Hi,
I sing as an amateur. I joined a choir a little while back and one of the choir's more important members, their voice expert apparently, told me that I have a crap voice. It's just a community choir - and they are OK, but not fabulous - in fact their first priority is, apparently, just to have fun. Some people don't even hold key well. So when I was told that my voice was crap there, well...I was pretty upset, considering the other people in the choir. I thought she just meant the top half, but when I questioned her, she told me that the bottom half was crap too - so I guess that, according to her, my whole voice is crap.
This really, really upset me! I know it shouldn't, but it does. Singing is really important to me - I had a horrid childhood and singing was what kept me from giving up on life. I also have a cleft palate, so I'm obviously not really supposed to be able to sing at all (I was told by Doctors that I couldn't be a model, actor or singer, but I should be able to do any 'normal' type of job), so of course, acting and singing in musical theatre is my favourite hobby. I'm a little too contrary and determined for my own good!
I've put some home recordings (just on iPhone recorder - sorry - I don't have recording equipment), here.
Could you please tell me if I really have a crap voice, and if so, why? I know it's not star material, but really don't hear it as crap. I'm not Julie Andrews, nor am I expecting to be, but I do get cast in amateur music theatre roles, and I want to be good at singing. I know I have a some nasality (that's the cleft palate, I'm afraid), I have a lot of very old tension that I'm working on getting rid of with a teacher, I have no resonance. I presume I have a lot of other bad stuff, if my voice is really totally crap. If you have to tell me bad news, that I really do have a crap voice, could you possibly be somewhat gentle about it?? I'm not particularly after polite lies, but I'm feeling miserable, so please just explain what is so wrong that my voice is crap, even compared to people who can't even hold a tune!
These are all works in progress, not performance standard. My teacher tells me that I'm a lyric soprano. Oh, and apparently, I'm rather exceptionally LOUD, which you can't tell from the recording - could be to do with the cleft palate, the metal plate that covers the front part of my hard palate or perhaps I'm naturally loud because my hearing is not 100% (my speech is on the loud side too - I never have difficulty with audiences hearing me :-) ).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bbi4pa2agaybt03/20160122%20134614.m4a?dl=0
(set by my teacher - music theatre - working through my break)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yeklqh2e09fxwy/20160119%20125338.m4a?dl=0
(not set by my teacher - my own experiment - apparently my voice does not have a pretty enough sound, so I'm trying to use this to emulate)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/epl28er0jd0ukwb/20160118%20140626.m4a?dl=0
(set by my teacher - to work on belt - only the last 60 seconds)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bt4a6x471rhlnrr/20160118%20134400.m4a?dl=0
(a belt mix - worked on for an amateur audition)