Joe Naab

Beautiful. One of my favorite songs from musical theater. Very hard to sing.

That was incredible! Great engineering, too.

Kevin, the site just went up. I've never sold a course. That's how I know you didn't buy one! It's brand new. Look at the social media pages. They're empty. The first youtube videos went up two weeks ago. I'm not sure what you're talking about. My course is so new and unpromoted, that only a few people have signed up for even the free course, and I know who they are. You may have signed up, but you didn't watch the videos, because I've just checked the viewing history of the videos, and I'm certain that you didn't see any of them. Maybe you watched the introduction video, but I can tell for certain from the data that you didn't watch a single course video.

Sorry, Robert. I did think, in the context of all the posts, that you were directing your comments at me. My bad. Your feedback was spot on and great. I'm thinking I may record a different song to post here to "clear the palette", so to speak, and to give you guys a taste of something else.

Kevin, I do very much appreciate your feedback, and, yes, I'm already taking a step back to reassess. I reassess all the time. However, I do ask you to be honest. I know for certain that you didn't sign up for my free course before you made your first post, under any name. There were no signups between posting the song and your post. I'm not even promoting the site anywhere as it's still in early development. I also know that you didn't take the paid course. Also, my site is still in beta and I've only posted about 10% of the content I plan to shoot over the coming year. And, remember, I was under the radar here until you posted publicly that I had a course. No one here would know of my project if you hadn't brought it up in this thread. Kevin, I had to come back to edit this. You actually said you bought my course. Why would say that when you didn't?

I wanted to add one more post here to respond to these other great comments, especially from Youcansinganything and MDEW, and so that I don't bury your inboxes. I'm an amateur singer who works very hard at it now and dreams of having an amazing voice within a couple years. I still make lots of mistakes across the board. That's why I came here and paid to share and receive feedback. If I were already awesome, I wouldn't be here! 25 years ago I studied SLS in L.A. weekly for 18 months and barely improved. I worked insanely hard at it. I grew discouraged and stopped studying, though always sang at home for the next 25 years while building a different profession. A few years ago I recommitted to vocal studies and began to find all kinds of great things that worked on my voice the way I needed it to. So I stopped everything in life and immersed myself into it. It's been miraculous. I'm literally better each day than the day before. And instead of my rate of improvement slowing over time, it's now accelerating because of how I've customized my own training practice. My mission in life now is to create an amazing training program as if I could send it back in time to my younger self so he could fulfill his dream much sooner in life. Since I can't do that, I'm targeting young people, beginners, 13-25 years old, who want to sing strong-voiced pop/rock/theater, with an emphasis on developing their own, unique signature sound and expression. I'm more than happy to, as Youcansinganything wrote above, refer them to great private instruction when the situation calls for it. I'm already planning to refer any Seattle students to Robert, for example. And though I'm still horribly insecure about my singing voice, I'm not the slightest bit concerned about my ability to teach vocal training. I'm good at it and getting better quickly. And in reading Robert's list of criteria to be considered an "expert coach", I realized that this is impossible to achieve, without first being a non-expert coach, right? It's logical. I'm a non-expert coach. I can almost already check off items 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 (jury is out on 7!). And to get to #1 and #6, you have to start somewhere, right? And I don't think you need thousands of students, maybe hundreds would suffice, and I'm not sure if I'll ever do private lessons or performance coaching. I'd love to hold workshops one day, but I learned from my executive coaching experience that I don't like to have a lot of appointments blocked out in my weekly schedule. An "all day Saturday" thing twice a month would suit me best. We'll see. And, finally, I'm here to make new friends with people who love to sing and to teach others how to train their voices. All of you have been great. Thanks again.

Thank you so much. I wanted to add that I didn't know how serious some take the submissions here. I'm here as a student wanting to get better. Obviously, I'm limited to using published karoake tracks, so my style may have to clash with what I have at my disposal. It was really posted for the purpose of what you wrote, for some feedback on choices, tone/timbre, and for any glaring abnomolies that I might be blind to. I truly can sing this song so many different ways, including more like the original. But I'm not an impersonator nor do I desire to sing in a tribute band. I deliberately train to alter the original performance as a way to refine my own voice and style and to decorate the bed track with the melodies, rhythm and mood that I'm "channeling", so to speak. This is what I love to do. I underestimated how upset it would make some people here.

Robert, some of your comments here leave me stratching my head more than Kevin's. You and I had a fun, animated, intelligent conversation about vocal training for 90 minutes by phone last month when I was disclosing my new professional project to you before buying your course, so you could have the opportunity to ask me not to buy it! I did this because of how much I respect you guys who have been on the front line for decades. You're awesome. I'm loving your course. Give me a chance. You might discover that I'm awesome, too, just a little more green, but not the slightest bit unqualified to do what I do. I know my limits and I want to enter this field respectfully. And I'm from Seattle, and I'll be home in June, and we're going to be friends whether you like it or not! :-)

Hi Kevin, thanks again for your contribution. I hope Robert doesn't mind, but I'd like to post the portion that was deleted, because it didn't bother me at all, and it's now part of the discussion, so it's relevant. And I very much appreciate and respect your concern. Kevin, here's where I'd like to begin, because you and Robert are not seeing the glaring flaw in your arguments, which is simply this: You don't know me! You don't know what I know about the voice and about vocal training, vocal health and vocal safety. You've never taken my course or probably even watched a tiny sample of how I teach. You don't know my business model, my experience as a student of the voice, how I train, how often I train, why I do the exercises I do and in the order I do them. You don't even know why I chose to price my products the way I do. You know nothing about me. Can we at least agree on that much? So how in the world can either of you make judgements as to the quality and value of what I'm offering and how I go about it? Can't you see how silly this sounds? You're projecting your experiences with other people and other offerings onto me. You're committing the logical fallacies of false assumption and hasty generalization. It's not fair and it doesn't make any sense. And as awesomely funny as the phrase, "Made in China Knockoff" is, how could you possibly know this? I don't want to elaborate too much, but I have extensive experience in the fields of coaching and teaching, albeit with other subject matter. I'm a successful entrepreneur and coach entrepreneurs. I succeed at what I do because I care so much about doing it right. I've immersed myself in many of the best online courses out there and have read copious amounts of articles and books. I train 2-4 hours per day, 5-7 days per week. I spent 2014 taking two semesters of opera training from two of the best coaches and opera singers in all of Brazil. Each of them said I learned and improved at a rate they had never seen before. Their students are some of the best singers in the region. And, get this, I'm lining them up to eventually offer online skype lessons to my future students. They love what I know and what I'm teaching. They love me! They think it will be the perfect complimentary tool for what they are doing. They are presently professional singers with gorgeous voices. They perform lead roles in theater and opera at the best venues in South America, and one of them internationally. They are extraordinary teachers. I'm lining others up, too, but this is all new and they won't be needed for some time, still. All I'm asking, as I respect you and Robert and what you've accomplished, is to give me a chance, withhold judgement until you know me and my approach to teaching. It will take a year or more to slowly grow an audience and build out my content. All will get even better over that time. It's slow going because I have other work to do (that pays) and I do all the development myself,-video, audio, graphics, fonts, web design, articles, membership & LMS & payment plugins, marketing, advertising, social media, blah blah blah. It's a major undertaking for me and I'm happy to do it because this is my love in life and I feel that the world of singers and voice actors need another man like me. I don't know what else to say.

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to post. I've received so much value from this first submission. You are a mind-reader of sorts, and you give me so much to think about. I've been afraid to provoke, so I keep it to myself, because I don't know how to sing any other way. I've felt like there's been a cool, "signature sound", buried under heaps of bad technique that's now rapidly revealing itself because of the workouts I do. I think I'd rather push boundaries and buttons, of course with better and better technique that comes in time with good training. The verb that came to mind reading your post is, "to polarize", which can be a good thing.

Looks fixed. It only started today. I logged out and in just now. Thanks.

Looks like it only kept one of them and then automatically opened up this comment entry box without any quotes. Hopefully, it will go away after I post this. I had cleared cached, quit the browser, etc. to no avail. Okay, adding this via edit: seems to be back to normal. A little forum software glitch. All better. And when I wrote "add to this post" above, I meant when I clicked into the "reply to this topic" field at the bottom.

Hi Robert, What's happening is that, even when I'm not quoting, but simply choose to add to post, I see dozens of quotes in the text box. When I click "submit", they seem to all go away. If I click on "quote", the same thing happens. For example, I didn't click "quote" for this reply, only the "add to post", and there are 16 nested quotes above where I'm typing right now. I'll click submit now, not sure if they'll stay or disappear.

That's such a great story! Down here (Florianópolis), it's the rock cover bands that draw the biggest crowds. The audiences gets into it, even when the singers are so-so, which is common, as long as the band plays tight as a whole. And they aren't at all turned off when the singer is a male late-40's, early 50's, which is another one of my insecurities.

I'm suddenly having issues replying with quotes... You've made my day. Thanks again so much. Only a few people have ever heard me sing, even though I do work very hard on my voice now. I'm finding I need some encouragement to give me a nudge to get out there and you're providing it. I have some friends in a popular local cover band who love to play music from Seattle (I'm from Seattle). Brazilians recognize the grunge classics, but wouldn't recognize Queensryche. They'd let me sing a set with them and I've yet to share a sample of my voice with them as I'm waiting until it's "just right". Brazilians are a very forgiving audience and they love rock.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write. It's valuable to hear from someone who doesn't know the original. And I didn't mention this in the thread, but if I sing this on stage one day here in south Brazil, which is a possibility in 2016, no one in the audience will have heard it, so I'd be free of the Tate comparisons. Last night I checked the pitch of the performance with a pitch-plugin and, with the exception of a few spots in the first minute, the pitch is mostly spot on. I think some were hearing pitch mistakes because I wasn't following the original melody that their ears were expecting. Or, when they said "pitch", they meant to say "wrong melody". Something like that. And I'm in no way saying this is perfect or great, but it's so hard to sing those mid-4th-octave notes, the G4, A4, I think there's a Bb4 in there, with connection and edge while maintaining clear articulation, that I thought I'd get a pat on the back for that. So, thank you. It takes away the sting of yesterday's "below average amateur hour" hit and run.

Thank you, Musikman. One of the reasons I've been altering the melodies and mood of the cover songs I sing is to use them to practice creating "original" melodies, so to speak, and infusing the song with my own personality as a type of preparation, or transition, to eventually creating original music. I also work on originals, but I struggle with lyrics and timidity associated with sharing. Melodies come easy. I also train this way in an attempt to develop my own sound and style (i.e. avoiding any type of imitation of the original). And, yes, I forgot how much people compare the covers to the original iconic artist. To me, an at-home singer, these songs are to have fun with. You should hear me butcher John Denver, who is one of my favorite artists to sing. Another takeaway from the great feedback here is that maybe I'm better off fast-tracking the original work, as opposed to trying to more perfectly mimic great cover songs. It's a more terrifying idea, but could lead to more satisfying results in the end. Either way, yes,—work, work, work, striving and improving. The work is so fun. Having patience is the harder part. Thanks again!

Thank you so much Ronws. I had a rough day yesterday after reading Kevin's comments, but I took them all to heart and had a great night training and singing. I didn't mention this, but in posting this song I'm taking a step toward over-coming a life-long fear of being heard singing by others. I'm now on the wrong side of 50 and feeling a "now or never" thing and am working hard to grow my voice to it's fullest. As a student, I'm coming from the place of singing WAY too hard, pushing too hard, trying to "pull chest" to the ceiling and so forth. I'm sure that strain can be heard in this performance. So the past 2.5 years of training have been all about backing that down. My false folds used to slam shut around Eb4 and each half-step after that was brutal to "push" through. I'm maybe half-way to where I care to be and I've only in the past couple months found how to navigate the passage while keep the false folds retracted. It's been amazing, and I'm not yet used to singing in this way, and when I sing a song I've sang for a long time, the old habits are more likely to jump in. Over the coming weeks I'll submit a few songs from other artists and I'll make a better attempt to stay close to the original and to communicate the lyric better. Thanks again.

Thank you, again. My biggest takeaway from this first submission has been that I need to pay much closer attention to communicating the intent of the lyrics. I think I'm pre-occupied with "sounding right", or "cool", or "powerful", as the expense of conveying the lyric appropriately. I didn't do that well at all here.

Hi Kevin. Thank you for the feedback. I don't at all expect to be coddled. Treated with courtesy, yes. Coddled, no. And I absolutely appreciate what you wrote. As I wrote above, I can sing this song 100 different ways. This is the way I chose and it didn't settle well with you and others. That's okay. It's useful to know. I know Robert deleted a portion of your post, but I'd like to comment on that anyway, since you took a swipe at me and others saw it. I hope Robert allows me to reply. I am not a performance coach nor have I ever claimed to be. I don't conduct private lessons of any kind and have never claimed as much. I've only just recently begun to create and offer an inexpensive, in-home vocal training course for people who can't afford private lessons with someone like yourself. I don't promote or link to my course in my signature line here, as others do. I may one day. I've lived in South America for 15 years. I'm surrounded by all kinds of young people who love to sing and want to sing better and can't afford private lessons. I realize that this is a problem for many singers all over the world, even in developed countries like the U.S. They are who I want to help most. And it's a great course. The feedback from my first few students has been excellent. I'm adding new material all the time. Also know that my voice connects over four octaves, from C2 to C6, though it's still rough at the edges. My intent is to fully develop the three octaves from G2 to G5 and this is becoming an easy siren for me to do, getting better by the day. I can do it across different vowels, with varied larynx positions, varied amounts of resonation, volume, and so forth. I'm first and foremost a a student of the voice. I openly demonstrate my voice to students and prospective students, explain my approach to teaching the voice, and encourage them to learn from other coaches and courses. I make it clear to them that I'm also one of the students at my school. There is full disclosure and I'm not the slightest bit ashamed of providing vocal training workouts for people to use at home and I stand by the quality of the course.

Last night I listened to the original version and things make more sense now. I wasn't attempting at all to sing this like the original version, though I can see how listeners would expect that I was, and would be put off when it sounded different. This is the way I've come to love to sing this song over the years. I didn't realize how far I had drifted from the original version. The differences in melody and rhythm were conscious choices, for better or worse. I alter the melody, rhythm and mood of every cover that I sing, to varying degrees. I'm the only audience that I ever have, so if affords me the opportunity to sing the way I enjoy singing, a type of "creative karaoke", using my voice and the way I express myself. Or course now I realize that to share what I do requires that I consider the mindset of a different audience. I hadn't considered this. None of this is to say that I don't have work to do on my voice or the way I sing/interpret songs, and I hope no one thinks that's where I'm coming from. To the contrary, I train my voice every day and plan to do so for years to come. It's what I love most in life.

Thanks Robert! I love it all and understand. I appreciate the candor and that you guys are holding me to a high standard. It makes me want to work even harder.

Thanks again, I appreciate your feedback. Know that if I ever sang for a cover band, I would go out of my way to reproduce the songs as close to the original as possible. I know how that works with cover band audiences. I'm not getting my question across well so I'll let go of it for now. I'll submit another song or two in the weeks to come.

You are so spot on. I think about this a lot as I sing/train to several dozen covers on karaoke tracks, and always find myself wishing that the track could conform to the way I'm wanting to sing the song in my style. I have to work with the tracks I have, so there will always be some mismatch between how I'm singing and the track that was intended for the original singer. Maybe the overarching question I'm asking is, does my voice sound like I could perform in public at a sound level of competence? And, I'm referring to my voice and the way I sing as opposed to the quality at which I'm covering the song as it was originally sung, if that makes sense.

Wow, thank you so much. Yes, you actually heard what I was going for (which happens to also have an autobiographical element). I remember Tate's original being more gentle, subdued, melodic, and I'm attempting to add more tension and passion, of sorts, to it. I'm getting the message about the technical matters here in the thread, so I will get to work on improved precision. I can sing it 100 different ways. Just working on finding a way that has some "wow factor". Thanks again.