[Sadie]

Hello Everyone-

I am an aspiring singer songwriter who is looking for honest critique of my voice. I did have a vocal lessons a few years ago and love singing. My family and friends say I have a good voice. I would like to know what my fellow colleagues think. Please visit http://www.myspace.com/sadieanne2009
The songs that I am singing are ones that I wrote- there is 30 to 40 second clips of my songs. Unfortunately, the whole song collection that I have is too big and I had to cut them down to clips. I appreciate your advice. Thank you!

Sarah

[Retrosaurus Rex]

Hi Sarah,

I just listened to the first two clips. You do have a nice sounding voice and a nice mellow soulful style. Good sense of melody, too, since you say these are your own songs... I think you could work on your expression, it seemed to me like you were holding back, maybe you're afraid of family and neighbors hearing you... it's likely to be scary to "let it all hang out" but when you gain some confidence you'll really be able to get inside a song and take your listeners somewhere. Good luck.

[tunesmithth]

........ditto Sarah. I don't think you really have anything to worry about as far as your voice is concerned. You sound like you have particularly good depth & quality down in the lower part of your range. If what you're trying to decide is whether you need to be self concious about how your voice sounds when singing in public.....I think not.

Now honestly, what can't be told from those clips is how well your ears will process what they hear and help guide your voice into the appropriate pitches. That's a very different skill. The only way to find that out is to sing with some kind of accompaniment so that your voice has target pitch it can attempt to match. In other words.....sing with something musical going on and see if your vocal meshes. Nothing stands alone in music....ideally everything works with everything else. I'm sure you'll be just fine though.....good luck & hang in there!

[Sadie]

Thank you both for your input! There is a Cafe that has an open mic night where I live and I am considering that... I figured I would be able to perform my songs and be able to get some immediate feedback (see what works/what does not). I may mix it up with other songs. The key to be able to perform in public and not overthink. I will let you know what I decide to do... thanks!!

[musicthom]

Hi Sadie i think there is no doubt that you do have a voice, i see on your first post that you went and got some vocal lessons how did you find that?

i seem to be doing it the other way round i had to go and do lots of open mic style things just to learn gow to cope with performing in public and now i am ok with that i have booked some llessons and hoping to improve on what i have acheaved on my own so far

like Tom said having some musical backing would be a great asset for you learning to use your voice to add to what you already have good luck and keep us posted on how you get on

[Sadie]

Thank you very much for the nice comments. For me, it all comes down to confidence and I feel that by putting myself out there vocally, my confidence will increase. I had vocal lessons for about a year and do some vocal exercises regularly. I found it very helpful and it helped to strengthen my lower register. I did have to stop going because it was very expensive and I was a college student at the time. However, my vocal teacher was nice enough to have me record the lessons so I do go over the exercises and some songs that helped to strengthen my voice. If you can afford them, I definitely recommend them! Good Luck!

[john]

hey

pretty well correct. Confidence, real confidence, comes from experience. Nothing better for it. Just do it in little steps and don't expect to be acclaimed or possibly appreciated to begin with, but that is something pretty well every performer goes through .

Cheers

John

[Sadie]

I have fixed the files on my myspace page so now they are mp3 files- they are still voice only. I am currently learning how to play the guitar so I hope to put music to my lyrics soon. I don't know why some of the songs are louder than others, I recorded them on the same recording system and with the same settings. Once I get everything together I hope to perform live.. thanks again!!

[Cheryl]

Sadie, on 26 January 2010 - 10:36 PM, said:

Hello Everyone-

I am an aspiring singer songwriter who is looking for honest critique of my voice. I did have a vocal lessons a few years ago and love singing. My family and friends say I have a good voice. I would like to know what my fellow colleagues think. Please visit http://www.myspace.com/sadieanne2009
The songs that I am singing are ones that I wrote- there is 30 to 40 second clips of my songs. Unfortunately, the whole song collection that I have is too big and I had to cut them down to clips. I appreciate your advice. Thank you!

Sarah

Hi, Sarah,

I would definitely explore the open mic thing. It's very difficult, though, to tell what kind of a voice you have without some accompaniment underneath (even just your guitar - after all, you ARE holding a guitar in the picture.) You see, you could be singing beautifully, but a quarter tone away from the chord the person is playing. I know the Idol shows listen to singers singing accapella, but that doesn't really tell us if they will sing in tune, once another musician is added to the mix! Back on topic, though, you SEEM to have a lovely voice. I would explore getting more power behind it, and working on your approach to breathing and consonants.

Best of luck, Cheryl Hodge