TMV World Member ellise k Posted January 20, 2016 TMV World Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Member JonJon Posted January 20, 2016 TMV World Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 very nice. I had to fight to find anything to critique. One tiny thing you might try. Work on "building" the song a bit more. The song is in 'AABA' form. Something like verse-verse-bridge-verse. So you can sit back and look at that and try to figure out what you want to do ahead of time to keep the song moving forward to the end. The bridge, just by the nature of it going to different chords and different melodies will sort of take care of itself since it already provides a nice change from the 2 verses that preceded it. So that leaves the verses to play with. As it stands you sort of did the 2nd verse as a carbon copy of the 1st verse. So in a way it DIDNT build....it just sort of cruised along...same pace, same volume, same phrasing. Try to find a few small ways to intensify that 2nd verse. Maybe a slight volume increase. Maybe pick a few words and add a little more expression on them. Maybe the words "I", "be" "sin" "cant" (or "help"). You dont have to go crazy but maybe add some extra melisma or slight inflections or whatever Like I said, on the bridge you dont have to go too nuts because its already serving its function to provide variety. The on the 3rd verse youd reach the peak of intensity...more volume, more expression, maybe find a few ways to intensify the phrasing a bit. Then use that very last repeat on the last verse to bring it all back down. Sounds like a lot but its not really. Here is the scheme: 1st verse. Nice calm intro. Nice and relaxed, smooth phrasing 2nd verse. Build it up a bit to a slight peak Bridge. The bridge takes people to a different place. The intensity can actually back off a bit to set people up for hitting them hard on that last verse. 3rd verse. The payoff. The peak. Hit 'em hard and then at the end bring 'em back down gently And im not talking about wild intensity swings here, since the song is a pretty calm song in the first place....more like a small but definite up and down build of emotion etc So really I cant critique the singing itself, but you can plan ahead a bit to form a strategy to draw the people in and move them a bit more WITH the singing skills. -------------- The only itsy bitsy nitpicking singing thing I noticed was on the first verse, maybe you could have held the words "say" and "'in" a bit longer. And then on both verses, the last word "you" could be held a bit longer or softy faded out a bit longer. Sort of going by the Elvis version he held those 2 "you"s almost until the next word started (of course you have to get a breath in). On your version there is that slight gap after each 'you' Other than that, great job! WAY better than I could do lol 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member ronws Posted January 20, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 I liked it, Ellise. Jon's advice was good. A good example I can think of is to listen to anything Barry Manilow did. He made a career off the aaba format and build, build, crescendo, denoument thing. So, watch that to get a visual and audio example of what Jon is talking about. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Member ellise k Posted January 20, 2016 Author TMV World Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 Thanks a lot guys for your very constructive comments appreciated as always 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Robert Lunte Posted January 20, 2016 Administrator Share Posted January 20, 2016 Hi Elise.... I love your videos... your adorable... Always decent if not really good.... you have a future as a singer... keep going!! 1). I like that you are now experimenting with vocal processing... YES, use some reverb, however, this is a little too much. Turn it down a little bit, but just a bit. Never sing with a "flat" signal and no special sauce... Also, if you can, get some compression on your voice. You can get compression on a TC-Helicon pedal like the new Performance-V (see my review of this cool singer effects system in the vocal gear > processing forum), or one of their pedals. Some PA boards/heads have compression as well. 2). You might try improving your intonation by paying attention to not onsetting low and then scooping up. Singers do this ALL THE TIME... so be aware of it! No "poop scoops" into the notes or out of the notes... straight in and straight out as much as possible. There are some blue note exceptions to that, but generally speaking, 90% of the time, no scooping!!! I really don't have a lot of critiques on this performance Elise because it was pretty solid. For me, it almost comes down to production at this point on this song. How to get a better audio, a better video, etc. for your presentation. If you were my student, we would be working learning how to make recordings now... not live recordings like this.. which are fine, but you really need to begin making real recordings... singing into a microphone, into a DAW (digital audio workstation)... or software for recording, learning how to get levels, learning about compression and effects and then... learning how to take your audio and synch it to video so it looks real. Especially if you are presenting on YouTube. Below is a new song I recently completed... Im not posting this to steal your thunder, but to show you the level of production I think you need to begin striving for. It will make you look more pro. SECRET... This video looks like Im singing it live right there... it is an illusion. Now to be sure, I am NOT lip synching... I am actually singing the song and it did actually sound about 90% the save as the audio you are hearing, but the audio you are hearing was done before the video. Audio is produced first... made to sound as amazing as you can... then synced to video for the final presentation. The Audio is actually the hard part. Getting a good performance and mixing, etc... the video is the easy part. You just look pretty and 'act' in front of a camera. This is how the pros do it... very rarely are you going to get this quality of recording, live... and that is the point... if you up your game in the quality of your audio... which you need to do at this point... you may as well synch it to a nice video since you are 90% there. I can teach you how to do this btw... I can give you audio and video production lessons. So I really think that is great advise... you need to learn how ... and get experience recording and start capturing all these songs your doing, at a higher level of production. Your ability to sing, has out grow the quality of your productions. Ha! You thought I was just a rocker didn't ya... If you can take your singing... and turn them into productions like this... you will have the complete package and really start sounding and looking professional. And I think you are probably ready for it. The art of recording Elise, is 40% of the art of singing. It is part of the overall art form... you really need to learn how. A great place to start is if on garageband... if you have a mac book or iPad, you get garageband automatically and it is a great way to cut your teeth on recording and you can make a good recording with garageband... don't let anyone tell you otherwise. When you are ready to get more powerful DAW, you should move up to Macs LogicProX... that is what I use... it is the pro version of garageband... or something like Reaper for PCs... Ron actually knows a lot about Reaper. 6 ROBERT LUNTE Founder / Author / Coach robert@thevocaliststudio.com TheVocalistStudio Student Testimonials Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Robert Lunte Posted January 20, 2016 Administrator Share Posted January 20, 2016 Good points Jon and Ron... thanks for your help... ROBERT LUNTE Founder / Author / Coach robert@thevocaliststudio.com TheVocalistStudio Student Testimonials Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member MDEW Posted January 20, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 Awesom post Robert. Ellise, when you record through a recording device you get the opportunity to change little things that you may not be happy with. Maybe the whole song went perfect except for one little flub or falter, you can then go back and "Fix" just that one section. Working on songs this way really help you to "Hone in" on things like Tone, Vibrato and Dynamics. It also allows you to have Backing music to sing too that will help lead you into some more expressive feelings and guide your singing. Robert is correct with a little boost from Video and audio editing your over all presentation will improve tremendously. 1 "You need a strong foundation to reach the heights." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Felipe Carvalho Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Lovely voice and very pleasant on most of it Ellise, the only moment I found you kinda broke the mood was on "somethings arent meant to be", a little care with the phrasing there and it will be very solid. Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member KillerKu Posted January 20, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 20, 2016 This is awesome. I love your expressiveness as the face matches the timbre. Rob already covered it, but this production is pretty karaoke sounding. Like the kind of thing you'd give an unskilled singer to hide the flaws. There's almost a hissing quality to the reverb it's so bright. Your voice doesn't need a disguise it just needs to be propped up. I don't know what kind of program you're using but there are some pretty good vst plugins out there. I use Cakewalk/Sonar so a lot of times I"ll just use the sonitus built in as I find it intuitive, but ambience is a well known free one that can get some good sounds, but it's a bit technical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member ronws Posted January 21, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 21, 2016 I am in the process of re-vamping my Reaper thread to not just be about that software, of which I am a fanboy, but recording and mixing in general, so that you can apply concepts, whether that software, or Garageband, or Logic Pro, or Cubase. Ideas about why you mix something a certain way. Why just about any vocal needs a compressor and yes, plug-in compressors are perfectly fine to do this. That way, even if someone busy a recording bundle in the gear store, here, there is still some help and guidance on how to do it. As I want to come from the viewpoint of someone who is NOT a recording whiz because we all start somewhere. Something that Robert, my brother Scott, and others have said, we really do ourselves better by making better recordings. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Member ellise k Posted January 21, 2016 Author TMV World Member Share Posted January 21, 2016 Thank you everyone for all your nice and constructive comments. I will take all of your advice to further improve. Thank you for taking time out of your busy days to review my singing. This is why I love this site because there are so many professional people on it with real advice and encouragement. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member Musikman7002 Posted January 27, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 27, 2016 Hi Ellise, love the song! I agree with Robert. You are really a star in the making and as much as talent is needed I would say that sometimes today if the production isn't what people are used to seeing/hearing they don't pay as much attention. I don't like this as I can hear what an amazing voice you have but to so many people if something distracts them from the way they are used to hearing things etc they can tune out fast. You are poised to make it. You have the talent, drive and looks to do it. I would really try to start getting pro recordings of your voice. If there are any recording schools in your area you should see if they need any session singers for the students to work with. There is a big school in Orlando and I know they have recording labs with students where the recording that are made you get to keep. Plus they sometimes have video programs as well they could help you with your vids as well. I know lots of these students and they are very eager for people to work with/experiment on lol. Point is you are ready for the next level. I can tell you that you have what it takes and have a very mature talent for your age. That being said I can tell you that TIME FLIES BY lol (boy does it ever) and a Beautiful and talented 17-20 year old is sooooo much more impressive and easier to get somewhere in the industry than an older artist. I believe its just because if you are really a great singer etc but are like 30 everyone is like (Eh, they should be good by now, lol) But if you strike while you are still young you will have such an advantage. I can see you have the drive. The competitions etc you have the talent. You really need to just work on the last bits and you will make it as an artist I am sure. I wish I had a time machine and could talk to a 16-17 year old me, I really missed the boat haha. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Member ellise k Posted January 27, 2016 Author TMV World Member Share Posted January 27, 2016 George, I always really appreciate your kind comments and encouragement. You are right, I need to talk it to the next level. When I won fasttract last year, part of the deal was time in a recording studio. I am waiting for that to happen. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member Musikman7002 Posted January 28, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 28, 2016 That's fantastic! I can't wait to hear you recorded properly with a good condenser mic etc. You have a very marketable voice and given the proper treatment can stand next to any great singer I have heard. Keep us posted on any recording plans 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Member ellise k Posted January 28, 2016 Author TMV World Member Share Posted January 28, 2016 thanks again george Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMV World Legacy Member ronws Posted January 29, 2016 TMV World Legacy Member Share Posted January 29, 2016 I agree with musikman. You need to get out there and strike while the iron is hot. Please, please, trust me, life passes by in the blink of an eye. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts