Like A Stone, Am I Embarrassing Myself?

Dave_Show

I'm working on a tribute video to Chris Cornell and I recorded myself playing guitar and singing the first verse and chorus of Audioslave's "Like A Stone." I want to make sure I'm not completely way off and embarrassing myself or shaming Chris.

https://youtu.be/lOeavw9p4DM

I would have never found Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy if it wasn't for a search on You Tube, "how to sing like Chris Cornell," and Ken's videos popping up. I plan on included my discovery of Ken in my tribute video.

highmtn

Hi, @Dave_Show,

Your pitch is too far off. It's interesting, because you actually have a good tone to your voice. You need to harness the pitch monster. You may need to use some software or app help, if you are not self-aware of the pitch mismatch.

Like I say, there are good qualities in your voice. But you MUST get a sense of right-from-wrong as regards pitch.

Sing and See has a 30 day trial that you can download and use to do some pitch training with. There are other phone apps you can get as well, and many are free. If you can't hear this with your own ears, you need to start training your comparative skills between the pitches of the guitar, for example and the pitches you are making with your voice, on the fly, in real-time. It's a skill that can be learned, but it's not optional. To sing well, you MUST be able to discern pitch well.

You should not be discouraged by this. You have a voice with a natural pleasant tone to it, that needs to be tamed to obey the rules of pitch. You have a decent range. You need to have better control over your pitch.

The best way to learn this song is One Line At A Time. Start with the first line. Get all of the pitches right, and where you can repeat them and get the pitches right, before going on to the next line. Proceed in that manner. Meanwhile, check out some apps to start training your ears for pitch discernment.

All the Best!

Bob

Matsy

A lot of people here are inspired by Chris Cornell, so striving to emulate him certainly isn't bringing any shame to him. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (or something like that).

It takes an enormous amount of courage to put your voice out there, so even if others try to shame or embarrass you, ask them where their video is of them singing and putting themselves out there. You have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.

Working with Ken's instructions is going to really help you grow your voice and knock those songs out of the park!

All the best to you.

Dave_Show

@highmtn I knew something was wrong, I just didn't know how much. My pitch being "too far off" means I'll scrap this track and start over. I'll work on it line by line as you suggested. Its frustrating because I wanted to get this video done by Wednesday night to turn in as part of a project.

I've recorded myself in the past singing along with Ken's "Basic Pitch for Beginners" and it sounded right to me. Tomorrow I'll record that and post it to see if I'm off there too.

I downloaded the Sing and See free trial, watched some tutorials on how to get started, but still have no idea where to begin with this thing. I guess I'll learn through the emails over the next 10 days.

@Matsy I knew my performance wasn't going to be perfect, but I have no interest in publishing a performance that's too awful.

highmtn

Dave, as far as sing and see goes, since you've started your 30 day trial, take advantage of it, and start doing a self-evaluation to see what you can and cannot sing on pitch. Use the virtual keyboard and hit some random notes. See if you can match them. If you're off, how far off are you? Can you use the visual feedback to bring your voice into pitch with the notes you select? Can you hold pitches? Use it as a tool to work with pitch for a while. Play Ken's LAH and look at the pitch line for it. Then do the scale yourself and compare.

You might use Sing and see while doing the basic pitch exercises to see if it the pitch program makes a difference for you.

Dave_Show

@highmtn I'll try to figure it out. Thanks for your help!

Dave_Show

I've been working with Sing and See. I actually match quite a bit of the random notes. On the notes I'd miss, I was able to find it using the Richter scale type thing its got going on there. I'm also able to hold a note for a while.

I found the vocal melody to "Like A Stone" online and it came with a music track. I sang along with it while Sing and See was open and I'd stop it and hold the last note and check Sing and See if I'm on pitch and I was!

So I rerecorded the song while looking at Sing and See. I'm not sure about my tone in the beginning, sounds a little weak sauce, but I think the pitch is much better.

https://youtu.be/msDq4aQfKJo

highmtn

This is more consistently on pitch. You probably need to work it a lot more slowly so that you can have time to settle into each pitch. In some of the places you're on one pitch and then off on the next, and that continues. Probably moving too fast to see on the fly with sing and see.

I'd recommend using the notes you have for the melody and go one-by-one through the song, sustaining each note, to really learn them and how to move from one pitch to the next.

There are still too many inconsistencies to put this out there as a tribute. You can, however use this song as a workshop to correct those inconsistencies, if you go step-by-step and in slow-motion, enough to verify the notes one-by-one as you go along. Then you "burn" that intonation into muscle-memory so that you can reliably and accurately reproduce them.

Good work, good progress. Don't stop now. Keep going.

Bob

Dave_Show

Yes, thank you, I agree. I'll slow down and take some time with this.

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