something live. this seems heavily produced. Not that that's a bad or good thing just difficult to critique your singing. As is stands i really liked it though

It doesn't sound bad at all. If the talent contest is soon I would stick to a song that's just in the lower part of your range, that's really strong. It's the high falsetto that is weaker, nothing that can't be worked on obviously but i would say if the contest is soon. Change to a song that is a bit lower and more comfortable for you.

You will be great though. Try and be as confident as possible. perform the song, look ahead an not at the floor and mean what you sing. Give it some conviction and you'll be great

perhaps to get a deep breath at first you may find it useful breathe through your nose. But the air takes longer to get into our lungs. Most of the time singers don't have the luxury of taking a long breath in through the nose before a phrase. Often in a song you'll need a quick breath. This is hard to do through the nose. Therefore I would say it's better practice to learn to breath in through your mouth. Most songs you sing you won't be able to take every breath through your nose. It's fine when learning breathing techniques to do this just bare in mind you won't be able to do it when singing an actual song!

Sounds like you're doing great. Can I make a suggestion .... It seems like your breathing from you diaphragm but try breathing through your mouth instead of nose. This type of breath will be more efficient for singing.

Keep up the good work :)

No, that's right choc. You've hit the nail on the head there with 'all the notes above it are strong head voice with chest qualities'.

F4 to A4 are going to be more tricky notes for you then Bb4 to C5 because they are around your break. It's not really the highest notes that are more difficult but the one's around your break.

Yeh, work on bridging, it sounds like your doing great already

Thewall: those are powerful head notes not chest. In your post you said you can go up to D5 without bridging. They may be perfectly safe and great notes but they are powerful head tones with chest qualities not full chest notes

chest voice for men goes up to around a D4 (give or take a couple of tones) and for women A4 (this is a really rough guide)

Thewall if you say you can go up to d#5 without bridging then I would guess that is a head voice note that just sounds big and boomy and has chest qualities

I think the best thing is to bridge early into your head voice (so your not pulling chest voice up) Then work on those head tones to make them connected and full to sound like chest voice notes.

I would also recommend the four pillars by rob lunte

really enjoyed that. Great feel nice work

thanks james. Maybe try it slower too. Sounds like it could be me beneficial :)

cool, thanks izzle. The first one was meant to be slow but i"ll try it even slower. Cheers for the feedback :)

Hey guys,

Here is a clip of 2 bridging exercises that I do. I made it up recently but guess it's just an accumulation of other exercises really. It's by no means perfect but I was looking for 1. comments on the actual exercise for bridging/mixing purposes 2. comments on vocally how i'm doing, I know there are some rough parts but constructive criticism is what i'm looking for.

https://www.box.com/s/b6b85c351cbb11a8a8bd

The reasons behind the parts of the exercise are. The lip roll to free up any STRAIN and put the tension in the right place. the hum to feel the resonance (especially getting higher and feeling it behind the nose) and the 'me' to put the sound into a more useful vowel. and the very end exercise is all of that put together (hopefully!!)

I look forward to your responses :D

Haven't been on for a while! Izzle, thanks, I would love to love to read your teachers article.

Thanks felipe, I shall keep you updated with anymore songs :)

Thanks! I have just been doing exercises that trill between 2 pitches getting quicker and quicker. I've yet to find any decent exercises for vibrato.

I do quite a lot of work on my upper pitches. always been an area i've had too. I spent a very long time staying in chest and not able to access head at all. Discovering placement and resonance was my break through! I work on bridging with slow sirens feeling the placement and support, usually on 'mmm' to start with then pure vowels. I do scales too, very slowly introducing more head as I get higher to smooth out the passagio. And looking more in depth into vowel mods lately. Those are the exercises I do that I can think of off the top of my head.

Awesome, thanks man. Yes, I was choosing to use vibrato in some places. I know it's slight but I didn't used to have any, something i'm definitely still working on!!

Thanks again :)

Hey guys. I've done a new video cover of Alex Clare's too close. The song is big over here in the UK at the moment.

Would appreciate it if you could take a little listen and any comments welcome as always .....

Things i've been working on....

Vibrato (I don't have much natural vibrato so hopefully there are some small examples of vibrato in there)

creative expression. Been to make a song my own with dynamic changes and other subtleties

Thanks in advance