Gsoul82

  Thanks a lot. It's always nice to hear something from somebody who recognizes the artist. I guess the grown folks side is right. Every artist that I think of as a major influence was singing during the 90's.

  Lol, this isn't really the place where you have to worry about somebody being mean. Everybody is working towards something here. I could barely hear you in this, so I wish you would do something with a bit more volume.  I hear certain qualities that will sound nice a little later on. Some work needs to be done on pitch. I couldn't really here what you were saying, but I won't comment on diction because there's just a little background noise here.

    Well, you may not be able to sing every song just like the original artist sings it. At least not right away. This is why we work on range. I have a singing voice that's on the deeper end, and when I cover a song by someone with a naturally higher voice, I may not be able to hit the same notes using the same part of the voice that they do, but I can hit the same notes 99.9% of the time

Nice one, Elvis. I think this is the first I heard from you.

    I did what you commented on as being a quiet version of Al Green by imitating a duck quack or buzzer sound and manipulating it with twang and breath support. I did it in head voice in that ACDC clip, but yeah, just did it in falsetto and it sounds closer to him.

    Wow, I really never knew Al Green did stuff like that. I can see more ways regarding how I could make use of something like that now rather than just using it for powerful exclamations.

Thank you again. I was actually just having a discussion with somebody else about rasp. I can do some of it, but I rarely use it. I think I'll start pushing it a little more.   Here's a couple snippets of me experimenting with it. It's a little difficult to sing words clearly when I use it, but that's just because I don't practice it:   http://picosong.com/Vinb/   http://picosong.com/ViFn/   And when I mentioned the progress topic, I meant more of a from-nothing-to-something kind of thing where you can see how I went from having bad pitch and having no type of texture to my voice to having vibrato, this deepness that you seem to like and a nice falsetto.   Yeah, you seemed like you had an interesting quality about your voice where it wasn't necessarily something I'd categorize as a "rock" voice or any one specific genre.   I slacked for months and months but I've just started to practice everyday again. I never thought I'd be able to do some of the stuff I can do now at this point in my training. My coach gave me a mixture of classical/gospel training for a couple years as well as piano, so that's where I come from.

  Thank you. Actually, believe it or not, I actually had a pretty big speech impediment before I started singing. I had a coach that really stressed diction though. He had a really pleasant speaking voice. He had this really proper way of speaking, and it made you think he was from the south, but he wasn't. Anyways, I naturally really started to work on pronunciation while singing and it also improved my regular conversational speech. Not sure if I'd say my speaking voice is pleasant though. Jens has heard me talk.   I actually just started thinking about making a progress topic. I still have random recordings that I've made over the years since I first started practicing.

  Nice happy song. Not my usual cup of tea, but I can appreciate what is being conveyed here.       You already know, as an R&B guy, I completely gave up on that, lol. I'll just sing whatever and hope somebody will listen whether, they know it or not.

    I like how you used slight hints of vibrato throughout.

Ah, I see. I'll try to imitate that and upload a sample. If you want to learn how to do what I'm doing, then I'll explain it.

  I'm sure you're talking about what's being done around 53 seconds in here.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OT8fJzJtxo     I'll try to figure it out. Mine doesn't quite sound like that, but I don't think it's far off.

Don't be fooled. Gsoul does use rasp.

  Any examples of that? I may know what you're talking about.

  Thanks. The only thing about it is I'm not out of my element if I do that song, because I normally do some of the stuff he would do, as a deep-voiced R&B enthusiast.   I listened to the one you just did. Not bad. I like what you did at the 3:20 mark. Little changes in the phrasing like that is the kind of stuff I like to hear. Keep thinking like that. My coach would have me sing a song classically and then have me sing something my way. He'd always ask me, "Now, what could you do here differently?" Now, you wouldn't necessarily sing every line in the song differently, unless your goal is to completely rewrite it, lol, but what can you add to it to make it your own? Maybe change up the phrasing here or there, use falsetto in a place John Legend didn't, an inflection here or there: "Oh oh!" or "Yeah! Yeah!" where there's a gap in the lyrics? These are just some things to keep in mind.   Question, were you trying to sing over the instrumental? I find it's easier to get thrown off if you do that. Is there a way for you to turn the volume down on that so that you can focus on monitoring your voice throughout the track, and then turn it back up after the vocals are recorded?

One thing I love is when somebody takes a song and makes it their own. Yeah, it's originally sung as an R&B song, but does it have to be that when you do it? I don't think so. I want to hear an MDEW version, not John Legend, if you catch my drift ;)

Nice effort. I heard some good things.

  Maybe it's me, but I don't hear that at all from you. Maybe try experimenting with breath support and different things to change your sound (twang,, switching between resonators) and see what happens. 

Your accent goes nicely with that MJ-style softness.

  Was a little distracted by the guy in front of the camera picking his nose and eating it. WTF?

  Yeah, they do some interesting harmonies.

I've gotten into the habit of singing songs outside of my preferred genre of singing lately.  Some songs I've never even heard before. What seems to be intriguing me a lot lately is the whole idea of "How would I do this song if I sang it my way?" or "How would I improvise this part?" Even the idea of how a certain singer I listen to might do a certain song that's not by them. I feel it's an interesting way of seeing your identity. Singing a song in the same genre, you may do a lot of the type of stuff the original artist might do, but when you go out of your comfort zone, you end up with something more pure.   Always liked Ben Folds though, and this was the first song I ever heard from him. If you like Elton John, and you don't know about this guy, check him out.   So, here's a little cover I did while sitting at my desk in the early morning hours. A quick little pause here or threre, because some of the lyrics I was reading off of were wrong.   http://picosong.com/Vzr4/   Here's also a cover I did of Angel by Sarah Mclachlan. This one isn't acapella. I was doing a duet cover, so I did the first verse and didn't say anything for most of the second, but I sang the rest of it. This recording has just my voice though.   http://picosong.com/Vzpt/

  I don't know about all of that, but thank you, lol. I've been using it more lately.   If you like high notes, here's another song where I do it from beginning to end. It was actually my first time seeing the lyrics to this song or hearing it in about 15 years, so I was trying to figure out how to sing it as I progressed. That's actually a good exercise for ear training and pitch.   http://picosong.com/VtCA/

I'm going to reply to this one since you made an updated topic. It's good that you joined a choir. That's going to give you a commitment to keep singing. What's really going to help you to sing beautifully is daily practice. As I was starting out, I was told one thing that really stuck with me. Voice majors in college are always praticing. When they wake up, they're humming. When they're in the shower, they're singing scales. When they're walking down the street, more scales. They want the best voices they can have, and so they're always practicing so that they will attain that. Now, you shouldn't be doing that much at the start. Your voice will be fatigued in less than an hour of continuous practice, and once you get that fatigued feeling, it's best to stop for the day. Also, if something hurts or feels uncomfortable, stop it immediately. Get in that mindset though. Practice with a sense of purpose. You're going to sing beautifully one day if you continue to practice.   Now, like I said, it doesn't have to be one block or practice at one point in the day (example, practicing for a half hour from 8:30 at night to 9:00 at night). It can be done throughout the day. The point is to commit to getting the practice in.  

Thank you for the compliment, by the way.