Gsoul82

I'm about to start doing something like bi-weekly check-ins. It will be a nice way of monitoring my progress, and keeping me accountable with practice.

2 minutes ago, Javastorm said:

Thanks for taking the time to mark all these points with timestamps, it really helps! I agree with everything you said about each problem spot. This was recorded a little before the Christmas cover, so I wasn't really working on lower falsetto notes, but I definitely am aware of it now and am trying to build more resonance with them. I agree that if they are too quiet and I'm trying to do a run or something it is not worth it if people can't hear the run properly defined. I kept going back to the lines after the instrumental break and yep, "had" and "my" are pitchy. I'm grateful for the constructive feedback @Gsoul82, thanks again for listening.

You're very welcome. If you don't see me respond to one of your covers, it means I missed it, so feel free to PM and and ask me to check it out.

You're doing great though. Keep on pushing forward.

All in all, this is a pretty solid attempt. In my opinion, few things could've been done better. Nice riffs throughout. I could feel the emotion.

Here's what I found noteworthy.

1:09 The shift into falsetto in the phrase "All my feeling was gone". I think you can make this smoother. Matter of fact, I know you can.

1:50 Very nice melisma!

2:24 Sing "gone" stronger. Sounds like you may have been having a little support dilemma there.

3:10 to 3:19 Your falsetto was getting quiet again, like we talked about before. Just noting it here, in case you didn't catch it.

3:44 The break here, while singing, "Dry my eyes," was a nice touch for the tone of the song. You're good at the use of little accents like that. Kind of like how I complimented you on the hint of rasp you used in your Christina Aguilera cover, a few weeks back. Keep this in mind, going forward.

3:47-3:48 The shift into falsetto here, at, "I had my," sounds just a little flat.

4:20 Nice transition into falsetto and nice ending. Was a little quiet here as well, but it's not as problematic. The difference between it there, and where I mentioned it at the 3:10 to 3:19 area is you don't want that happening in the middle of those smooth runs. People will miss them.

16 hours ago, Javastorm said:

I'm pretty late [last day of challenge lol] but I did Kiss From a Rose by Seal. Couldn't find a backing track that didn't have backup vox so I did it a cappella.

https://app.box.com/s/24nttrom5mqewn4k0ab747k0x1pmytxg

 

Re: Gsoul - I never heard this song before but you definitely emoted well, and got the theme of unconditional love across really well in my opinion. I like the phrasing and riffs after the 2:00 mark- they sounded the most controlled and like ron said, something from the 70s, slow and sensual.

Re; Slow Start - I wish I had the ability to play and sing at the same time, if that's what you're doing! "How Long Will I Love You" sat in a nice part of your range and definitely fit the lover's theme both lyrically and in your smooth delivery. Really nice. My sentiments are the same about the second song also.

 

Great to see you in here, Java. I really like this. Is this song originally by Seal? Your voice has this alternative vibe about it. I don't think you'd have much trouble approaching songs from different genres, like Folk or Rock.

On January 16, 2016 at 3:57 PM, Slow Start said:

Uh oh I'm a little late but I've got a couple I recorded recently. Sharing just for the sake of sharing the music.

I like your timbre, GSoul82! So rich! haha Some good melisma too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You were on time, Slow. Challenge ended on the 17th, so you made the cut

This is cool. We don't have too many people  who take a folk approach to the challenge. MDew is the only other one, I believe.

Hey Java, nice to see you in here again. I'm dropping into let you know I already listened to the whole thing and wrote up a few comments, based on timestamps. 90% of what I'm going to say has been written already.

You should be expecting to see me to post that feedback between now and sometime tonight.

My first nomination is Michael Jackson. Guy has a huge catalog, and I think there's really something for everybody there. This includes his work in his younger days as the frontman for The Jackson 5, as well as his solo work.

That first nomination seemed obvious to me, but I've gotta really think for my second pick.

A few people have brought up the idea of doing an artist-themed challenge. This is going to be another one with some freedom. The artist will be voted on, but you can choose any song from that artist.

Somebody suggested a Weeknd Challenge and somebody else suggested an Adele challenge. In this topic, lets nominate artists for this challenge, for the next 5 days. Each participant can nominate two people. Afterwards, we will vote.

2 hours ago, ronws said:

I liked it a lot. The whole thing had that 70's r&b feel, like Ashford and Simpson. I think you could do a bunch of this and not be wrong, ever. 

I like the feeling of this song, and I can hear that is you in full control of your voice, totally in your element. Like Brian McKnight with a wider range. And who knows, maybe you have a sense of humor like R Kelly.

I was going to do Ribbon in the Sky by Stevie Wonder, but the instrumental was the original key, so it was too high. I also realized, while I can sing my higher notes without much trouble, they happen more prone to pitch error.

This is probably Musiq's hardest song for me. Not quite sure why. Might be the emotion he puts into it. The original: 

2 hours ago, Rosa said:

Yeah! One brave person to take the challenge! Bravo! 

As I can't speak in the Review Section (nor do I have any interest in  ) I'll give you my opinion here: I've liked your song much more since minute 1, like you were a bit nervous at first and gained confidence as you went on. It looks like an extremely difficult song to me because the singing goes on NON-STOP, with lots of changes in pitch (or however that is called that you have to do modulating your voice). It must be fantastic training for breathing, or you are already an expert at it, because your breathing didn't fail at any point. Just great.

 

Yup. I can't ask other people to challenge themselves if I don't do it too

I wasn't really nervous there. I just heard wrong, so the pitch was off. I'll agree that I think it got better as I went on. Musiq's songs can be tricky, especially if you try to do them the way he does them, because he's almost constantly singing, and when there are no lyrics, he's usually filling in the space with improvisations. Posted the original song above your quote.

Here's my challenge to myself. I took a shot at Don't Change by Musiq Soulchild.

Yeah, I didn't check that video, but I knew that version of the song probably wasn't the original, because "Bocelli" is an Italian name. The version I've heard is in Spanish, and I know a little Spanish, so I wanted to do that one.

Yeah, it could be tricky, because you not only have to memorize words you're not familiar with, but try to get the pronunciation correct, as well.

Several people had expressed interest for a foreign language challenge, so it is now a reality

This is a challenge where you will learn to sing a song in a language that you are not fluent in. I know some people here actually know multiple languages. It is important to sing a song, in the language that you do not have fluent control of, for the sake of the challenge.

Based on the fact that this challenge involves learning lyrics containing words that you are not used to saying, this challenge will run for 60 days. It starts now.

I've already decided on the song I will be using.

Por Ti Volare by Andrea Bocelli

About a week ago, I said we'd be having several challenges running at the same time. Several people had hinted in the past that they wanted this one. Leaving this here to be filled in a little later (probably tonight).

On 1/1/2016 at 0:18 PM, Rosa said:

Thank you, Gsoul82.  And when is someone going to start singing something here??? I had voted for "Musical" but "Love" is even better.

This is a world forum, but maybe a bunch of the voters were celebrating Christmas or enjoying the time off.

I think I may have just chose my song: hint, it may be one of the songs by that guy I posted in your thread

34 minutes ago, Rosa said:

Thank you for the encouragement, rowns.

He's right, Rosa. It doesn't have to be a polished, studio-quality recording. There were a couple of times where I ended up running low on time and I submitted something that didn't even have an instrumental track behind it. It's not about competing with everybody else, it's about challenging yourself.

Anybody get started yet? I'm trying to decide between about 3 songs. I kind of want it to be something fresh, that I haven't tried to sing at all before, but there is also this pretty difficult song I've been trying to do since I started. I think I might be at the point now where I can just about pull the thing off. We'll see.

Welcome, Jon!

1 hour ago, #NA said:

I felt very uncomfortable with the headphones on and was out of tune all the time.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I had the same issue.

It's good that you're noticing when that happens. You're closing in on getting it taken care of. That could be the reason it happened, but in any case, I believe you can improve that, so moving things down a couple tones won't be any issue.

Wow, this happens to be the one song from her that I know, lol. I thought it was really good. You sound fantastic. I second what Rob said; keep doing what you're doing.

1 hour ago, Javastorm said:

I put it back up (new link) if you want to finish the rest of it, but thanks for your comments on what you heard.

I took it down because I thought it was a vocal disaster and figured I'd try to redo it at some point...

Thanks for listening to my SC, also.

Finished listening to it. Not a disaster at all. It was decent. What I would say is to try to work on the falsetto volume, so you don't get too quiet, and work on the execution of the melismas (runs within words). You have nice dynamics. Nice tone in full voice, you've got good elasticity, which is allowing you to switch between falsetto and full voice, and I liked that hint of rasp you threw in at 2:00. You can get this one down.

It says the link is broken, but I briefly listened the other day, but I didn't get a chance to finish it and comment. 

I really liked the sliding in and out of falsetto. Also checked out your sound cloud. Interesting style you've got there.

The voters have it! Lover's challenge has begun:

The voters have it! This is the Lover's challenge! The cool thing about this challenge is that there's only one constant here; and it's that the subject matter needs to be about love. Besides that, you can choose to sing any song you desire. Let's run this challenge until January 17th.

Looking for instrumentals to sing over? Check out the link below.

If, for any reason, you feel this challenge isn't for you, don't worry. There will be more, on the way, before this one has run it's course.

Let's get singing.

Got it, coach!