A-ha Hunting High and Low cover

[Gneetapp]

Hi guys, yesterday I had some free time, so I just recorded this one for practice. Please let me know what you all think and also give me some pointers to improve it. Cheers

 

[MDEW]

Sounds pretty Good Gneetap, It seems that the higher notes are there but you are not confident about them. You are not out of pitch or anything like that and it sounds good.

I do not know if I can give any tips because I notice the same thing in my singing.

[Gneetapp]

Thank you so much for stopping by and giving a listen MDEW. I think it sounds odd at some parts, maybe because I didn't warm up before, and was not able to keep in one voice. So, to minimize the problem, I had to change volume throughout the song. Thanks again

[MDEW]

I would keep this on my sing often list and for performing for people. The odd parts will conform the more you sing it. The notes are there and it is a fun song to listen to.

[ronws]

Sounds like a folk version when you sing it. You just have to let go of the sound of Morten in your head. It's okay if you don't sound like him. I know, because I sometimes trip myself up with the original singer's voice in my head. Let it go and do the song as yourself.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Hi gnee!

I think there are many things working well, and some very simple mistakes that are taking away quality.

- You are oversinging it. Listen to the original and you will notice there are a lot more pauses, right on the begining, "Here"... "I AM"... , specially on I Am, don't sustain so much. This breakes the rhythm flow of the song.

- Your phrasing is in odds with the beat. Listen to the pattern of the snare on the song, right from the start. You will notice there is an accent first on the downbeat, and then the snare accents on the upbeat. Pretty much the whole song goes by this idea. On "I AM" you are close to it, but the accent didnt work so well, when you are on "SHE is sound". You are already drifting. Its a 4/4 but its irregular, common kind of irregular, but still irregular.

These two little things make a huge difference, really!

Then the points of the higher areas. When you do "high" the Ah is sounding good, perhaps relax more if you can. The higher phrases are on the midway between going into head voice, and belting, and that's the problem. Either you open it and blast it out, or, round more the vowels into UH and use a half volume. You went open with a half volume, that's just too hard and really unnecessary.

Open as you did and shout it, and you will go on the same direction of what he did. Or round more and still go strong. Whatever you do don't let the energy fall back from what you are doing on the lower area, go stronger.

Not oversinging the lows will also help on giving you more headroom for these notes.

[Gneetapp]

On June 25, 2016 at 10:44 PM, ronws said:

Sounds like a folk version when you sing it. You just have to let go of the sound of Morten in your head. It's okay if you don't sound like him. I know, because I sometimes trip myself up with the original singer's voice in my head. Let it go and do the song as yourself.

OMG Rowns, I agree with you 100%! I can't believe how different it sounds from my headphones to the speakers! I just listened it on my speakers, and I am shocked! As I really love singing this song, I will definitely try it again. Thank you so much for checking it out. Cheers

[Gneetapp]

On June 25, 2016 at 8:57 PM, Felipe Carvalho said:

Hi gnee!

I think there are many things working well, and some very simple mistakes that are taking away quality.

- You are oversinging it. Listen to the original and you will notice there are a lot more pauses, right on the begining, "Here"... "I AM"... , specially on I Am, don't sustain so much. This breakes the rhythm flow of the song.

- Your phrasing is in odds with the beat. Listen to the pattern of the snare on the song, right from the start. You will notice there is an accent first on the downbeat, and then the snare accents on the upbeat. Pretty much the whole song goes by this idea. On "I AM" you are close to it, but the accent didnt work so well, when you are on "SHE is sound". You are already drifting. Its a 4/4 but its irregular, common kind of irregular, but still irregular.

These two little things make a huge difference, really!

Then the points of the higher areas. When you do "high" the Ah is sounding good, perhaps relax more if you can. The higher phrases are on the midway between going into head voice, and belting, and that's the problem. Either you open it and blast it out, or, round more the vowels into UH and use a half volume. You went open with a half volume, that's just too hard and really unnecessary.

Open as you did and shout it, and you will go on the same direction of what he did. Or round more and still go strong. Whatever you do don't let the energy fall back from what you are doing on the lower area, go stronger.

Not oversinging the lows will also help on giving you more headroom for these notes.

Hi Felipe, thank you so much for stopping by and giving a listen. I agree with you regarding the beat. Even though I made a great progress becoming able to sing the melody of the song, I still suffer with the rhythm, and usually fall behind. I think I just need to practice more singing with the original, instead of a backing track.

You are right, I noticed that because where the song sits, I have two ways of singing it, and usually go stronger than lighter, but in this version I think I got stuck in the middle of the way, and it sounds weird. Another thing that just shocked me is that I recorded and did all the mixing using headphones, and I just listened the recording for the 1st time on my computer speakers, and I thought I sounded really weird...lol

As I really like this song I will try to gather all the tips you guys gave me and improve this cover. BTW, have you had a chance of checking my other cover (When Love and Hate Collide - Def Leppard)? Thank you again.

[Felipe Carvalho]

No problems bro, do listen to what I've mentioned on the snare, his phrasing is really, really tied to that. (clap your hands in 4ths to it and you will understand what I meant right away).

I will surely check the Def Lepard song this weekend!

[Gneetapp]

You betcha Felipe! Thanks again man!

[Collin571]

for some reason when I heard your voice I instantly thought of the opening of this song

sounds to me like your voice is very inflated, I think you could benefit from a tighter flow of air stemming from your abdominal muscles.  I like your voice though I think it's more layered than it needs to be so more vowel mod, shaping and support variance will help you out in uncovering your best sound.  I want to hear you sing more songs in a variety of genres soon!

[Gneetapp]

10 hours ago, Collin571 said:

for some reason when I heard your voice I instantly thought of the opening of this song

sounds to me like your voice is very inflated, I think you could benefit from a tighter flow of air stemming from your abdominal muscles.  I like your voice though I think it's more layered than it needs to be so more vowel mod, shaping and support variance will help you out in uncovering your best sound.  I want to hear you sing more songs in a variety of genres soon!

Hi Collin, thank you so much for stopping by and giving it a listen. Do you mean the Intro when there is only the vocals and some sort of synths/strings? 

What do you mean by "inflated"? To much effects or doubling? Also, what do you mean by "layered"?

Regarding the support, I totally agree with you. I am still working on it, and when I get it right, it is a huge difference.

In my defense, I have been trying to cover different genres. I like hard rock (especially 80s), and lately I have covered so far Bonnie Raitt (I can't make you love me), Five for Fighting (Superman - It's not easy), A-ha (Hunting high and low), and Def Leppard (When love and hate collide). All ballads...lol. BTW, have you checked those? I better post some hard rock soon, or else my "soft side" might take over, as I've been thinking of covering Please Forgive Me (Bryan Adams), 

 

[Collin571]

Yes just the intro.  That would be cool if you sang that part and posted a clip here lol, I'm not going to demand you do that but I think it would be interesting.

What I mean by your voice is inflated is it's using too much air which causes the occasional voice crack, which is fine when doing it for affect like the way Billy Joe sings bite my lips and close my eyes in Longview.  I also sing it that way cause I'm a bit of a copycat singer but (*auto edit*) it I have fun that way.  And by layered I mean it seems like there's some unnecessary undertones or overtones throughout the various pitches.  The placemeunt seems to jump around a bit, so if you pay some attention to where the sound resonates when you enter a certain timbre or fach and then try to maintain that placement throughout the different vowels.  You should try singing in a character voice and matching that voice throughout every pitch in the song as best you can.  This is my own intuitive advice, it's not professional it's creative and somewhat abstract hopefully it can benefit you in whatever way you see suitable.

[Gsoul82]

Seems like a number of people beat me to this one as well. The main thing I would've said is take it easier, just as Felipe mentioned, "oversinging". You end up expending unnecessary energy.

[Gneetapp]

13 hours ago, Gsoul82 said:

Seems like a number of people beat me to this one as well. The main thing I would've said is take it easier, just as Felipe mentioned, "oversinging". You end up expending unnecessary energy.

Hey Gsoul, thanks for checking this out, and most importantly for the tip. Cheers