Please critique my voice

JackPhantom

Hi guys, I have been several months in ktva program and currently on volume 3.
Please hear my singing and critique it:

https://soundcloud.com/redbottle-1/short-cover-practise-thinking-out-loud/s-OrTUA

Please tell me what I am lack of.
Can I get better or it's just I am not good at singing?
Please tell me your honest opinion.
Thanks

JonasFinnLarsson

I had problems singing in tune and i still do sometimes but it got much better when I did the basic pitch program. And I really practised on how it should feel when you sing in tune or toggle between pitches. Just play with it.

Brightening up the tone help alot aswell. Because i could here myself better then .

That is my advice i'm sure someone more experienced will answer better.

Keep at it man! It is no use to think your not good at singing. When you practise you'll find that you voice will grow overtime.

Unknown

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highmtn

@JackPhantom, 

What JonasFinnLarsson  and blondiewales both said is true.

The areas that are giving you the most problems are Pitch, Support, and Making sure you sing with a Bright Tone.

These are all things that are very important and we all have to work on, depending upon our beginning abilities and how long we may have been working to improve them.

When I listened to your demo, I heard you wandering around as far as the pitch goes, and then, here and there you are spot-on, right on the money for a second or two, and then you wander off again.

That tells me that you ARE capable of singing on pitch, but you are lacking the skill to actively listen as you are singing and making the proper corrections as you go, and probably having issues with controlling the pitch when you do hear that it is incorrect. 

Lacking a skill does not mean you lack the ability.  It means that you have not yet LEARNED what to listen to, how to listen to it, and how to make the corrections, on the fly, as you go.

This comes very easily to some individuals, and others have to learn it, one step at a time.  You have to train your ear and your voice and your brain to work together to form a process that works in real-time, as you go, to keep making corrections in pitch until it just happens by itself because you have trained so well on that process.

Learn support.  Learn the proper belly breath method, and also learn to push down on your diaphragm as the pitch goes higher.  Learn to sustain long notes. Practice all of this.  Just knowing it isn't enough.  You have to practice it until it happens automatically.

Listen to your own demo.  Can you tell where it is in-tune with the backing tracks and when it is not?  If not, you're going to have to spend a lot of time learning to LISTEN more carefully to what you are HEARING.  There is a difference between having some sound going on in the background as you sing and actually very carefully and with great attention ACTIVELY LISTENING to the pitch and tone of your own voice, as compared to the pitch and key of the song or exercise you are doing.  

Vocal Exercises are MUCH BETTER than Songs for learning to correct your voice.  Vocal Exercises are laboratories to work on specific aspects of your voice.  They are repetitive and gradual in nature and allow both you and us to zero-in on your voice and how it is working. 

Songs are much harder and much more variable, so it's harder for you to deal with so many issues at once.  We need to break it down to the basic components and then put them all together when they are all working right in order to sing songs.  

You DO need to work through the Basic Pitch Program.  You need to pay attention to what it is all about and spend some quality time practicing the exercises, not just listen to it once and say "been there, done that."  Learn what that program is trying to teach you to do with your voice, your brain, and your ears, and start to employ those techniques all the time you are singing.  

Even when we learn to recognize pitch better, we still have to always have our internal "auto-pilot" at work, listening, planning ahead a few notes at a time, getting ready for each coming pitch, knowing where the center of each pitch is going to "feel like" within our body, and "sound like" within our heads, and make constant corrections if we miss slightly.  That's the way a guided missle heads for and strikes its target.  Each note is a specific target, and we must constantly be vigilant to sing each pitch correctly and to quickly bring a note into tune, if it is out-of-tolerance.   There is not much tolerance for off-pitch singing.  We can't expect an audience to sit still and allow us to sing any old pitch that comes out of our mouths if it's not very close to what it should be.  

That said, with the right diligence and practice from you, a lot of progress can be made. 

Support has a lot to do with your ability to hold a steady, true pitch, so you must work on stabilizing your breath with support. 

Pitch discernment is an absolute necessity, and can be helped by using a very bright sound.  A duller sound is difficult to hear properly.  A bright sound creates more natural resonance and is much easier to discern your pitch.  Make your voice sound more like Ken's when he demonstrates "It's the LAH!!! AH!!!!" 

Practice, practice, practice the basic pitch program and always supporting your breath.  

Tell yourself that you CAN do this and your results will improve exponentially, as long as you put in the practice and REALLY LISTEN to what you sound like.  RECORD yourself always, and judge the pitch and sound of your voice.  Are you close?  Are you on-pitch?  If not, what do you need to do. 

Listening off-line like that with a critical, but forgiving ear can help you to train your ear to start listening WHILE you are singing, and even "Planning Ahead" for the next note.  You should get to the point that you "hear" the target note coming up in your brain, and you will be matching up your note as you sing it to that note in your brain, and also to that note in the song or exercise as it proceeds.  AND, simultaneously, you will be planning the note after that and the note after that as you go. 

Get familiar with the sound and the feelings of each note.  There are only so many notes in the range of the human voice.  Get to know them.  Learn the names if you can, but certainly practice singing all of the notes in all of the exercises and listen to yourself singing the exercises when you play back your recordings.  

You're either going to learn to sing like you wanted to when you decided to learn to sing in the first place, or you're not.  That all depends on how badly you want it.  If it's worth it to you, then you'll do what it takes to get there.  

Don't beat yourself up.  Figure out what you're doing right and do more of that.  Figure out what you're doing wrong and do less of that. Record yourself and learn from the truth.  Turn your  weaknesses into your strengths.  

I hear you on those correct notes.  You're in there wanting to sing just like that all the time.  So do it.  

You CAN do it.  I heard you!

All the best, @JackPhantom!

Bob

JackPhantom

@JonasFinnLarsson , @blondiewales, @highmtn: Hello guys, thank you so much. That's really mean a lot to me. Kinda relieved knowing that there is nothing wrong with my voice. Can you tell from my voice was using diaphragm support or not? Because I'm a beginner in singing and I thought I was using diaphragm support but I still easily losing my breath especially on the lower note.


@highmtn: Hi bob, I followed your suggestion before to buy musical instrument to fixing my pitch. So I bought guitar. The problem is when I try to sync with the key on guitar (like in Ken Basic Prog demonstration) I can't tell whether I was in correct pitch or not.
So I download guitar tuner that supposed to tune guitar to find my correct pitch. Can it be used for these??

Any suggestion how to tell whether my pitch is right or not?

highmtn

@JackPhantom

Some tuners can be used on the voice.  You have to have a mic input for the tuner, and that may be how you use it on your guitar.  Your webcam mic may work for this.

Another option is a program like Sing & See.  That will tell you whether you are too low or too high.  Programs like that can be a little discouraging, because you will almost always be a little low or a little high, but if you just use it as a tool to help you learn, it could be helpful.

You're not using enough diaphragmatic support.  You will feel a little bit of downward push on your insides all of the time when you are supporting, and you will need to push down a little more, or a lot more as you sing higher.  When we are pushing down, we have more control over the air we are letting out.  We want that air to be compressed just a little bit, and under very fine control.  That will help to prevent losing your breath, because you will be letting the air out very slowly and controlling it at all times.  Your breath control will make it easier for you to sing longer notes in better tune.   

The best suggestion for being able to tell whether your pitch is right is to first tune your guitar, and then play random notes on the guitar and try to match them with your voice.  If your tuner will pick up the sound of your voice, then that would be helpful.  Watch the tuner and adjust your voice until it is on the same note as the guitar and neither flat nor sharp, but in-tune.  Repeat again and again and again as much as you can.  Record yourself as you do this, and listen to the playback so that you can learn to hear what you are doing that is right and what you are doing that is wrong.  Learn what you are having to do to get in-tune with the guitar and the tuner. 

Teach yourself to build this skill.  It is a skill that is learnable, but you must use all the patience that it takes to improve your listening skills and your matching skills and your singing skills to put this all together.  You CAN do it, but you need to supply the time, the effort, and the patience.  There is no substitute for good, old-fashioned practice.  It will help you to improve.

As you continue to practice and use these tools to help you learn, you will eventually learn to hear it with your own ears and no longer need the tuner or to continue this type of practice.  First you have to learn to tell the difference.

All the Best!

Bob

JackPhantom

@highmtn: Hi bob, somehow now I can feel the resonance when I hit the same note with my vocal. But I still need to find the target note by sing from low to high and hardly can remember that note.

Anyway do you think I should combine basic pitch program the with main program? If it's a yes then it's before or after the main one? Also do you think I continue practice volume III or start from beginning (Volume I)?

highmtn

I would first spend some time working with the pitch program, and then combine that with Volume One. 

Let's see if we can get you more skilled at listening, hearing, and then matching tones on-pitch.

After building more pitch accuracy, I would recommend doing the volumes again from the beginning.  I've returned to Volume One from Volume 3 more than once.  I learned more each time. 

Bob