Dire Straits - Walk of Life Rendition
Vocality
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Decided to do a song much more in my comfort range for singing this song tried quite a few years ago and it sounded good then so decided to post it with practice had a few minor timing blips and the woohoo parts were maybe a little off anyway please feedback and let me know what you think and how could improve upon!!
https://youtu.be/9h8PGCs2bUM
Oops nearly forgot 1 take.
George
Decided to do a song much more in my comfort range for singing this song tried quite a few years ago and it sounded good then so decided to post it with practice had a few minor timing blips and the woohoo parts were maybe a little off anyway please feedback and let me know what you think and how could improve upon!!
https://youtu.be/9h8PGCs2bUMOops nearly forgot 1 take.
George
Comments
I do have some feedback for you.
A brighter sound with more PING in it will make it sparkle. This sounds a little bit "covered", by which I mean your lips are probably covering your teeth, which darkens the sound. We want it brighter. Along with that, it sounds just a touch "congested", kind of like a person who has a cold. To counteract that, we need to push the sound more into the front of the face, being sure that at least some sound is exiting from the nose like it does when you do the tongue exercises. Although nobody want to sound "nasal" we do want part of the sound to exit the face through the nose. This gets some of the Mask resonators coming into play to help with our overall tone and brightness. Not too much, but just enough.
So back to the Covered topic. Most of us tend to sing without really opening up our mouth (jaw and lips) and that makes for a darker sound. Go for the brighter sound. This also applies to the "Woo-hoo-hoo's". Although we tend to do those falsetto sounds with a closed "ooh" the fact that our lips are in a small WOO configuration makes hooty resonance predominant. It will sound better if you remember to smile and expose the teeth more and let the "woo-hoo" actually be formed more at the back of the throat and much less at the lips. That will help reduce the hooty part of the sound. It will be more head voice than falsetto, although the terms are somewhat interchangeable.
Remember that the teeth and lips are also part of the Vocal Tract, and vocal tract shaping matters. That's where the sound hits the outside world.
Do try to reduce the consonants and put more emphasis on contiguous singing of the vowels.
You have improved a lot. If you will apply the above suggestions, you will take yet another step forward in your journey of applying what you are learning in the course to singing real songs.
All the Best!
Bob
Bob thanks for your feedback will work on your advice on brightness and it’s a good feeling my singing is progressing in right direction. Listened back to my final recording and I noticed there was an issue with a covered sound.
Kind Regards
George
Gday Chris
Thanks for your input, yes quite a fast paced song and did stumble on a few of the lyrics. “After all the violence and double talk” and “there’s just a song in all the trouble and the strife” 2 of the most tricky lines to sing in the song at a fast pace. Will work on that as well as the brightness looking forward to further improving areas.
Hi @Klaus_T
Yes this song resides in my comfort zone of my voice and works quite well also done Sultans of Swing. It’s nice to get feedback and advice here though.
George
Try to do some scales with Ken's brassy ping and emulating his sinister face with the smile and some nasal resonance in it, really try to make that sound, and then translate that into the song, phrase by phrase vowels only, as if you were doing scales with the song's notes, with the same ping/mask from Ken's scales.
And only then add some consonants
Also, see if you can sing along the original artist some runs with this new brightness in order to find the pitch placement for the song and then try it on your own.
What I would like to add is that you have made quite a lot of improvement with your support, in this song I can hear your sound is steady, sustained, you are not running out of air, it does sound like you're taking the breaths between phrases and don't letting yourself get carried away, locking up, instead you're returning to each breath, and most of the time you're driving the sound from the diaphragmatic breath.
With this basic block in place then as you see it is possible to work on the other stuff as our friends could point out, if support wasn't there, no other thing would matter so good job with that!
Keep on rocking dude 😎👌
Nice to hear from you again, yes support pretty sure got it sorted now, was pulling the abdomen too far in and tensing up and now if feels more of pushing down but more gently at the start of the scale
. Singscope has been really helpful when for checking. I do the support now the notes are so much more stable, yes all too easy to get carried away now it’s all about focus and concentration. Moved to vol2 and doing the Ken’s guided exercises that helps keep everything in check. Backside of the scales have improved tremendously now so can focus on fine tuning other part of the voice.
Hopefully sorting out brightness will be easier task. Question when doing the AH vowel and switching to AA vowel we make slight adjustment vocal tract we open up the vowel to sound like laugh. Is that a similar placement to emulate in the song for more brightness.
George
There are 2 separate things in your question: Open Ah vowel placement, and brightness..
Brightness is achieved by projecting the sound into your mask, feeling the sound resonating in front of the face, by your nose and smiling showing your upper teeth, and listening how this smile brightens the sound. Think Stevie Wonder's "I just call to say I love you" kind of sound. Watch Ken doing scales and listen to that ping and mask, it's a pointy sound. Cord closure also is part of it..
Brightness should be attainable with all the vowels
On the other hand, the open Ah / Aw placement... in fact there's a slight very little change in the throat between these two, maintaining the sensation of Ah. But you can apply brightness to these vowels, while also apply brightness to the other vowels by doing as mentioned earlier... No matter if you are singing Ah/Aw or Eeh o Ooh, the projection of the sound towards the mask and the smile is what will brighten the sound... The Ah placement alone won't give you brightness.
It's a good idea though, to sing the song with the Ah placement in the throat, morphing that Ah just a little into the other vowels of the song but always keeping that Ah sensation as best as you can during the whole song. This isn't necessarily "brightness", this is more of vocal tract shaping, and contiguous phrase singing, which we also should work on. So these are different things, brightness and open placement, one doesn't necessarily produce the other, but both should ideally coexist
Next time you do the scales, besides keeping your support, try to be aware of the smiling and the mask sound, go along with Ken and emulate his pointy bright sound and you should be able to identify it better
Thank you for your response thats clarified a few points about brightness and vocal tract shaping, about to start my workout so here goes!
George
Thanks for listening brightness yes now working towards fixing that issue. Already tried singing the song again in mask and felt a lot better and easier to negotiate those fast lyrics.
George
Thanks for listening, I think you were one of the first to point out brightness issues and yes the woohoo parts need little more practice. Range wise is comfortable but the speed of the song offers me a reasonable challenge.
George