Trying to Change Style

I am not good at appraising female genre, and we had a little bobble before on my own miscue or remarks, and I remember using the term falsetto. Except it was vibrato, and you're changing that for the good, toning it down a bit, if you want to be more pop, and less classical, IMO.

Personally, I could do with just milliseconds less sustain, which of course is as always, only on vowel sounds. Positively however, your vowel sounds are the right shape and articulated well. :D

To replace some of that vowel sustain, I'd like to hear just a bit more emphasis put on some consonants, but not all of them. Maybe that's just me, and my taste. :?

Also, I could say that your voice is perhaps too good, but I don't think that anything is ever too good, but you're probably comfortably above par.

So, I think I feel this way because the voice is so pure and clean. It would be just fine as-is in some live venues, for practice and for the vast majority of maybe non-discriminating listeners, just excellent.

Except maybe I'm fussy, or could be wrong again, but would appreciate and expect, as with most mixes and professional sounds or vocals, a bit of reverb, delay, a bit wet and just a little more bass added.

You are doing very well. It's already good, almost there and hard to criticize, and of course the real meaning of criticize is neutral, and not a complaint or detraction from your beautiful effort and style. :wink:

Hi Hobson,

Good job on the song, you do seem to be on track to make some changes. Shifting from a more ‘operatic' style to pop is much harder than non singers realise, so kudos to you for taking the plunge. I used to own a CD shop specialising in classical music and I remember several opera singers who tried to switch to pop or show tunes as a way of extending their careers. Most of the results were pretty disappointing.

It seems that both the vocal techniques and the styling are very different and a well trained voice for opera can't just effortlessly cross over. I think that some of them may have imagined that it would be a step down, and comparatively easy, whereas it's really a move sideways with its own demands and challenges. When they do try and switch across, opera trained singers often sound mannered, uptight and actually held back by their considerable technique in their original style. They often seem to struggle to sound laid back, swingy, rocky, or just pack the right kind of punch. There have been some notable exceptions of course. Renee Fleming or Luciano Pavarotti could sing the telephone directory and I'd enjoy it. :mrgreen:

If you don't know this man - we could call him ‘The Other Hobson' - he's a highly regarded Australian operatic tenor and you might enjoy the CD in this link. You have to scroll right down the page to get the full track list, which includes him singing The Rose. It's a mixture of favourites from opera, plus some popular standards and songs from movies. You can't mistake his background, but he still does a great job with them all. My wife just put it on downstairs, so I'll have to pop down and listen in a moment.

Presenting David Hobson

As mentioned, the CD includes him singing The Rose. Unfortunately, you can't listen to a sample of that track on Amazon, but you can get a taste of what he's like on a variety of the other tracks.

Here he is again singing the Holy City at a Christmas show:

Jerusalem

Hobsons rule, eh? 8) :wink:

Cheers

Chris

This is the first thing I've heard of yours so I have nothing to compare it with. The one thing I can say is you can sure tell you sing in a choir. I started out singing Bluegrass then joined A choir. It took about a year to get the bluegrass out of my choir voice. It's still hard to go back and forth between the two. Sometimes I'll get the two mixed up and the guys in my band will give me this look like, what the heck was that. I really like the song especially the guitar and there's nothing wrong with your voice. It just sounds very choral. All I can say is keep at it, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth doing.

The one thing I can say is you can sure tell you sing in a choir.

+1

Swapping from 'choral' or 'operatic' to pop or rock can be quite a switch. One possibly approach to changing is to look at the elements of a new style and try to exaggerate or over-shoot them. For instance, depending on the style, one might try and be over the top sentimental, or even more lazy and laid back, or whatever. Really abandon yourself to the extremes of the stylistic differences. Have some fun with them. Later, you can find a more appropriate balance.

I can't say anything useful about the technical side of the different styles, but you can do a lot just by working on the attitude. The rock attitude, jazz attitude and choral attitude are are very different. Again, just letting go and ‘role playing' being a rocker, an opera diva, a lounge lizard or a blues singer can be a very useful exercise (This is actually suggested in a singing book that I have).

At the moment the song is very controlled and even, which is fine, but if I didn't know the lyrics it could be about just about anything from Algebra to Zen. Perhaps try and infuse more grit and pain in some spots and more syrup and smiles in others. I remember hearing Van Morrison singing “Goodnight Irene” with real venom, as if she'd given him a hard time and he still hated her for it! :o

There's some great opportunities for emotional punch in the lyrics to The Rose, so experiment a bit when you sing “Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed”and see if you can make that “razor” sound like it really does cut. Let us hear the blood. :shock:

Or look at “Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need.” Can you imagine what a sultry jazz singer could do with that? The temperature of all the males in the audience would have gone up by several degrees by the time that was finished with.... Try a few different ways of presenting it and see what you can come up with.

Here's another version of The Rose sung in full on loud emotional style. They're hanging on some notes, punching out others, and generally wringing every drop out of it they can. Maybe you can get some ideas from what they do with it.

The Kelly Family - Live at Lorelei

A classically trained vocal teacher would probably roll their eyes and be tempted to tear the performances to shreds. They could (legitimately) point out a list of faults from a formal perspective. But there were apparently 25,000 people there, and they seemed to be loving every over-the-top moment of it. So were millions who watched it on TV, and now Youtube. And so was I. :)

Good luck, and have fun with it all.

Cheers,

Chris

Hi again Hobson,

Was any of the feedback you got from us helpful?

You did ask for "constructive criticism", so I hope that it was useful. However, if you were only looking for some applause, that's fine. Lot of people who post on forums are it seems.  :wink:

But it does take time and effort to listen to download and listen to people's attempts, and then work through some kind of response. So if I was wasting my time typing out all those comments and researching the links then it would be good to know. It would save me time in the future. 

Anyway, I hope that some of it was of use or interest. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Hi, Chris. Sorry I did not get back to you. I just haven't had time to work much on your suggestions and those from others, so I can't yet say what the results are. In the midst of this, my chorus started back into rehearsals so I'm trying to switch back and forth between styles. And I am about to leave town for a few days, so it will be a while before I can do any serious work on my singing. Thanks to everyone for your time and effort. No, I'm not looking for applause. One of the things that I like about this forum is that I think I can get honest feedback here.

Yes, I did go to the links for the "other" Hobson and he has a great sound or I should say great sounds. I also found his official website where "Crying" was playing. This song really shows how well he can sing pop. http://www.davidhobson.biz/

I have tried your advice to exaggerate different styles. It feels kind of silly, but I think it helps.