Watch Over You (Alter Bridge Acoustic Cover)

elphono

Hello,

this is my most recent progress with my voice.

I have trouble with the "real" vibrato. I have one but I think from what Ken says that it's a diaphragmatic one. Care to give me your opinion ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcXh3dxLZG4

Diego

I love the voice.
I needs more support on the higher parts.
I like it.

elphono

Thanks for the comment ! Glad that you like it ^^.

Do you mean in the parts with the headvoice or when I push my voice into belting territory ?
If it's head voice I totally agree. The more I listen to it the more I dislike how feeble it is.

Claude77

You sound pretty damn good!

I love your vocal tone and timber.
Very very good!

C.

bentk

You seem to have made your own version of it, cool! Thanks for sharing.

First of all, you should focus a little more on keeping the tempo constant, you go off a little here and there. The original has some odd timing for the strumming, but it's all 4/4. There are many version of Myles Kennedy performing it acoustic, it's cool to play the guitar part like he does, just a tip. I won't comment further on the song, as you kind of did your own thing with it, and that's totally fine!

As far as the singing goes, i think it was pretty solid. Your pitch is pretty good. But i want to make you aware of your support and vowel modifications. There are areas (especially in the belting part of the song) where you can sing the vowels differently to maintain good open throat technique. Ken talks about this a lot.

Just an example: when you sing 'Who'll give you strength-'', you sing the 'Who' with a hard 'Huuu' sound. You can open that up more by starting with more of a AH or AW sound (not a straight AH, but stemming from the AH) and maybe slowly morph towards the 'who' (take that open sound from AH and use it to create more of an Oh sound for example). Listen to the original, you'll actually here he does something similar. Because now you go from 'uhh' straight towards another 'uhh' from 'you'. I hope this is somewhat clear to you. I want to try and show you that with some simple vowel changes, you can still understand the words but it makes it easier to sing, and will also improve the tone.

Where are you in the course?

elphono

Hello !
Thanks for all the kind answers ! I will try to give a shot at what you're hinting bentk. Actually I made it to lvl 2 in the course some times ago but due to heavy life changes I haven't been able to practice formally recently. I know my vowel changes are not on point and to compensate I really focus on trying to keep my throat the most open and relaxed possible.
I stuck on vibrato ATM as I think mine is ok sounding but from what I've heard from Ken, it's a diaphragmatic one. I'd like to experiment the "real" one.

For now I'll listen to Myles version and work on that hard "Whooo". I guess real life/song examples are maybe what's missing in ken's course.


Thank you all very much !

PS: I didn't play the same part as Myles for the song for 2 reasons:
1) the guitar is tuned differently and it wasn't sounding right on the guitar I played at the moment (should be good now with the new one)
2) The rhythm is tricky to maintain while singing. At some point I will have worked enough on this to be able to do both at the same time.

EDIT: You are right, it's impressive how his "Who" is starting with an "AH".

bentk

You are doing very well, keep going! As you say, you are trying to remain relaxed and keep the throat open as much as you can, which is absolutely a good thing to do. Also focus on keeping the use of air low, you'll get better at it with time. And even better, in VOL3 you will learn glottal compression.

I'm glad my answers was somewhat helpful to you.

As for song examples, check Ken's youtube channel for that. Also, the PRO VIDEOS section in the forum has some great videos where Ken practices the workouts and songs with students.

And if you want to hear a little bit more about vibrato, i know there is an old youtube video from Ken which talks exactly about that. I am not sure if there is a dedicated video in the course on that.

You have already come a long way, and you can only improve from here, which is an exciting thing!

All the best,

Ben

highmtn

Nice job. Find support on the high parts. A little more cord closure on the head voice so it's not so hooty would help those parts.

elphono

I am really glad I posted this, your help is invaluable. I'd like to share my progress on this very song when I will have worked on it and hopefully you'll be able to pinpoint things ^^.
Also I started working on "Leave a light on" by Tom Walker which is kinda hard. There is a lot to say in short time frames and the chorus is heavily compressed which I can somewhat emulate but it doesn't feel right. I guess I have to make it volume 3 to learn how to rightly sing with distortion.