Stay With Me

[tmacuf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sLWluSMlE0

[Burning_Rand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWeI1adCiXo

 

A lot of potential. 

 

Just a trick, in time what you want is your falsetto (which is beautiful) to also be the same 'gear shift' that you sing "stay" however you must sing it with the right placement so that it has more presence. So instead of falsetto or a pushed up chest voice (you're doing the second one) you will get a head voice.

 

Try singing a few notes lower than those lovely top notes you have and do it on a buzzy 'ng' sound which should feel like it's resonating in and around your nose. It should be really easy to produce and it will feel almost too nasally and probably ugly, however that's the area you want those 'stay' notes to be vibrating. WARNING: Do not attempt to feel this buzz on your top notes (above high C) since those notes are resonating further back and up in the skull.

[KillerKu]

This is awesome. I agree, working on that space where you were hitting the chesty sound to be maybe a bit less effortful might be a good goal. 

 

I personally prefer your style of falsetto over a lot of more aggressive head voice styles. I agree 'beautful' is a good word.

 

So yeah, I can parrot Burning_Rand a little more, but I just love your timbre and you've got great flowing intonation. You could go good places.

[Burning_Rand]

This is awesome. I agree, working on that space where you were hitting the chesty sound to be maybe a bit less effortful might be a good goal. 

 

I personally prefer your style of falsetto over a lot of more aggressive head voice styles. I agree 'beautful' is a good word.

 

So yeah, I can parrot Burning_Rand a little more, but I just love your timbre and you've got great flowing intonation. You could go good places.

 

Thanks for that .

 

Also glad you said this, I should confirm that by using the head voice/mixed voice sound, I would only advocate this for the A-E on "Stay with me" which all the other parts sung in falsetto should remain as they are

[tmacuf]

yeah, i realize that the "stay" is in full voice. thing is, the real song's chorus sounds very powerful in part because of the perfectly mixed background chorus. I didn't feel like any type of head voice could give that kind of power recording with a camcorder so i went full, which is obviously at the upper part of my range. i could sing it softer in full voice but my voice wouldn't hold up doing that regularly. maybe in a studio or something. The other thing i was thinking about is would it sound alot better with some compression plus or minus some reverb. smooth it out ya know? or is it just the character of the note and not really the volume that makes it sound a little out of place?

[ronws]

Good stuff but you ought to upload an avatar. Kind of incongruous that you would show yourself in a video but not have a pic.

[Elvis]

yeah, i realize that the "stay" is in full voice. thing is, the real song's chorus sounds very powerful in part because of the perfectly mixed background chorus. I didn't feel like any type of head voice could give that kind of power recording with a camcorder so i went full, which is obviously at the upper part of my range. i could sing it softer in full voice but my voice wouldn't hold up doing that regularly. maybe in a studio or something. The other thing i was thinking about is would it sound alot better with some compression plus or minus some reverb. smooth it out ya know? or is it just the character of the note and not really the volume that makes it sound a little out of place?

Poor mans recording systems has its flaws and this is one of them. Imo that note is perfect. If u recorded with mic and mix it it would be lovely. I think u went the right way. Otherwise it wouldnt have as much dynamic as it has now with this "belt". I personally wouldnt change it.

[tmacuf]

avatar added, didn't really think about it..

[KillerKu]

yeah, i realize that the "stay" is in full voice. thing is, the real song's chorus sounds very powerful in part because of the perfectly mixed background chorus. I didn't feel like any type of head voice could give that kind of power recording with a camcorder so i went full, which is obviously at the upper part of my range. i could sing it softer in full voice but my voice wouldn't hold up doing that regularly. maybe in a studio or something. The other thing i was thinking about is would it sound alot better with some compression plus or minus some reverb. smooth it out ya know? or is it just the character of the note and not really the volume that makes it sound a little out of place?

 

I've found a kind of middle voice mix thing is less exhausting once you get it dialed in compared to a full on chesty wail. It's more of just a long term goal. I love chesty wails, aesthetically, but they can really tire you out. You can increase the power of the 'in between' voice so it sounds similar and is a lot more controllable than the chesty wail.

 

The main problem is the 'middle voice' has like 15 definitions that are competing. The one universal thing would probably be not blowing a bunch of air, supporting well, twanging, and use of resonance and thin out towards some kind of head voice. I get a bit plaintive a lot of the time, but if you pick the right vowel (and stay is a good one) you can keep the shouty quality without pushing for it.

 

Now, I don't agree with the scare tactics of pushing chest, cause I think everybody does it as a beginner and I don't know if people can even learn to sing well without sometimes pushing chest. I pushed chest for like 3 years with only mild fatigue to show for it. Joe Strummer is a personal hero of mine. I try to keep a primal energy in most things I do, but A4 is very high, and for me I couldn't do that without metering a few things. You may be a lighter voice type, I do believe it is probably a bit different from voice to voice.

 

Does your throat/voice feel the same way before and after singing like that? That's my test. When I would push chest I'd get mild fatigue in the support muscles around the larynx. Nowadays, I don't feel a difference before and after singing in those muscles. It's not really higher notes that are the biggest measurement of my improvement, it's more just that.

[tmacuf]

honestly, for whatever reason, the softer mixed voice has never worked out for me other than for short stretches. it feels and sounds great for like 20-30 minutes, then my voice feels a little rough and it's a little harder to do runs/stay on pitch. i notice when i sing that way for an hour or so my voice is tired/dry/sore the next morning. when i sing clear and keep notes above D/E loud/full/clear, i can literally sing for 3-4 hours with no fatigue whatsoever... I probably could get the chorus sounding smoother if i wasn't singing the verses so soft and smooth ya know. it's tough to transition to borderline broadway belting from smooth pop singing without having some crazy dynamic changes. that's why i was thinking about adding a little compression to the video to smooth it out.

[KillerKu]

honestly, for whatever reason, the softer mixed voice has never worked out for me other than for short stretches. it feels and sounds great for like 20-30 minutes, then my voice feels a little rough and it's a little harder to do runs/stay on pitch. i notice when i sing that way for an hour or so my voice is tired/dry/sore the next morning. when i sing clear and keep notes above D/E loud/full/clear, i can literally sing for 3-4 hours with no fatigue whatsoever... I probably could get the chorus sounding smoother if i wasn't singing the verses so soft and smooth ya know. it's tough to transition to borderline broadway belting from smooth pop singing without having some crazy dynamic changes. that's why i was thinking about adding a little compression to the video to smooth it out.

 

If it works for you, you should do it. But one thing you might try, is allowing the shouty quality to go a little more metallic. If you kind of bite into an an 'ay' sound you can almost imagine you're biting, and make sure your lower jaw is still tucked. It takes less air. It is very loud, but it's less airy. It's easier to control. For me that vowel, if I do it like that bridges all the way up to D5 as after A4 or so it starts lightening more and it doesn't feel restrained.

 

As far as I understand, all of the broadway belting requires less air. It's not about quietness. I'm not trying to get you to do a speech level singing mix voice. If you're hitting a limit, usually the bridge may not be functioning fully quite yet.

[tmacuf]

i've heard of some of these terms on internet etc, but never had any training so i find alot of this stuff to be confusing. like for instance, i've heard people say falsetto vs head voice vs mixed voice vs chest voice. i would think im using head voice, not falsetto, as it is not particularly breathy. contrary to what someone said earlier, i think i actually have a middle/deep singing range. i can go as low as C two octaves below middle, and i would definitely never write a song in the range of stay with me. pretty much just picked this key cus of the karaoke background and to play around with head voice more. 

 

Here is the video with compression. it's a 4:1 ratio. does that make the chorus sound better? or does it take away from the dynamics of the verses too much etc. options are pretty limited since the background and vocals all on one track.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J01RGahgkxE&feature=youtu.be

[KillerKu]

I like the way CVT gets rid of falsetto (they call it neutral with air, without air, or with twang basically), but we're stuck with it due to the cultural legacy.

 

As far as I can tell falsetto is a type of head voice. From what I've read, it's the way the vocal folds are phonating. As far as I understand there is less body of the vocal fold vibrating in falsetto, so it is a 'lighter' phonation where as fuller voices have more body of the vocal folds vibrating. The mysterious 'middle' voice might involve somewhere in between, more 'mass' of the vocal folds vibrating. 

 

Compression does polish it, but you didn't need a 4:1 ratio considering your distance from the mic. It already sounded good. To be honest you already sound like you're doing a middle voice in places though.

 

Anyway, if the notes are comfortable for you, you don't need to change anything. But if you'd like I can try to get you a sound file of various ways of approaching the high note there when I get time to be loud.

[KillerKu]

Here man. This is many many ways I can hit that note, even a comical fake operatic voice:

 

https://app.box.com/s/ly8cn6yxjpdiyqlxanqceerfwmo2uli4

 

This second one for me is the one I tend to use more often, or something similar or lighter cause even though normally I wouldn't take this same style of voice up and up and up until it hits whatever it hit (chromatic), it has 'room' so it is not like I'm pushing against wall:

 

https://app.box.com/s/k81r42cglz6g6t8oiucifzcm50ser9hh

 

Now I could press that voice less and make it lighter and a bit more balanced, which is a goal of mine.

 

It doesn't really matter what you use, imo, in a lot of cases, it's just if it hits that wall, at say A4, and you intend to sing that way a lot, what happens is the vocal cords in the chest voice basically, will reach a maximum amount of tension, until they cannot physiologically go anymore tense and then you'd break into falsetto. People do this all the time, if it happens to you you're not going to die.

 

But if you use a voice that has a bit more leeway or release, of leeway, you're not always like 'on the edge' of breaking. As far as I can tell it's because there are two different muscles that control the vocal cords. I'm not a vocal scientist, so take everything I said there scientifically with a grain of salt.  

 

If you look at those sound files. I didn't put compression, reverb, anything, I left raw. I bumped the mic at one point, so the proximity changed, but it's still very loud. It's not like a bunch of quiet, it can be very loud. But what I used to do, was strain and then hit the wall. And there is no way I could have kept ascending like that.

[Bono]

I think it sounds great, I would not change anything, maybe (being very thorough) on "Stay" you're opening your mouth a little too much sideways

[Burning_Rand]

i've heard of some of these terms on internet etc, but never had any training so i find alot of this stuff to be confusing. like for instance, i've heard people say falsetto vs head voice vs mixed voice vs chest voice. i would think im using head voice, not falsetto, as it is not particularly breathy. contrary to what someone said earlier, i think i actually have a middle/deep singing range. i can go as low as C two octaves below middle, and i would definitely never write a song in the range of stay with me. pretty much just picked this key cus of the karaoke background and to play around with head voice more. 

 

Here is the video with compression. it's a 4:1 ratio. does that make the chorus sound better? or does it take away from the dynamics of the verses too much etc. options are pretty limited since the background and vocals all on one track.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J01RGahgkxE&feature=youtu.be

 

Tbh I find that all those terms are confusing. 

 

I like to stick with 'head', 'middle' (which is just when you chest gains some brighter qualities and then when you first go into head it sounds like it's still in chest) and 'chest' - even better, once I've blended them all together I will just say 'my voice'... And then falsetto to me is just a very light version of head voice without body. It is true, you can train your head voice on A to sound just like an extension of your chest voice rather than a hooty 'second gear'. If it's dying after 20-30 minutes I think you need to work on it in front of a good voice teacher as what you're doing now is also quite damaging - particularly if you were to sing say  a 1 hour concert with high G-As.

 

In all honesty where you are is fine, this would just need to be the next step if you wanted to start doing full concerts of varying artists.

[tmacuf]

so, lemme start by saying i don't really know what i'm talking about, but am wondering #1 how do opera singers/broadway singers sing like that and not fatigue (i don't really fatigue but I can get a little pitchy around G#/A, and #2 if i should even be singing that A in chest or mixed voice other than once in a while. If it's something that scales upwards like in stand by me it's easy, but to stay above E for a while is not where I feel my voice belongs. I really don't think I have a "tenor" range and other than for a few power notes I would have guessed I should be in head voice by G# most of the time. Or I could have the ability and just not know it i guess... i remember in grade school our music teacher one time told me i was a bass baritone or baritone

[Burning_Rand]

so, lemme start by saying i don't really know what i'm talking about, but am wondering #1 how do opera singers/broadway singers sing like that and not fatigue (i don't really fatigue but I can get a little pitchy around G#/A, and #2 if i should even be singing that A in chest or mixed voice other than once in a while. If it's something that scales upwards like in stand by me it's easy, but to stay above E for a while is not where I feel my voice belongs. I really don't think I have a "tenor" range and other than for a few power notes I would have guessed I should be in head voice by G# most of the time. Or I could have the ability and just not know it i guess... i remember in grade school our music teacher one time told me i was a bass baritone or baritone

 

Hello, glad you asked.

 

Yes, a good musical theatre or opera singer has NO fatigue whatsoever. I'm a spinto tenor with a past of vocal damage from reflux. The voice is now back and stronger than ever and I rarely get fatigue above an A unless I'm being silly or overdoing it.

 

If you are singing in:

- correct placement (resonating in  and around the nose and cheek bones). You can get this by making sounds on an 'ng' - keep your mouth open, sing an easy group of notes, but tongue is on the soft palate so the air is escaping your nose. However be sure to do this in a correct posture so the larynx doesn't come up

- have an open throat (in order to do this, the tip of the tongue should be on the back of the bottom teeth and slightly forward and you can make a silent 'hooo, hooo, hoo' as if you have something really hot in your mouth. DO NOT let the tongue go backwards when you do this)

- have the correct posture... Which is slightly bent knees, pelvis tilted forward VERY slightly, back of the neck elongated (but not tight), not looking up and sternum raised...

    '>

    '>  - These are fairly good examples showing not to hyper extend anything while not slouching at all. Once you get this right you can make adjustments for dramatic effect!!!

 

-  your larynx tilts down slightly (which is why I think you need to see a good teacher, since I don't want to try to teach you this through a forum) then you will access the middle/lower head voice with ease and will not tire. This can be achieved by bubbling a 'brrrrrrr' through your range but making sure to keep a strong air pressure on so that it doesn't get too light early on. However I wouldn't want to tell you this without maybe hearing you do it.

 

 

I'll just recommend a few videos from sources that I trust (I am very old-school classical which in my opinion works wonders and which is where most musical theatre singers and opera singers get their teaching from): https://www.youtube.com/user/singwisevocals/videos  and this is her website: http://www.singwise.com/ and this guy http://www.voiceteacher.com/ - although he's mostly focused on classical singing while Karyn also sings contemporary styles. 

 

 

 

hmmm, I don't think you sound at all like a baritone. Your natural tenor range goes high and anywhere you can sing falsetto (with the exception of the tippy top range, although with some singers it can happen) you should eventually develop a healthy middle-head range. I'm not really a voice teacher, but I've always been good at hearing fach (voice type) and I'd say you're a tenor through and through.

[KillerKu]

so, lemme start by saying i don't really know what i'm talking about, but am wondering #1 how do opera singers/broadway singers sing like that and not fatigue (i don't really fatigue but I can get a little pitchy around G#/A, and #2 if i should even be singing that A in chest or mixed voice other than once in a while. If it's something that scales upwards like in stand by me it's easy, but to stay above E for a while is not where I feel my voice belongs. I really don't think I have a "tenor" range and other than for a few power notes I would have guessed I should be in head voice by G# most of the time. Or I could have the ability and just not know it i guess... i remember in grade school our music teacher one time told me i was a bass baritone or baritone

 

The name isn't that important, but I believe the voice has to shift gears or lighten its mass at some point or you'll hit a wall, imo.

 

Brighten is a good word too. It helps to have more nasal resonance and twang which are sources of brightness. You can find nasal resonance by saying 'nnnnn' and making a snotty sound. Twang is tip of tongue near bottom row of teeth, and tongue arching upward and backward, until it is high and wide against top molars.

 

I figured it out kind of by going down from Eddie Kendricks and not just going up. Ascending would make me want to shout. Descending forced me to think about things differently.

 

Anyway, I forgot to include very bright approach to the note:

 

https://app.box.com/s/dj64xvqknp5uvuh5ty0c1h9j1jd9eq6i

 

That's much brighter than I would normally sing, although technically it would probably be easier for me to sing brighter.

[Burning_Rand]

Actually, if you want to listen to a comparison between someone pushing their chest up and using their mix/head voice, here's a prime example:

 

See how Jemma Rix very easily slides higher on all of her belted notes and does not have any 'flattness' and she uses them as a springboard for vibrato (1.50 onwards in particular) : 

 

Now see how Idina Menzel almost underhits a lot of her notes and tries to scoop up to them and tends to shout a bit: 

 

This is a prime example of how training the voice to go into that higher, brighter space should not sacrifice much of the substance of the lower voice while it is far easier to produce and does not cause as much strain and flatness.

 

 

[KillerKu]

I can hear the harmonies desyncing in the latter clip, but for personal taste I'd rather listen to Patti Smith or our vary own Laura Batement, who I just discovered here shouting their heads off and missing notes here and there:

 

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I actually prefer tmacufs current version over those kinds of performances. I often find meticulousness in pitching to sound sterile. tmacuf could scoop 50 percent of his notes and I'd still like his voice. But any way you spin it if you push the vocal folds too far, they'll break into falsetto.

 

And if you are always approaching those limits and feel stuck by them, it's worth considering something else. But tmacuf is probably best off getting a good teacher, I do agree with that.

[m.i.r.]

I dont know if I would work on your heady/falsetto tone that much. Maybe get just a tad bit more closure if you wanted to. I think its pretty powerful for how far away from the mic you are, with zero effects.

If you were singing like that into a real mic, with compression and all the usual studio effects. Your falsetto would sound just as good as anyone's else on the radio, or better.

You really sound pretty well balanced and just like someone I would here on the radio singing this style. I mean sure there are little stuff you could work, little more closure for your light tone, a tad bit more control. But even Pavarotti could knit pick his voice with tiny issues. The day you say my voice is 100 percent is the day either your ego takes over logic.....well thats the only occasion I can think of Lol.

However, when you get down to knit picking, then I would say you are doing great. That is surely what I would have to do to find issue with your vocals.....

Oh and fyi i was speaking of the original post

[KillerKu]

I dont know if I would work on your heady/falsetto tone that much. Maybe get just a tad bit more closure if you wanted to. I think its pretty powerful for how far away from the mic you are, with zero effects.

If you were singing like that into a real mic, with compression and all the usual studio effects. Your falsetto would sound just as good as anyone's else on the radio, or better.

You really sound pretty well balanced and just like someone I would here on the radio singing this style. I mean sure there are little stuff you could work, little more closure for your light tone, a tad bit more control. But even Pavarotti could knit pick his voice with tiny issues. The day you say my voice is 100 percent is the day either your ego takes over logic.....well thats the only occasion I can think of Lol.

However, when you get down to knit picking, then I would say you are doing great. That is surely what I would have to do to find issue with your vocals.....

 

That's a great post. There's way more falsetto than Dio on the radio. I remember being really surprised turning it on finally after quite a bit of a break and finding tons and tons of falsetto all over the place. This was number one:

 

 

John Legend uses that falsetto so calculatively on All of Me. There was that One Republic thing.

 

I do think it's more important for tmacuf to market and build a fan base at this point than bridge perfectly while he has his youth. There's time to be more perfect, there isn't as much time to succeed. Maybe you are nearing perfection by the time you're 56, but in pop radio that doesn't fly.

 

Youth brings options in itself, so if you sound good and aren't having problems, it's probably best to take any options you have available than obsess about perfection.

[tmacuf]

thanks for advice and comments. gotta sort through some of it haha. still wondering if this particular video sounds better or worse with compression. could upload a 2:1 or something tomorrow. sounds like the chorus is a little smoother/less abrupt. but maybe takes too much dynamic out overall?  this was the one with 4:1 ratio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J01RGahgkxE#t=56

[KillerKu]

thanks for advice and comments. gotta sort through some of it haha. still wondering if this particular video sounds better or worse with compression. could upload a 2:1 or something tomorrow. sounds like the chorus is a little smoother/less abrupt. but maybe takes too much dynamic out overall?  this was the one with 4:1 ratio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J01RGahgkxE#t=56

 

My guess is 2:1 would be closer, cause you were far from the mic. I rarely exceed a 3:1 ratio even when really going hardcore and near the mic. It's partly genre a and stylistic preference.

 

Some compression will definitely polish the sound though for some mainstream viewing outside a singing forum. Anyway, don't be afraid to make a really polished youtube video at some point. This is a good inspiration:

 

 

This girl started on youtube and is now famous in Korea:

 

 

and our very own poster, Lola covers her.

 

>

 

So take youtube seriously at some point. Fancy lighting, fancy shots, compression, reverb, etc. Get a good mic, close mic. Pitch correction unfortunately helps attract youtube viewers but you've got great intonation.