Critique My Singing Pretty Please : )
Trentawilson
Enrolled Posts: 13
I’m still on volume 1 so I def have a llooonnggg way to go, but I need your help to make sure I’m on the right track with applying all of this great information that I’ve learned to my actual singing. I don’t think anyone has ever heard me sing except for Ken when I sent him my vocal sample…I'm extremely self conscience when it comes to singing so I’m trying to break out of my tacky little shell by posting this. I’m just trying to take a few baby steps to try to get out of my own way, you know? I really want to improve so please help a sista out and critique, critique, critique…oh and critique some more lol. Please be as honest as possible. No need to sugar coat anything. I want you to tell me like it is so that I can take it and improve…I’m seriously trying to be the best singer I can be.
I apologize for them both being short.
Adele - First Love: http://soundcloud.com/trentawilson/video0125
Billie Holiday - God Bless The Child: http://soundcloud.com/trentawilson/video0143
Thanks again for listening! : )
Comments
Trent,
First let me say I like the quality of your voice. I think I hear a lot of Billie Holiday influence, and I mean that as a compliment. You seem to have gotten the vocal breath support down pretty well, and your voice does sound bright. Both of these items most students are struggling with, but I think you're doing well in those areas.
I'm more concerned with your pitch. I've heard several demos recently that were acapella or sung along with a small cell-phone backing track, and most of those seem to have problems of being on concert pitch. So I would like to hear you try again with maybe the music playing on a stereo or something where you will hear the pitch of the music tracks and we (the listeners) will hear you "in the mix" of the music. That way we can tell (and you can tell) if everything is right with regard to pitch. With your bright vocal sound, you should be able to zero in with the pitch of the backing tracks and synchronize your voice to the key of the song.
Without a good relationship between your voice and the key of the backing tracks, our voices can gradually drift away from the original key of the song, and before you know it, you're not in the same key as the song started.
Way to go for putting your stuff up on the forum for feedback. It's a great way to move forward with your vocal progress. If you don't identify your areas of weakness, you won't be able to transform them into your greatest strengths! The first step to solving any problem is to identify it, and then to decide to conquer it!
Like I said, you have a good sounding voice, but staying on pitch and in key is an essential skill to either master or keep in check.
Can you try again with some backing tracks at a proper level? I'd like to hear you do that!
Thanks.
Bob
P.S., come on, everybody, and follow Trent's lead. Put up your demos and let's start advancing our progress together!!
Thanks @highmtn! Ken said the same thing about my pitch when I sent him my vocal sample. I'm going to continue work at it until I perfect it. Thanks for the encouragement and advice and I will def give it another go tonight!
And thanks for the Billie Holiday compliment, that seriously made my day. I absolutely love her! : )
@guevara Thank you so much! I will most def work on my conviction. I couldn't agree with you more about that. I feel like when I sing I get so focused on trying to be perfect that I actually forget the message of the song. That's crazy right?? I haven't gotten around to it, but I'm going to post a re-do with all of the suggestions given to me soon.
Thanks again!
Hey, Trent!!
Now we're starting to get somewhere! I do have some changes to suggest for your "recording studio".
First let me say the music is recorded at about the right level and is sounding good for a demo. Now let's get to the recording of your voice... First of all, the pitch is sounding much better. But the recording of your voice is distorted, and is almost painful to listen to, due to the distortion. SO, I'm not sure what you did to get the music sounding like it does, but let's keep that. Maybe the cell phone is near the radio speaker? Anyway, let's get the microphone on your cell phone farther away from your voice, so it won't go into distortion. Do a sound check and move the phone around while in record mode, and let's find a place where it records and sounds as good as the music playback does on this demo. Maybe you'll have to sit in the back seat and have the cell phone in the front seat or on the front floorboard. Maybe you can park in a big parking garage and have a great reverb/echo chamber sound on your voice... ? Let's try to get your voice sounding as good as the playback. You have to be your own recording engineer. You're the Producer. Make your voice sound as good as you can when you record. That means good note placement, good acoustics, and a recording that does not go into distortion. You may just need to sing a little more quietly to avoid the distortion, but if that's not going to work for you, then let's try mic placement by varying the distance of your voice from the cell phone's mic.
I like your energy. Like I said, your pitch is WAY better this time, probably because you can hear the playback better, AND you are probably learning to LISTEN to YOURSELF WHILE YOU ARE RECORDING better! This is a skill and can be learned and honed to perfection.
Good work, Trent, and keep up the progress!
Bob
Trent,
Google "USB Microphone" and several choices will come up. Then it's a matter of affordability. Any USB mic should plug directly into your computer.
Perhaps some others on this forum have found a USB mic they like.
When you do have a mic, you will still have to position things in order to create a "mix" of your own voice relative to the volume of the playback music. In the olden days of early rock and r and b recording, the "mix" was created by having the singers close to the mic, other musicians farther away, and the drummer across the room or in a booth with walls around the drum set, and the drummer would have to play very quietly. Some variation of this may be how you create your "mix". It doesn't have to be exact, but we're trying to get your voice recorded in a way that emphasizes all of your good vocal qualities, have your voice and the backing tracks sounding on pitch together, and still have the music sound full and clear. It's a balancing act, literally. AND we have to keep in mind all of the vocal balancing acts we are combining to avoid the vocal moving targets.
The beauty of all of this is that, once mastered, we have the ability to showcase the hard work we have done on our voice and present it in the best possible light. This is a key to having demos that will help us to get bookings or possible auditions by making our voices sound as appealing and professional as we can.
Congratulations on the progress you have made so far, Trent!
Bob
@Guevara lol yea I took it down. I was in a rush and I didn't listen to it before posting, but my voice was totally distorted. But no worries! I'm going to check out this fab mic @sspatrick suggested and I'll be back next week with it again : )).
@sspatrick Thanks for the suggestion!! That mic has really great reviews and its right in my budget. Woop Woop! I'm getting it next weekend.
Trent,
Good job. You are really improving! This sounds a lot better than your previous demos. There are places where your pitch drifts, but not nearly as much as your previous demos, and when you're on pitch it sounds very, very good!
You need to keep working at this and really learn to hear the backing music while you are singing so you can lock in to the key and pitch of the song. Your tone is nice and bright.
The more you record and the more you listen with an honest, critical ear to the pitch, you can really get your sound dialed-in. I especially like the Mercy track. It sounds sassy and has a lot of style. You are getting the hang of recording and getting the music and voice at a good balance.
Record more. Listen to the playback, and make corrections as you go. You will learn and improve the more you do this.
Bob