Draven Grey

I'm hearing the same thing as Daniel. I especially hear a drastic difference on the higher notes. It's as if you're trying to relax by modifying your placement a lot more towards head voice, and the end result is actually causing even more tension and instabliity on those notes. Edge it forward just a bit. Focus your vowels either right at where your hard and soft palates meet, or just behind that (depending on the sound color you want). If you're feeling a lot of tension in the neck, then you need to be transfering that extra pressure to both your soft palate and pushing into your solar plexus. If you really want balance your air rpessure, relaxation, etc, try singing the song through a cocktail straw while holding your nose andrelaxing (not pushing extra air through the straw). I don't suggest doing it more than 5 minutes at a time, perhaps a few times a day, because it stretches out every single muscle you're using too. But it can be an amazing asistant to singing a great vocal balance.

I agree with Daniel. There's nothing specific to point out in any one part of the song. Overall, however, you tended to yell on the louder higher notes. Finding either a comfortable belt or strong mixed resonance for those parts (which were very prominant at the beginning), would make this song much easier for you to sing and tighten it up quite a bit. As for not singing as long as you wanted to on the last note, if it's from running out of air, then there is one exercise you can start doing to expand your lung capacity. Breathe in by slightly tightening your abs and focusing the air into your lower back, kidneys, or glutes. This should naturally put most of the air into your obliques or lower ribs. Then make a very strong "sss" sound while pushing the air forward into your solar plexus. The "sss" is meant to be a type of compression that holds back most of the air you're trying to push out. This will compress your lung and open up all the tiny little pockets of air, effectively streching them and giving you more lung gcapacity over time. The idea is, with proper gottal/subglottal pressure balance, you should be able to sing a note at any strength for about as long as you can exhale in the lung capacity exercise. This got me up to being able to belt for 43 seconds. However, the tension you have in your voice on higher notes is an issue, and holding you back a lot. Focus on better placement, relaxing the tension in your neck, and solid breath support from pushing into the solar plexus. The breath support doesn't have to make you super loud. If you balance the pressure correctly, it will simply stablize the note at any volume.

Have fun. We tried to help. Let me know when you're serious about getting feedback.

I agree 100% with Robert. To be straight: You're yelling, not singing, especially on the verses. It doesn't have to be loud to be yelling. Yelling is a vocal configuration/mode. Sometimes you sing out some notes here and there, but it's very inconsistent in placement, timbre, support, and pitch. What's your goal in singing? Are you just doing this for fun and to sing at Karaoke bars? Or do you want to be taken seriously and sound professional? If it's the latter, then you need a coach and training routine. Hell, if it's the former, you would still benefit highly from training. You can't simply will yourself into being a good singer. If you think you're good now, start taking feedback seriously (from the audience, your friends, coaches like us, peers, etc), and see what others think. As a performer, it ultimately doesn't matter what you think about yourself, but rather what your audience thinks about you. You can become a MUCH better singer than you are now, but it likely won't happen until you listen to others' feedback and start correctly training proven techniques.

I watched it several times this week and have yet to find anything to critique or help with. This is amazing! The only thing I oculd offer constructive criticism on is your performance. I coached bands (signed and unsigned) across the world in their performance and career for many years. You lose yourself in the music quite often, which is absolutely perfect. When you lose yourself, you give the audience permission to do the same. Work on your actions following the lyrics rather than anticipating them. For instance, before you sang "It's the only thing that's in my mind", you pointed to your head and had already lowered your hand by the time you sang the line. The emotional impact from the visual can greatly enhance the performance when in sync. This can also be expressed by letting your entire body flow with the music. HOWEVER, I still felt the song, it didn't take away from it at all.

I wish it was that easy. Some people do seem gifted, and excel even more with training. Most of us have to train in the hopes of sounding gifted. I've been singing professionally since I was 15, and don't think I even sang fully in key for several years. I don't think I truly had a good singing voice until I was well into my 30's and started to take training seriously. Everything before that I'm guessing was good song-writing, passion, and pure determination. I can't even listen to the stuff I sang 10 years ago without cringing.

It's not terrible, it's not good, but that doesn't matter. Anyone can learn to sing. You need to decide if you want to because you want to, not based upon how you currently sound. Get a pitch training app to get you started. A big part of the problem though is that you're not actually singing, but rather trying to use speech vowels with pitch. Like I Said before, anyone can learn to sing. Do you want to? If you base your decision on whether or not you sound good before even learning how to do it, then you're going to have a very frustrating pursuit of anything.

Same style of singing? Make it our own? What are the terms of this challenge? I've never done one before. I'm not much of a fan of Dickinson's style, even if I do admire his abilities or can sing the same style. Then again, I'm not a fan of Ric Ocasek's style either, but I'm doing a cover of the song, Drive, for someone.

Cool song! Your voice reminds me of the more famous male pop singers of the 80's. Your style of music is perfect for getting placement in movies and TV. That's a very viable and potentially very profitable career path and/or income stream. I'm curious. Your placement is very much on your throat until you make edgier vowels sounds or go up in pitch. For instance, the first word you pulled up and forward in the song was "make". But in general you didn't lift the voice to the soft palate unless you went to higher notes. It gives an interesting and unique sound to your voice, but also a bit inconsistent. Did you do that on purpose? I'm not saying it's bad, just unique. The singer for Disturbed did very similar placements for their cover of The Sound of Silence. I think working on keeping your vowels lifted more to the soft palate (possibly edged towards the hard palate) and away from speech vowels will make your voice more consistent in sound across the board. It would still go deeper into the soft palate as the pitch raises, but your tone, timbre, and breath support would be more consistent. The quickest way to tell the difference would be to smile (which naturally supports lifting of the voice) and also place a finger on your bottom lip and try to sing up and over it.

I listened to Perfume. I tried Jar of Hearts, but it's hard to hear you over the other voice. You had an ear for pitch and a natural pleasant tone to your voice, but your fundamentals are all a bit off for singing. I'll get to that more in a minute. Yuo have a lot of great potential, and I can hear a great singing voice in there just waiting to be utilized in full. Please don't take my review as harsh. Text alone can feel that way very easily. My hope is to help you, not critisize you. You need to be training your voice. Not doing so is holding back a lot of your potential. I highly recommend starting with The Four Pillars of Singing and seeking a vocal coach with student success in the style you're going for. Not success as in career success necessarily, but in learning to sing that style well - contenporary rather than classical. There's only so much I can address in text without you having a coach or doing a lesson with me, Robert, or other coaches here. The first thing I hear is your placement is lending itself to more speech vowels than singing vowels. There are a couple of ways to get you started toward proper placement of singing vowels. Start by making a soft "K" sound while breathing in. That spot your tongue hits the roof of your mouth is where you want to point your vowels, letting the soft palate do most of the work for you. Higher notes will feel like they go deeper into the soft palate as well, and if it makes sense in text, you want to allow your vowels to shade back from that soft "K" spot, adding deeper vowels in the soft palate along with the deeper note (deeper in the soft palate, but higher in pitch). Besides willing them into the soft "K" spot, you can also bare your teeth, or smile. This helps naturally lift the voice. Additionally, when first starting to do this "lift" of the voice resonance and vowels, it may help to place a finger on your lower lip and try to make your voice go up and over it. This is called "over the pencil", as it's modified from putting a pencil between your teeth and sing up and over it with only vowels. Your TA (chest voice musculature) strength and breath support are a bit weak, which is a HUGE area holding back your voice. GRanted, without proper placement, trying to add these in will only get you yelling, rather than singing with more power. There are ways to strengthen these but it would likely take a lesson to really show you how, since you need get a proper feeling for the basics befroe we can truly help with adjustments. One thing you can do right now is bridging and connecting. This will help you gain better control over the musculature, placement, and movement of the voice. It's arguably the most important thing to learn for singing besides pitch. I talk mroe about that in the video below. To predicate my videos, I truly only put these out there to help people get a feel for proper sensations of the voice. There are things to do from there that make it even easier. For instance, instead of opening the jaw wide to help TA engagement, this is better for a more controlled vowel: raise the embouchure (lift and bite), narrow vertically, and push the tongue slightly forward into the bottom teeth (which gives extra support to the TA muscles). OPening the jaw may help you learn to turn on the TA muscles and sing higher notes, but narrowing is what allows you control from there.

Can you pick one song for us to review your voice on? Most of us, if not all of the coaches here, don't have time to go through 5 songs. I was going to try, but had to keep pushinng it back in my schedule.

I'm hearing a few different things making you a bit pitchy and strained, especially on higher notes. The one thing I think will help the most is lifting the voice out of the throat and onto the soft palate more. You have a great voice, but not having that extra lift is causing you to go flat on certain notes. Learn good embouchure. The easiest way to describe that over text is to smile or bare your teeth (horizontal embouchure), narrow how wide you are vertically, and push your tongue straight into your bottom teeth to help lock in your chest voice musculature especially on higher notes. A simple way to feel this lift is (1) make a soft "K" sound while inhaling. Where that hits the roof of your mouth is where you want to point your vowels. Vowels will modify to include shades that are deeper into the soft palate as you go higher, but simply trying to relax into that "resonant spot" or "soft K spot" will help immensely. (2) "Over the pencil", instead of using a pencil, just place a finger on your bottom lip, bare your teeth (engage embouchure), and then sing up and over your finger. This new "lift" of the voice will correct a lot of issues and start to get you to where you're not singing in your throat as much, which in turn makes singing more effortless and consistent. The idea is to relax the pressure upward and then out, taking the strain off the throat.

I'm not sure about the $10, but since I didn't get a chance to say anything teh first time, I'll go ahead and give you some feedback. You're more consistent in the last recording, which tells me you put more focus on breath support. Are you afraid to be louder? It seems like you're holding back on purpose, which is contributing to the lack of twang, compression, and breath support. Push a bit more from your abs, just not from the neck. It feels counterintuitive, but that slight psh downward will not only raise your volume, it will also correct some of your support and compression issues.

I listened to your other song too. I hear what Rob is talking about concerning Sob mode, and I also think it has a lot to do with your chosen dynamics. For instance, in the other video on your channel, you have a bit more twang and compression. However, even in that video, you chose to not allow yoruself to belt when the song called for bigger dynamics. It was almost as if you were holding back, which kept the song (or both songs) from ever climaxing or taking people on an emotional rollercoaster that you could have with those lyrics. You obvisouly were able to keep your chest voice musculature engaged on higher notes, but you stayed soft in volume, which rounded out the voice, made it prettier, and pushed it much further back towards your throat (hence "sob"). By belting, I don't mean yelling either. Don't be afraid to get loud when the song calls for it or you want to show passion or emphasize parts. Get loud from pushing into your abs from behind, not from pushing from the throat. And let that extra air pressure push right into your soft palate. Then lean the voice a bit more towards your teeth for more edge, if you like. The extra air pressure will cause more twang through what's called Bernoulli's Principle, and cause more volume without pushing frmo your neck (which would be yelling). The focus on keeping the voice up into the soft palate and then out towards your hard palate will also cause more compression.

You sing in key, which is a major plus You also don't have a "weird" voice. Training your voice doesn't make you sound "trained". I'm not even sure if that is a sound, considering the major variety in both singer who've taken lessons and those who haven't. You train you voice in order to more easily get the sound you want consistently, releave tension, and make your voice last for many years to come. You will sound like you want to and not like you don't want to. Here's one of many examples - Simply lifting the voice to the soft palate will help with all of those things I mentioned. That means baring your teeth a bit on higher notes, and focusing on the voice going up and out, singing more towards where the hard and soft palate meet. I often have a student put their finger on their bottom lip and try to sing up and over it. Singing from the throat, where you typically speak from, does not make for a lasting consistent, and controllable voice. Also, lifting the voice as described doesn't mean you can't dampen the larynx and change your tongue position slightly to get something that sound exatly the same as you did before. But it will be a conscious decision and much more relaxed and consistent, rather than being whatever happens to come out.

Great voice! On the second verse, you started to go a bit flat. I didn't hear the same sisue on most of the rest of the song. It was almost as if you were trying to force harsher sounding vowels by squeezing them out rather than adding color to an already well placed vowel. You might try placing those vowels a bit deeper into the soft palate and using more breath support to get a more compressed sound rather than squeezing. I can see this helping the only other thing I heard you struggle with as well. When you added breath support you tended to so one of two things: (1) you compressed along with the louder volume, causing a lot more twang/closure/harshness when you got loud, or (2) you opened your embouchure far too wide vertically, which cause the same issue, thus "splatting" the vowels. If you learn to narrow your embouchure to support the vowels being more in line with the placement of the note in the soft palate, it will release some of that harshness, and allow you more control over just how harsh you want it to sound (based on how wide you open). This will also help a bit with the overcompression at louder parts, but you can also purposefully dampen the larynx more during those parts. Learning to dampen and stabilize the larynx will not only make singing higher notes easier and less harsh, it will make it more consistent with the rest of your voice. There are some great training onsets to help build that sort of support, but apart from training in TFPOS to learn those onsets, you can start by placing your finger just below your larynx and then trying to sing through scales while keep the larynx in the same spot. This isn't the same spot it is when speaking. It helps to start singing, feel where the larynx goes on the more releaxed notes, and then try and keep it there as you go up. Look up Robert Lunte's videos on embouchure and vowels. I think they will give you a bit different way of thinking through how you were trying to place your voice. You have a beautiful voice. I'm excited about hearing you with even more control over the sound colors of your higher pitches.

You made a good attempt on these song. I commend you on your effort, especially since it sounds like English may not be your first language and English, which often makes English difficult to sing. I've trained a few students from other countries that spoke naturally much further back in the mouth and throat than English. I had to give them speech training as well as singing. I think what Gsoul was asking is if you were trying to stay quiet. Your breath support and volume sound like you're trying to be as quiet as possible rather than sing out strong and proud. I have some students who have struggled with the same type of volume and breath support simply because they didn't even think about volume control. Find a volume you think sounds good and fits the song, then try to keep all of your singing at that volume. Sometimes, different parts of a song will call for you changing your volume level, but you still want to stay consistent throughout each part. For instance, a chorus may sound betetr louder, a bridge might work better quieter, but it truly depends on the song and the emotion you want to convey. But volume control and breath support are not the main issue. It's very important, but I heard something else that could hold you back even more. You seem to be singing a lot of speech mode vowels, rather than well placed singing vowels. Vowel placement is extremely different for singing than it is in speech. Learn to lift the vowels to the soft palate. You feel this happening if you smile when you talk. But unlike talking, you want to try and place all your singing vowels to feel more like they're coming from the soft palate than from the throat. Beside the smile, or embouchure (like the video below), you can also place your finger or mic on your bottom lip and try to sing up and over it. Try keeping all of your vowels there. Do you train? Do you have a teacher? I think you would benefit greatly from it. Check out the TVS Training Program linked to in the footer of this page. Even better, train with a teacher who is getting the results in their students taht you want to have yourself. And if you think you can't afford it right now, then at elast watch the video below and Robert's other videos too. He's one of the very few vocal coaches on YouTube who actually explain what they're doing well enough for you to learn from his videos. His course, which I mentioned above, is far more in depth though.

Great showcase song for you! It's very difficult to teach emotion like that, and always a treat when someonne gets it naturally. Watching the video, I think the pitchiness on the higehr notes is due to your embouchure being too relaxed. That's often the frist thing I go to when a student is a bit pitchy. The voice simply isn't getting enough support to stay lifted. If that's not the problem, then it may also be where you are "pointing" your vowels. You will feel the vowels go deeper into the soft palate as the pitch geos up, but it can help greatly to also keep them pointed into your hard palate. Try making a soft "K" sound while breathing in. The spot where that hits the roof of your mouth, right where the hard and soft palates meet, is a place you want to feel resonance on your vowels. Where Robert teaches formant tuning, I've found that it sometimes helps to separate parts of the formant for certain students. The two main araes I point out are the soft "K" or "reonant spot" and the pressure of the soft palate raising. Both are resonance and shaping the reonsnance chamber, but sometimes it can help to separate them in your mind. The way I describe doing it is all about keeping the voice lifted and out of the throat. Then formant tuning becomes a way to think about moving the pressure around and make singing more effortless or relaxed.

What he's doing sort of works for a more classical style. He's correct in his description of what's happening. His implmentation of it needs some work. The guy's tongue is all over the place, and his overall embouchure is horrid! In contemporary singing, that "buzzing" he's talking about is better done with tracking (like humming and buzzing the lips), quack (glottal closure), and then using opening and narrowing of the vocal tract to help tune the formant. It's similar to the "eeyah" he's doing, but far more effective in training placement of the voice.

I'm 100% in agreement with Robert. I was thinking exactly the same things as I watched. To add, about being flat at moments: From what I could tell it sounded like you were allowing the sound to modify back too far when going into light-mass head voice on the higher notes. This put more pressure onto the glottis, and ended up both pulling the voice down into the throat rather than resonating mostly on the soft palate and opened up the glottis with more uncontrolled airiness. There are multiple things that can cause this. The most common causes I have seen with my students is closing the embouchure too far and also thinking of modifying vowels as going deeper into the mouth rather than deeper into the soft palate. Often, this is fixed by adding a little more twang, focusing the voice upward, training to keep the embouchure shaped and tuned, and also training to get a very resonant "ou" vowel on the tongue being as far back as you allow the feeling to go (rather than going back to an "oo"). From a highly resonant "ou", I have my students open into other vowels. We often speak relaxed into the hard palate and then sing in a relaxed upward "ou" area focused light-mass head voice a lot before trying to sing a song at full volume or especially before full voice in the upper range. Almost every single time they go a little flat, it's because they let go of horizontal emboushure a bit too much, closed vertically a bit too much, and put too much pressure on their throat rather than the soft palate (up and forward). With what Robert is talking about for intonation and tuning, you will be able to easily sing in head voice as resonant as you like, and add in only as much TA as you want for the sound you're going for. The correct placement makes it where only very fine-tnue adjustments need to happen in order to change the sound. You have a beautiful voice. With a little more training, especially above the passagio, I have no doubt you can compete with the big league singers. I've also coached a lot of bands and artists in stage presence. You're definitely comfortable on stage, it really shows. Now it's time to train hard enough so that when you're performing you don't have to think about technique and can instead focus on letting your whole body get lost in the music. That's a skill all it's own. Critique the hell out of your videos, and start to expiriment with what you've seen other artists do that you really liked and felt their emotion through. The "cool" things that stand out most to you about others are often because you really identify with it and it's already a part of you that only needs amplified more.

What type of feedback would you like on this?

Hey Lyndon, There's a section of the forum devoted to reviewing your voice: http://www.themodernvocalistworld.com/forum/14-review-my-singing/ It's paid, but you will get expert reviews of your voice there, so it's well worth it. I highly suggest you check out the training program in the footer of this site too, or private lessons with Robert or any other number of teachers here. Please feel free to start or join ongoing discussions around the forum until then. Also feel free to ask if you have a specific question as to technique or something you're struggling with.

I second Robert's opinion, including his course and lessons.

Hey Evan. If you want some feedback on your singing, you should post a recording of yourself over in the "Review My Singing" section: http://www.themodernvocalistworld.com/forum/14-review-my-singing/ It costs, but having vocal coaches and experts take time to write you a review is well worth it. As for AAA, they aren't singing in falsetto, but rather a connected full voice, belt range, "mixed" resonance. That's comes more easily when you learn to add in your TA mucles in your ehad voice, and tune the formant (shade or narrow the vowels) to support the notes more effortlessly. Keep at it. You'll ifnd a lot of help here, especially through the owner, Robert Lunte's course and/or videos.

Done: Okay, so it's two years old. Does it still count? I wrote it, and even edited the video. That has to count for something.