Adele Cover & Some advice needed!

[PollyGoPop]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5151895/Make%20You%20Feel%20My%20Love.mp3

Here's my quick cover of Adele's 'Make You Feel My Love' - any feedback/criticism would be much appreciated.

I'm also after some vocal technique advice. I have been a semi-professional vocalist for some time now, and have studied vocals at college etc. I'm really pleased with my control and general tone on that particular track, but my guitarist has written a very Paramore-eqsue, edgier punky pop song and I'm having a total block trying to record the vocals for it.

Do any of you have any tips for achieving a rockier sound? (I love the gravelly, slightly distorted notes Pink produces when she moves up into the higher end of her range, and an extreme example would be Brody Dalle). Everything I've tried seems to sound either strained & forced or feels damaging after a couple of notes. I don't want to really alter my voice, I just want to try and get a bit more of a rocky 'break' in it on some of the more powerful notes.

I'm finding my guitarists track really difficult. The melody isn't particularly challenging and it's in a comfortable key so the 'wow' factor on the vocals is going to have to come from, aside from a few showy ad-libs in the final chorus, really revving up the tone throughout.

Any help on this would be hugely appreciated.

Polly.x

[ronws]

Your link didn't work for me. Knowing dropbox's problems, now and then, I fixed with this:

http://dl2.dropbox.com/u/5151895/Make%20You%20Feel%20My%20Love.mp3

You just add a 2 after dl.

Anyway, it sounded great. So what's the problem? Unless you are wanting to sound like Anthrax or Pantera. I'd say your voice is fine, but what do I know?

[BrunoFortes]

Hi PollyGoPop,

I agree with ronws that this an excellent rendition. And I specifically love your emotional way of singing it.

(Now let me be a little picky...)

- No trouble in the parts where you're singing in headvoice

- I recognise a loss of control in the lower-half of your chestvoice

Solution #1: Relax

Practice makes perfect. I think you get a little tensed when you sing those lower notes. You lose more breath than necessary, which in turn causes unstable vibrato and loss of pitch. (little flat a couple of times)

Practice scales going down the lower-half of your chestvoice and be aware that you release tension as you go down.

Up....down....hold it...1...2...relax...3...4...up....down...hold it again...and so on.

Solution #2: Transpose

You could also try to avoid this by recognising what you're lowest stable note is and transposing the song so it matches that point. I know, it's an easy way out and not really challenging.

Just my 2 cts. I don't see how you could add a "rockier" sound to this, since I'm not that much into the specifics of rock vocals.