A few 80s rock covers and an original song, want to get feedback on my voice

NeilKenSinger

Hello all. I play guitar and sing in a melodic/hard rock duo and I thought I'd post some videos here to get some honest thoughts on my voice. I've been singing for many years, since I was about 13, however I only started doing any vocal training last year when I discovered Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy and bought the course. I'm now at the end of Volume 2 and happy with my progress so far. I've gradually been incorporating what I've been learning in the course into real songs.

I want to get some honest opinions on my vocals and my progress. I want to know if I can actually sing or if I'm just deluding myself. I think confidence and self-doubt has plagued me with my singing at times, yet other times I can be quite confident.

I'll post the original song first - it's a melodic rock track we wrote and recorded last year called 'Fooled By A Pretty Face':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be0jFw25Em4&feature=youtu.be

The first cover is of 'Kids Wanna Rock' by Bryan Adams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ad1-iYeyw

The next one is a cover of 'Here I Go Again' by Whitesnake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnuQLMUU29o

The final one is our cover of 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' by Poison:

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

NeilKenSinger

There's another original song we did too called 'Nobody Knows How To Rock Anyone' that you might like to check out too:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=80xhQnEOj-k

zowman

I definitely think you can sing well. I struggle with the same doubts myself: wondering if I have good singing voice or if I'm just deluding myself. But I can tell you sound good. You still have room for improvement, but you sound pretty good. Keep going man.

Wigs

Hey how's it going mate? 😄 I've been on the program roughly 6 months no prior singing experience. I went to volume 2 after a few months but now I'm back on volume one because I already had some bad habits creep in. I think you can sing, you shouldn't have any doubt about that. The most important thing is to try stay out of the bad habits you developed before. Have you posted any scales recently? I ask because it seems like you might be raising your larynx a bit as you get higher and some of your oh vowels might need to be reshaped. Please take this with a grain of salt as I'm still learning as well, hopefully if I'm wrong someone else will jump in. But they are minor issues we all deal with. Your support does sound solid as well. 😃

cwcw

Nice job, guys. Well done! No complaints here. I was doing some of those songs in the 80's and would have loved to have you sing with us. As Wigs said, there may be some technique issues, but none that I can discern.

NeilKenSinger

Thank you SO much for these kind and positive comments, I REALLY appreciate them.

Every singer gets unkind comments sometimes, and we have to learn to deal with them and not let it affect our confidence. I'm working on that. I'm generally quite a confident person in most areas of my life and don't usually care what anyone thinks about me, but I think with singing it's such a personal thing where we're laying it all on the line and putting ourselves out there in a vulnerable way, that any negative comment can be hurtful.

So I want to say that I'm extremely grateful for what you all have said in this thread, because it means I'm on the right track even if I have some technique issues to iron out here and there. My goal is to be the best possible 80s rock/melodic rock/aor singer I can possibly be, and I'm willing to keep putting in the work to get there. Thanks again!

NeilKenSinger

Wigs said:

Hey how's it going mate? 😄 I've been on the program roughly 6 months no prior singing experience. I went to volume 2 after a few months but now I'm back on volume one because I already had some bad habits creep in. I think you can sing, you shouldn't have any doubt about that. The most important thing is to try stay out of the bad habits you developed before. Have you posted any scales recently? I ask because it seems like you might be raising your larynx a bit as you get higher and some of your oh vowels might need to be reshaped. Please take this with a grain of salt as I'm still learning as well, hopefully if I'm wrong someone else will jump in. But they are minor issues we all deal with. Your support does sound solid as well. 😃

Yeh it's going good now, how are you? Thanks for your feedback - I assume by 'raising your larynx a bit as you get higher' that you mean I'm opening my mouth wider as I go higher up in pitch. I think that's true, and something I'm looking to iron out. The good thing about videos is that we can watch ourselves sing (and have others on this forum watch too) so that we can notice any bad habits we might have.

So to clarify - when we go up to the really high notes, we should have the mouth open about the same as when we're singing in the low and mid range too? I probably still have too much jaw movement too - I'm working on the vocal tract shaping exercises Ken teaches in the course, but it will take time to get really good at.

As for my 'oh' vowels, yes probably a bit more work is still needed - the 2 original tracks were recorded several months ago now, so I was really just getting into vowel mods then, but feel I've improved on them since them. Vowel mods are something I'm constantly working on and trying to incorporate into real songs, but like everything it takes times to master. No I haven't posted on videos of me doing the scales/arpeggio exercises, but I might well do that soon, we'll see.

As for support, I feel I've got that down pretty well now. I'm currently working on my vibrato and I'd also like to learn to put a bit of distortion/gravel/rauch to my voice to make it some heavier/more rock n roll in places - I think Ken teaches this in Volume 3, so I'll get there soon.

Thanks again for your feedback my friend! Keep going too! What sort of music do you like/sing, and how are you getting on with Ken's course?

Wigs

The larynx as I understand it is the muscle you feel when you swallow. At the peak of the swallow is when it is highest and this in turn reduces the space in our throat and produces on varying levels a slight froggy sound. Again with a pinch of salt the reason I brought it up is because I started having the same issue so I think I start to notice it in others. It's just a technique thing that didn't take long to sort out once I applied it, I just made sure to keep my tongue as much as possible to the bottom of my jaw through all the scales.
Speaking of scales, I highly recommend posting, that's where you will get the most instructive feed back, you will feel even more naked 😆 just the lah, 1 bridge, 1 chest.
We are both the same age, I've been told to be a bit more manly ect but like Ken says, it's your unique voice, grow it how you wish. Use the negative as a positive. If all he said was you sound like a girl, then rock it out because you know what you, who you are. Think of how all the 80s bands dressed and sang, boys and girls loved them.
The good thing on this forum is we critique from an educated stance because we all do the same course. We know what we need to do to get each other to the point where the people out side that have a more 1 dimensional view on what is involved in singing, will have nothing negative to really comment on, or where we get to the point when those comments are water off our back because we know what we are capable of.
As far as what I'm into, no genre in particular, I'm trying to find control so I'm tending to ballads lately, but I'll try anything from lady gaga to audio slave. 🎤

doc_ramadani

Hi @NeilKenSinger,

congrats, pretty good interpretations of the songs and great vocal skills - amazing range (i.e. Whitesnake) and great tone. Production-wise I would turn down the delay a tiny bit on all songs.

Concerning your original: very cool idea. I immediately thought of "Music was my first love" - I would spend some more work on the drums and the piano opening. I think with some tweaks here and there you can make it much more interesting. Great idea. Very cool melody lines.

Doc