Radiohead - Creep Smule Cover Vocality

Vocality

Firstly like to tag @Ken Tamplin @highmtn @doc_ramadani @Wigs @DannyOc3an @mysti @HuduVudu @DogMeat @bentk @NickW @RandyB @shining @Chris82 @LumiMoon @Rick_amateur @heidianita @jmstanle @Elara @sjonrokz4u @Klaus_T @d1g2w3 @Diego @LoneWolfRogue @cwcw @sagemacg @Sina anyone else like to feedback.

Hi everyone not been on KTVA for a while still keeping up with singing spent hour practicing this song on Smule, time constraints reckon done ok with it, the head voice part was not as bright i would like but maybe some advice out there to improve upon.

https://www.smule.com/recording/radiohead-creep/2592533887_4279726620

Hope everyone is doing ok

George

DannyOc3an

Hello George hope you're ok too!

I notice improvement on the brightness compared to your last rendition, so good to hear that. It does sound as if you're smiling a bit into the sound which adds brightness.

I think you've got a better grasp on the concept of support since most of it sounded thick and supported

Now there's some room for improvement in certain areas. First, it would be pitch... I can tell most of the song is a bit higher than what you're singing. I do have some trouble still with pitch on complete songs, and what I've found helps me a lot is to sing along the original vocal track first, or the original song with its vocals, not the karaoke version, phrase after phrase. Like singing one line, then stop, listen to the following, sing it, then stop, and so on. And then record those as well to listen back later. Even better if you could get the vocal track only, in places such as youtube or karaoke-version .com And try a few runs with the full song, then along the vocal track only, then a capella, and see how you can match the pitch. Always try to hear the "root note" of the song which is the key that leads the whole song. Get the root note to match in your voice from the beginning and the rest usually comes easier. The daily scales workouts trains us to follow the pitch of the scale within a root note, so by muscle memory it should come relatively easy once you get the root notes of the songs

Then, don't forget to have an "AH" sensation when singing, as if you were singing an open AH vowel all the time, and morphing it only slightly enough so you can move from vowel to vowel using the path of least resistance, as opposed of morphing abruptly and notoriously from vowel to vowel. For example in the phrase "I wish I was special", that "special" try do do it like "speciAHHL" wiith an AH, not "speciEEHL" with an EW, and follow this same idea for the rest of the song. It won't be difficult at all once you have this in your mind while singing. Everything should have an "AH" feeling so to keep a nice contiguous phrase singing

Finally about the head voice, I can tell it's growing, in my opinion is a matter of patience and daily training with Vol4 listening carefully to Kens indications, and it will grow. Once you do Vol 5 too, and spend some months doing 3, 4 and 5, I think you would handle this portion of the song effortlessly shall you decide to bridge this part into head voice. Those slider workouts on Vol 5 are killer for this portion. I've found that in my case, it's the training of these volumes what has given me the capacity of doing this type of transitions while mantaining the same tonal quality. While not at all perfect still, but I do feel that without training those volumes, I wouldn't be even close to do this type of transitions. In the mean time, I guess you can try to belt to these notes in your chest voice though, until then... I think your voice can hit those notes with belting chest, a bit of power and vowel mods! It would suit the song too..

All in all, keep working on your volumes daily; have confidence in the fact that perfect practice WILL make perfect, and when you do Vols 3, 4 and 5 altogether I think you will get the most benefit for songs that mix into head. I can tell you are way ahead of where you were before. You have made good improvements around support, around brightness.. it's all growing, you are moving forward, you are not stalling. You just need to fuel this day after day, patiently.

Vocality

Hi @DannyOc3an

Thanks for listening my rendition, it was a bit of a impromptu rendition it sounded good at the time and wanted checkin to the forum to say hello.

Support & Brightness

Feel now have improved in both areas, feel now have more control how much brightness can add to the sound.

Pitch

This particular song on Smule has melody note bars to indicate when your on the notes, unless the backing track is different to the melody notes 🤔 not sure did listen to the original singer and seemed to be in the same key will need check that out. In general notice in big improvement pitch from doing scales and songs though but Creep had a few notes that were off slightly. But your correct should have got the backing track vocal from karaoke version and worked line by line.

Ah vowel

Thanks for the tip there that word “special” in the song I did wonder if I was singing it correctly did feel a bit closed down in the mouth a little there so I need to open up to the Ah vowel. A few my renditions been hitting the consonants too much definitely area need to work on.

Head voice

Been doing vol 1 main audio workouts for a number of weeks due to having sciatic pain down 1 leg, to start with had do the exercises sitting down now doing them standing up so it’s getting better and hope to move onto more advanced ones soon. Little set back in that area but on the positive side made gains elsewhere. Really look forward to developing that area though.

Danny this is the importance on having the forum to correct the wrong techniques with the aim to improve one’s signing to the best of our abilities and you have been very helpful. look to possibly re-do this song in the future when working the higher volumes and now that I have a good foundation to build upon.

George 🙂

Wigs

Hi George, Im glad that you're still practicing. I don't have much to add from what @DannyOc3an said. I think the timing was a bit late coming into the phrases but you caught up once you were in it. Nice falsetto for the bridge, you did pretty good getting that close to pitch in your upper range. I think now you are able to hear your pitch fairly well, but adjusting it quickly and on the fly is a final challenge, especially when there is a big jump of over 4 or 5 notes in the melody. Since you have already been back on volume 1 for a while, maybe continue with it for another month or 2 and work your ear and pitch references to try to get it to really dial in. I really wish I could give some different feedback every time besides mentioning pitch all the time, but I know you work hard and that you dont take these critiques to heart knowing we are here to help each other.

Vocality

@wigs @DannyOc3an

Thank for listening Chris should have practiced this one properly, patience got the better of me, now listening back pitch needs to be tighter. It’s good to get feedback in other areas of the voice improvement in brightness and head voice as well. Will work on the pitch by doing some random note exercises to help with that area and feel now in general my scales have improved a lot.

RandyB

George, sorry I’m late to the party. Glad your still practicing. I think the guys covered the bases. So keep hammering those basics, especially pitch and breath support. It’s awesome to see how far everyone has come in the few years I’ve been on the forum. Rock on!

—Randy

Vocality

@RandyB

Thanks for listening it was impromtu recording should have praticed it more detail.