#vocal analysis

[amailboxlemur]

Hi, I saw your reblog.

Can you please tell me more about his voice? Everything you know basically. 🥰 Thank you. 🫶🏻

Hellooo 🥰💜 Don’t mind me answering this ask about ruisrock 2 months late… I have a lot of thoughts about Omar’s voice 😅

Our topic today is his big, belted high notes, or ”money notes” as I’ve heard them called.

This is very long (and in 2 parts because of photo limits) so it’s continued below the cut)

Music theory textbooks always give the G above middle C as the “standard” highest note for tenors (higher male voices, which is Omar’s voice type), but it’s not unheard of for strong singers to be able to sing higher.

This is the note he’s holding for a really long time in the video from your original post. But also in this clip, our Omar is a superstar and actually very briefly sings an A!

Right around this G-A range seems to be where he likes his money note to be. For example:

The high note at 2:40 in she fell in love in the summer is a G

In om om och om igen the moment at 2:15 is all between F# and A

In Red Light at 1:50 he briefly sings an A and the note he holds is a G. The high note at 2:32 is also a G (but I didn’t write that one out on sheet music)

In Höj ett glas at 1:40 he briefly sings an A and the note he holds is a G# (the black key on the piano between G and A, so a half step higher than G)

Simon’s song is where things start to get really interesting. He has a few versions of the money note in Simon’s song. Sometimes he sings it like the studio version without a big money note like here at 2:53.

Other times he adds two more notes at the end. He sings a G but holds the slightly lower F# like at 2:45 here.

But the big one, one of my very favourite live Omar moments, one he does very rarely: When he sings an A as his money note like at 2:45 here.

[spazoutloud]

Will Ramos casually singing Sleep Token for science.

[kaddyssammlung]

I noticed that Vessel sings the "K" in "come on" a bit weird. But I like it and idk how to explain or describe it. But I finally watched the analysis from The Charismatic voice and she explains it....she says:

" it's like a cat hissing" XD

(is this related to his slight lisp?! Or is this really a choice?!)

(sry my OBS settings were a bit off...this really quiet)

"I need to go back on that section just one more time there's a certain way that he's milking his consonants it's really cool and it's a stylistic choice that I think is oneof the things that sets him apart. So you can choose how you're attacking a consonant and there are many different options. He's doing such a lengthy attack it's like there's it's almost like you're like moving through hawking a loogie on that it's going through all of the possible phases of a that you have you have the inhale and then each part that it's almost like there's like a C-H like a cat hissing right before and then he even lingers afterwards before opening up into the vowel. "

[yuzuyoon]

wanna know a secret? there's basically no such thing as "raw vocals" in kpop.

there are some rare, specific moments in kpop that are completely raw but they're so rare, they're pretty unremarkable. for a majority of fans, it's difficult for them to understand what raw vocals are, especially when all they've heard is a voice with vocal processing affecting their every syllable. but when you get into mixing (live or studio) and you actually hear raw vocals and your job is to make them sound not raw, it's easy to pinpoint where the vocal processing is.

it's difficult for kpop fans to understand that they almost never hear their idols sing completely unprocessed and insulting for some reason? it shouldn't be insulting though, every single artist out there uses vocal processing. kpop, western, etc. and the thing about vocal processing? it isn't just so that they hit the right notes or their voice doesn't sound shaky. it's also about making sure that their dynamic level stays even so they aren't either inaudible or making your ears bleed. it's about cutting down cutting down certain frequencies so that you aren't flinching cause when they hit certain notes it sounds like an icepick to your ears. it's about making sure their mic isn't picking up the noise around them and making the mix muddy or feeding back.

have we heard jimin's raw vocals? actually yes. when you see a clip of jimin, or anyone in bts, singing without a mic, that's raw. it's kinda hard to explain, but i think the best example is bts's perfect man performance. i made a video (of course i did)

so in the first clip, i really hate to say it because the behind the scenes showed that bts was completely capable of singing the song live, but the official released performance is lipsynced. i mean, it's really really obvious. but that makes this performance perfect for a comparison.

in the first clip, jimin's vocals are completely flat. as in there are no pitch deviations or shakiness, which is only possible through autotune and pitch correction. no singer, no matter how good they are, can sing a song with notes so perfect their note looks completely flat. additionally, his volume, or dynamics, stay completely the same. when you sing, especially while dancing, some words and parts of the phrase are going to come out louder or quieter. his dynamic range does not change in the first clip. his voice is completely smooth. it's perfect. which just is not possible

in the second clip, you can hear the natural "shakiness" or his voice. now i don't mean his voice is shaky or pitchy, i just don't know how to put it. our voices aren't pianos that can produce a perfectly on tune note. you can hear that in the second clip. you can also hear his dynamics and how he gets louder and quieter on different words. it's not perfect. which is how he actually sounds.

i think bts fans are lucky that we have so many behind the scenes, lives, and variety episodes where we do get an opportunity to hear bts's raw vocals because tons of artists dont have those types of things online (because their companies know that their raw voice doesn't sound how it does on the records).

if you have any questions about this, like a clip that you think might be raw, or a clip you want analyzed, or something that you're confused about, just send me an ask! i can tell you if a clip is lipsynced, backtrack, live, etc. not with 100% accuracy but my job is to listen to raw vocals and make them sound...not raw and i grew up around this stuff, so i have an ear for it.

[legallydragonic]

A lot of people don't like Jon Davis's vocals when they first hear Korn because he doesn't sing like a traditionally "good" singer would sing but he also doesn't scream the way you'd expect a metal vocalist the scream (not that he doesnt scream sometimes but you know.) Usually "good" singing requires the singer to have clear, distinguishable pitches when they sing. Like when they sing you can point out exactly which note they're projecting. If that was the solid metric for good singing, JD would probaly not be considered a good singer.

JD sings not to sound "good" in that sense, but rather to express emotion. His sound prioritizes that you feel the weight of what he says rather than just hearing the sound.

It's not that Jon can't sing traditionally well, he absolutely can and he does in some of his songs as well as in covers of songs where the original singer does. He CHOOSES to sing in a way that prioritizes the emotion to emphasize the message of then music and this has turned some people off to the band. I've heard some people (not insultingly) describe him as sounding pathetic or desperate which is very much in line with a lot of the themes in their songs so it's fitting for him to sound like this. Ive actually seen multiple people compare his voice to Dobby from Harry Potter. His voice is also very nasally at times which i think probably adds to this.

If he sounded like Whitney Houston in his songs or something, it just wouldn't fit the tone of the music, lyrically or instrumentally.

Korn's sound it very dark and grungy. I've heard some people say that it creeps them out and makes them uncomfortable, and Jonathans vocals definitely add to that. He is also very breathy with his vocals which I actually like a lot but a lot of singers will often edit breathing out of their sound or try to conceal their breathing while Jon definitely leans into it.

Furthermore, there is often a lack of reverberation in his sound which kind of makes it sound like he's breathing down your neck (especially when he whispers) which is definitely amplified by the breathiness in his voice and this only adds to the creepiness. It makes it sound like there's no room between you and you can really hear all the detail in his vocals which I think makes it easier for him to carry the emotion of it. This lack of reverb is also significant because reverb is often added to make a voice sound "better" which is why there's so many reverb edits of songs n stuff, but it almost seems like JD actively avoids it.

He is also able to switch between different vocal styles remarkably well. Like he can go from screaming to singing to rapping like it's nothing it's very impressive. His vocal range is also quite impressive methinks......... he can really do it all. Like seriously listen to Tearjerker that's one of the few songs that he really for real sings in but he's still able to carry that dark creepy mood that korn songs have...

In conclusion JD is such a talented and creative vocalist and i didnt even talk about all the different voices that he uses and switches between fluidly like all within one song he really is the goat he's not like other girls he does shit different and he always has been as the #pioneer of nu metal and I love him 😁😁🫶🫶 his voice is so beaitiful this yap honestly could've been twice this length but ummmm I think I'm done now

[wanderrealms]

Opera singer analyzes Gojira Olympics performance of "Ah! Ça Ira" at the Conciergie Palace.

[sugar-petals]

I noticed that Jimin has the most prominent adam’s apple despite having the highest voice

if you want to know the science side: that's bc a high tone is created by shorter and thinner vocal folds. they vibrate more quickly -> result: a higher-pitched voice that produces a tenor sound.

besides outside properties of the neck, body height does not exactly correlate to vocal fold length either. hence yoongi can be the smallest member having a slim average neck and yet the deepest voice.

quite interesting stuff biologically/as per physics. jimin sports a unique high tenor vocal range because of it, whereas yoongi is approximating the bass-baritone area as a counterpoint.

[ramblinguitar]

You all seen this one yet?