The Aspiring Singer

I love, love, LOVE Eva Cassidy! One of my favorites. Nice work! I'll have to agree with Clint's original response. Then again, I'm well familiar with Eva's cover, so I'll give you credit. Hers is a tough act to cover. As far as opening your mouth, it's not so much about what happens in the front (how wide or tall your mouth can go) as it is what happens on the inside. Opening the mouth IS important, and it will automatically create a bigger and more open sound. But the most important thing is opening the space on the inside. Your voice holds a little tension, so learning how to open the space in the back will free up your sound - critical when singing Eva's cover To do that, anticipate a yawn. You don't want to go into a full out yawn. Just anticipate it. This will lift the soft palate in the back. Other things to think about to achieve the same effect: - a parachute in the back of the mouth - after you've sucked on a cough drop, you take in a cool minty breath to feel the coolness in the upper back part of the mouth - a small gasp of a pleasant and happy surprise Try singing through the sensation of that open space. If you want to try to open your mouth more when you sing, put one finger directly in front of your ears (in front of the little knobby thing) on each side of your head, right where the upper jaw meets the lower jaw. Open your mouth until you feel it cave in. But again, I didn't really see any problem with how much you open your mouth. Keep up the good work!

ronws - Nicely articulated. You're a wise man.

It sounded lovely! Perfectly suitable for karaoke. I wonder, though. It sounds like such a fun song, and it sounds like you really enjoy it, but I felt like you were holding back on the volume. You're on pitch, you have all the little "licks," but it sounds like your goal is to do more than just sing some correct pitches and rhythms. Your performance here was "safe." And there's nothing wrong with safe. It just doesn't sound like what you're wanting. It sounds like you want to have fun for your 40th birthday. You can either walk onto the stage essentially apologizing for your performance before you even sing, or you can get out there and really SING! I mean, really perform it. You're not terrible. You're a good singer. I applaud your courage to put yourself out onto a forum for feedback. But I would love to hear your real potential. I encourage you to post a new recording with you taking a bolder approach to your song. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. This is a safe place. The moderators do a great job of keeping the hateful comments out. So you can afford to take more risks here, knowing that the feedback you're going to get is going to be honest and helpful.

Sweet!

OMG I LOVE IT!!!! That's my next song. Thank you!

I'm not familiar with "Gravity," but I'll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

I don't mind if you post at all! Not that this is my motivation for writing such a review, but if you wouldn't mind putting my website on the review post, I would greatly appreciate it! And I'm happy to hear that you and Aaron are going to connect! Aaron, I replied to your reply to my post asking if you have some of your Norah covers on video, I'd love to see them!

SLM Thank you so much! Aaron I really appreciate the comparison! I love Norah Jones' music and her style. I'm sure you could already tell, but this song is in the bottom of my range. My sweet spot is much higher, but all the jazzy women, including Norah, sing low. Men are always trying to sing high and women are always trying to sing low. What's up with that? I'll try some more of Norah's stuff. I'd like to hear your covers of them too, if you have them on video. It's always good to hear someone else's interpretation. Thanks for listening!

If by "odd voice" you mean "versatile," then awesome! Yes, sometimes one never knows how one's voice is going to open up on any given day. That may have to do with vocal health - how well you're sleeping, eating, drinking water, how much talking you're doing, etc. That may be another conversation for another day. Or maybe you just never know what kind of style of song is going to sit well with your voice on any given day, and that's normal too. I don't quite understand what you mean by, "I often feel like not enough of my voice is available..." Do you lose your voice often? Because that's definitely a vocal health thing. I'm no expert on it. But I do know some beginner to intermediate do's and don'ts. I watched your videos. Great job(s)! But it begs the question, seems like you're singing professionally, right? If that's the case, are you working with a vocal coach or voice teacher? (Not spamming you here. I don't offer vocal coaching or voice lessons.) A good vocal coach can help with style. A good voice teacher can help with technique. Some can do both. If you're not working with a voice teacher or coach, go get one. And get a live vocal coach or voice teacher. There are some pretty good videos out there, but you're beyond that. You need someone watching and listening to you. Keep up the great work!

You have a GREAT voice, GREAT style, and you are a GREAT guitar player! I don't think your voice is thin. It sounds like you were holding back on volume, maybe because of the room that you were recording in? You lose a little bit of tone in the bottom of your range, but so does everyone. (My own song post showcases this loss of tone quite nicely ) And it's tough to determine how limited your range is based on this song because the song itself has a relatively limited range. There are some general tips on how to improve your overall volume, but I'd have to see you in a live performance setting to determine whether or not you really need those tips. Really, you're doing a great job. Quite honestly, IMO this song doesn't really shine a light on how you can improve. It seems like this song is right in your comfort zone. You have a different tone quality than Amos Lee, so you really shouldn't try to compare your sound to his. You do this song great justice. I'm trying to make it rain with the compliments and I don't give them out haphazardly. I'm being quite sincere. If you want to improve your singing, I think you have enough basic skills that you can work on songs that are outside of your comfort zone. Maybe a ballad that taps into different performance skills? Maybe a song that's higher in your range? Or maybe you can work on this song but make it more of your own with less copying of Amos' style. Just to name a few. I hope that helps.

That was awesome!!! Thanks so much for sharing!

Great voice! Really good range and control throughout a good portion of your range. I don't think your voice sounds childish and immature at all. Quite a lovely sound. Take it easy on yourself. I'm not quite sure what you think sounds wrong, but there are a few areas for improvement that I noticed, mainly stemming from (what sounds like to me) tension. You have a little bit of a tremolo vibrato. A natural vibrato would be slower and less fluttery. This could be a tension issue. There are also a few times where it sounds like you're straining to hit some notes even though they are well within your range. Again, possibly from tension. I would have to see you singing to get a better idea. Some possible tension fixes: Make sure that your chin stays level with the ground and that it doesn't crane up or forward as you reach for notes. Bring awareness to your larynx and try to keep it down and relaxed. Don't let it stretch up. Watch your mouth position in the mirror as you sing, particularly the jaw. Does it have good range of motion or does it tend to stay lock-jawed? These are just a few tension problems that are typical in a lot of singers. Hope that helps! Keep at it!

Well, I think this is more of a rock genre crowd than a jazz crowd. I'm glad you find my advice helpful. I appreciated your comment on my post too. I'm working more on improvisation and taking risks. Keep posting and I'll keep trying to help :)

Thank you all so much for listening. Keith this song has always been at the bottom of my range. Of course, every single time I practiced the low notes, they came out fine. But when it comes time to recording, well, you know the rest. I know there's an online pitch converter, but I was too lazy to search for it. :lol:Does anyone have any suggestions? MDEW Yep. This is my karaoke standard. Can I hear your unique version of the song?

I love your voice and love your style! It's ironic that you're asking about breathing because you seem to have such great control over the long phrases. There were only maybe 2 times where it seemed like you were running out of air. A few thoughts that I've learned over the years about breathing, including some of the most recent tips: 1. Don't take in too deep of a breath. Take in a comfortable breath. If you take in too deep of a breath, you'll get tension in other areas of your singing mechanism, mainly the upper chest and throat. Also, when you take too deep of a breath, there is inevitable loss of breath before you even sing. It's the same idea as when you fill up a balloon with too much air, some air escapes before you have a chance to tie it off. This is probably the sensation you have when you're singing sections of your song that don't require too much breath, which is probably why those sections are too airy and uncontrolled. 2. The idea of trying to control the diaphragm is nebulous and confusing for most people. While you can control it by slowing down your breath, the idea of controlling it for breath release while singing is hard for most people to grasp because the muscle is on the inside. It helps me to think more about working on controlling the more external of the breathing muscles - abs, lower back, lower ribs. When you inhale, you should get fat. You should feel expansion in all of those areas As you sing, you should try to stay fat. Imagine coating the inside of your hands with glue, blowing up a balloon and holding the sides of the balloon with your sticky hands. As the air escapes the balloon, keep your hands pulling outwards. Fun tip: hiccups are the result of your diaphragm having muscle spasms. To stop hiccups, take low deep, slow inhales and exhales. 3. Over many years of teaching, I have done the typical breathing exercises of inhaling and then hissing over measured time to demonstrate the slow release of air. It has just occurred to me that the problem with this exercise is that there is wind resistance in the hissing which helps control the release of air. When you're singing, there is no such resistance. Lately, with my students, I have them inhale through an open throat and exhale over measured time through the same open throat. It's much harder to control the release of air when there's no resistance. In my opinion, it forces them to think a little bit more about the utilizing the lower breathing mechanism to control the release of air. That's probably too much information, but some red flags went off in my head when you started talking about diaphragmatic breathing. It's not a bad concept that people teach, it's just confusing. I hope I didn't muddy the waters even more. So, to get back to your questions. Just as you've already discovered, you're probably taking in too much breath for the times when you don't need that much air. Since you claim to be a newbie vocalist who has just started to work on your singing technique, you're probably entering into the phase of "learning and overthinking." That's normal. You do so many things so naturally that there comes a point where too much instruction can get in the way. Keep up the good work. I look forward to hearing more!