I started playing the piano around the age of 5, and started singing at 6, although my singing sucked all the way. I only started taking vocal classes in November 2011, and I went on hiatus for a long time because of exams.

I started playing the French Horn in 2010 in the school band. I used to take vocal classes at a rather reputable performing arts school. This performing arts school has been featured on KBS, Mnet and SBS, and they're sister schools to Climix vocal academy in Korea which has taught a few of the current K-pop stars.

My vocal classes are mostly pop vocals though. So I can teach you basics on not sounding nasal, using vibrato, expanding your range and all that whatnot.

I have performed onstage a total of 20 times before.

One of the performances is a singing performance that took place on August 18th 2012 in a concert by my performing arts school. And another time was when I sang solo in a shopping mall.

Song:
Artist:
Link:
Comments(if any):

1. Pitch
2. Emotion
3. Tone
4. Pronounciation & rhythm
5. Overall enjoyment
20 marks each

On the bright hand side, you got quite a few notes right, and even when you went out of tune, you didn't go that off-tune. You only went slightly flat, but flat enough to be noticeable.
Pitch: 14/20

But on the other hand, I don't feel the emotion. I hear the lyrics, but I don't get the feel. On your long note near the end, you started off in-tune, but you went flat after a while, which just killed the thing. Your harmonies following that were pitchy too, so do take note of that.
Emotion: 8/20

Your voice is really nasal, and it sounds as if you're singing with a blocked nose. Try using your back voice to sing. Push the voice to the back off your throat. Use your tongue to direct your voice to vibrate your soft palette at the back of your throat. When you use your nose (front voice) to sing, you will sound nasal. In this case, you've been using your front voice for almost the entire song. To check whether you are nasal, pinch your nose when you're in the middle of a note. If you feel vibrations in your nose when you sing, that means that you're nasal. Keep repeating the note while pushing it back into your back voice until you don't feel anymore vibrations in your nose. When that happens, that means that you will find that your singing is a lot less nasal.
Tone: 11/20


One way to solve the problems of pitchy harmonies is to turn off the main melody when you record over it. I find that it helps me because there's no melody to confuse my ears. Than you just turn on the music again and move the audio to match it. Trust me, when your ears aren't confused anymore, your harmonies will stop being as off-tune.

Your pronounciation is pretty good, and so is your rhythm, so no problem there.
Pronounciation & rhythm: 20/20

Overall enjoyment: 11/20

Out of a 100, I'll rate this as 64. There's a lot of areas that need to be improved, so do try harder. :)

Your pitching seems to be rather off throughout the song. Sometimes it isn't that bad, but your harmonies throw off the balance and it becomes rather off-tune. Do listen to your harmonies and make sure that they jive well with the main melody. The moment that either the harmony or the melody is sharp or flat, the entire balance will be ruined. It's a very delicate thing.
Pitch: 7/20

It's a nice song, and I won't deny that you portray some emotion, but it's not strong enough for a song of this calibre.
Emotion: 11/20

You actually have a pretty smooth tone. It's soothing on the ears, but not outstanding either. However, you are a little nasal. Please look at Alicia's review above on how to reduce the nasal sound.
Tone: 14/20

Your pronounciation is fine, so is your rhythm.
Pronounciation & Rhythm: 20/20

I found your cover okay, but it bored me a little, to be honest. If I didn't have to review it, I wouldn't have finished listening to it. Do try harder next time, though.
Overall enjoyment: 9/20

Total: 61/100

Your pitching is quite good. Hardly any wrong notes could be found.
Pitch: 18/20

I could hardly feel any emotion, to be honest. Especially at the start, when you sing the words in the same pitch over and over again, it got a little monotonous, but that's the nature of the song, so I'm not gonna penalise you for that. However, even at the high parts, you don't sound very emotional. It just sounds as if you're singing the words alone and yet being completely detached from the emotion that supposed to come along with it. Do add in more emotion. It makes it a lot more interesting for the singer. A way to add emotion is to vary your dynamics. When you choose different words to emphasize, or to make a little softer or louder, it creates a big difference. These little things are the ones that will make your singing a lot more entertaining.
Emotion: 6/20

Your voice is extremely airy on the high notes. Try doing exercises that will help with closing your vocal folds. When you don't close your vocal folds properly, air will go through your vocal folds and your voice box will produce an airy sound. Especially at the high notes, where most people lack the strength to snap shut their vocal folds. Sound familiar? That's a pretty big issue in this song. It's very obvious at your high notes that you don't have the strength to shut your vocal folds. There's a way to close your vocal folds. Instead of singing the words to the song, practice singing with 'oo' or 'ah' instead of the lyrics. If you use a little more strength in saying these words at the start, your vocal folds will snap shut immediately, and you'll produce a pure tone. This isn't called falsetto, but is called 'mixed voice'. It's a mix between your normal voice and your head voice. When you sing with these words, make sure that you keep your vocal folds closed after they have snapped shut the first time, or your voice will just become airy after the initial push. However, don't use too much strength, or you might just injure your tone. Don't worry, this technique takes a lot of practice. I myself took a few months before I could even get the vocal folds to close, and I'm still learning how to improve on it. As your vocal folds get stronger, you won't sound as airy on your high notes anymore. Take note of your tone as you use this method. It shouldn't be nasal when you use this. Pinch your nose to check whether you are nasal. If you are nasal, your tone will change when you sing.
Tone: 8/20

No problem with your pronounciation or rhythm there.
20/20

I'm not a big fan of this song. In fact, I find it a little monotonous. But I did like your smooth progression throughout. Just practice your high notes and you'll be on your way to become a better singer. Hope this helped. :)
Overall enjoyment: 14/20

Total: 66/100

Gosh, I don't even know how many times I have listened to this cover even before you came here for critiqueing.

Your pitching is quite flawless, really. I can't even say anything else. o.o
Pitch: 20/20

About your emotion, you really managed to pull of the attitude of the three girls pretty well in both the chorus and the verses. But in the adlibs, I feel that your singing doesn't have enough attitude. It seems a little floaty, and doesn't really have as much power as preferred.
Emotion: 17/20

I'm not exactly fond of the way you switch voices so many times. I know that the original TTS has three very distinctly different voices, but maybe you should just stick to keeping it the same throughout. Out of the three voices, I don't really like the one that you chose to use which sounded really weak. Other than that one voice, I really do like your tone. It's clean and free of air, very soothing.

Around 2:27, you sounded a little tired, as if you're struggling to keep control of your voice. Not very noticeable, but when people(like me) scrutinise your covers, it'll be obvious enough to us. I don't know whether in your case it was like this, but to me it sounds as if you momentarily lost control.
Tone: 16/20

No problems with your pronunciation or rhythm there.
20/20

Since I have an extremely short attention span, it's normally no short of a miracle when I can actually sit through an entire cover. And considering that I kept on replaying your cover just to listen to you sing. Yes, I enjoyed it a lot. It's so good, but with one flaw: not enough power on the adlibs. Other than that, you did great. :)
Overall enjoyment: 17/20

Total: 90/100

You tend to go really flat on the higher notes. So flat that you don't even sound near the note anymore. For example, in the last line of the chorus, you didn't hit the note at all. Neither did you hit Tiffany's notes in the verse. so you sounded completely monotonous. When you sang the higher notes, you sounded like you didn't use much effort when you sang the notes, and it's probably one of the reasons why you can't hit the notes. When you want to hit the high notes, use your diaphragm strength to hit them. Try to use your mixed voice(a mix between your falsetto and your normal voice) to hit the notes. If you really cannot, than use your falsetto to reach it. Do not disregard the pitch completely, which is what you did. Same goes for Seohyun's part. You completely went flat, and didn't even hit the right notes.

The chorus is on-pitch until the last line. And the part where Taeyeon sings is fine. You got about more than half of the song's pitch wrong. So sorry, but you've failed this category pretty badly.
Pitch: 4/20

Maybe you felt emotion when you sang this cover. But I don't feel it at all. It's as if you're just going through the motions of saying the words but not actually putting any feeling into it. You must get the right style of singing it. This song has attitude, so show attitude! Don't just sing it as if it's some nice, quiet flowy song. Give the diva attitude that this cover requires! You really under-delieverd here as well.
Emotion: 5/20

You sang really softly in this cover, and it was a little unsteady. You have a nice soft voice, but you're not very good at controlling it. You have to use your diaphragm when singing. Try holding long notes and making sure that it doesn't waver when you do. That way, you'll be able to hold your notes longer and strengthen your voice.
Tone: 13/20

Pronounciation is fine, rhythm is completely okay except for one line where you rushed a little bit. That line is the first line of the second chorus that you did. But it's a really minor mistake so just take note of it.
Pronounciation and rhythm: 18/20

Since your pitch kind of... er... went haywire, I didn't really enjoy it that much. Plus, you didn't have the oomph that the original TTS has, so remember about your emotion. And sing louder please, you're kind of using the instrumental as a curtain to hide behind.
Overall enjoyment: 6/20

Total: 46/100

Do work on the things that I told you about. These techniques are pretty good too:

To strengthen your diaphragm, you can practice singing with a marker being pressed really hard into the area three finger spaces above your belly button. When you sing, the marker should be pushed out for the entire time and only sink in when you stop. And it should hurt when you press in, and not just press lightly. When I train using this, I get bruises the next day. And I still do. I hope this will help you in strengthening your voice. :) Looking forward to seeing you improve! ^^

Shiori: Your pitch seems to be fine throughout.
Ramune: Same as Shiori, the pitch seems to be fine throughout, except for one part where he started a little flat. At the start of the chorus, he sounded a little off-pitch.
Pitch: 17/20

The both of you sang with pretty good emotion, especially Shiori. But Ramune needs to show a little more emotion in the verses.
Emotion: 16/20

Shiori: You don't seem to be in complete control of your voice, do try out some exercises that will help you strengthen your voice, because it tends to waver too much. If you're trying to do vibrato, use your diaphragm, not your throat. It's a lot harder using the diaphragm, but that's the proper way to do it, plus it'll sound a lot nicer. When people use vibrato through their throat, it makes them sound a little like a sheep, so do take note of that. Place your fingers(or a whiteboard marker) on your diaphragm(3 finger spaces above your belly button) and make slow humming noises with a push every few seconds. When you make this 'push', your diaphragm should expand out. Repeat until you are able to go faster, and then apply it to the notes that you're singing. Your diaphragm should be moving in and out quickly when you're using vibrato. If it isn't that means that you're using vibrato through your throat, which is wrong.
Ramune: A little nasal here and there, but overall pretty good control and smooth vocals.
Tone: 11/20

Both of you had no problems with pronunciation and rhythm.
20/20

I really liked listening to the duet. Normally, I'm no big fan of Shiori's voice, but in this duet, the both of you really complimented each other well.
Overall enjoyment: 14/20

Total: 78/100

I'm not sure whether you're in tune at 1:17, but it sounded really strange there, so I doubt that you were in-tune. At 1:26, I don't really think that you hit the notes right. You were slightly flat, I think. And your starting of Krystal's quiet-ish part is a flat. Other than this few parts, your pitch throughout the rest of the song was fine.
Pitch: 14/20

You don't quite have the attitude down pat... yet. You have most of the attitude there, but your singing is too gentle for this song, so it doesn't really fit the nature and style of this diva-like song.
Emotion: 12/20

You have a really smooth tone, which is good. However, you tend to become really nasal at the lower notes. Hold a long note, and then pinch your nose while holding that note to check whether you're nasal. If you're nasal, then your sound will change when you pinch your nose or when you let go of it. Once you have identified that you're nasal, move on to correcting it. Try to push your voice towards the back. Use your tongue to direct the sound backwards so that it can vibrate against your soft palette at the back of your throat. Once you have your back voice mastered, you will never sound as nasal again. What you're doing now is to sing through your nose, hence creating that nasal sound. What you need to do is to bring that range away from the nose and to the back of your head.
Tone: 13/20

Your pronunciation is fine, but there're some problems with your rhythm. At the start, your 'electric shocks' seemed to be late. I know that it isn't actually late, but the echo effect makes it seem as if it is. Please remove the effects, they don't enhance that part at all. And your 'nananana's seem all over the place. Maybe it's the echo effect again, but it makes it seem very messy. So please remove the effects and it'll be all right.
Pronunciation and rhythm: 15/20

This cover would be a lot better without effects. Especially your last line was a little abrupt and kind of spoiled my enjoyment of it.
Overall enjoyment: 13/20

Total: 67/100

Your pitch seems pretty okay, but then again this song doesn't have a very wide range.
Pitch: 20/20

This song is pretty groovy, and you managed the melodic parts pretty well, but the parts where you were supposed to rap sounded a little lacking. It's not completely bad, in fact, it's a pretty good attempt for a first time rapper.
Emotion: 14/20

You have a nice tone, pretty smooth, and not nasal. I can't really comment much on your tone here because the singing part was pretty short and didn't exactly show off your range.
Tone: 13/20

For a rap, your pronunciation and rhythm is pretty average. But there were no mistakes made, which is pretty good.
Pronunciation and rhythm: 15/20

I'm not a big fan of this kind of music, to be honest. So that factor really brought down the points for me. I skipped the intro and the rapping parts that weren't yours because I didn't really like the song. Sorry.
Overall enjoyment: 7/20

Total: 69/100

You have a tendency to go flat. How do I know? Because Jiyeon's voice is in the background. I'm not familiar with this song, and thanks to the background vocals clashing with your voice, I could tell that you were off-pitch. It happened a few times, and it normally occurs in the verses. Listen closely to your cover again. When you are in-tune, you might not even hear Jiyeon's voice at all, but when you go off-pitch, the tuning frequency can be heard. There's this shaking sound, the clashing of the notes that the both of you are singing at the time. When you are in-tune, this frequency will stop 'vibrating' the sound and you will sound exactly the same as her and she might not even be able to be heard. Please take note of your pitch when you sing. It's the most important component in singing.
Pitch: 7/20

Your emotion is all right in the verses. Your light singing really fit in with the original, so thats a plus. I think your emotion is a little lacking in the chorus, though. It doesn't strike me as emotional at all.
Emotion: 14/20

You really do have a nice tone. It's very soothing and gentle, and it fits this song pretty well. You need to improve the strength though, although this song is light, it will still need some strength in order to hold the slightly longer notes. You missed out a lot of areas which were supposed to have vibrato as well. I can hear Jiyeon in the back using vibrato, when your note has already been cut off. If you take away her voice, your singing will sound very choppy and abrupt. So do try and use vibrato. Check my previous reviews for instructions on how to practise the proper type of vibrato.
Tone: 14/20

There's one part that seems a little off rhythm, at 2:41. Am not sure whether it's off or not, but it does sound off. Other than that, your pronunciation and rhythm is fine.
Pronunciation and rhythm: 18/20

There are some parts of your cover where you sound absolutely beautiful, and I really loved those parts. However, your mis-pitching kind of threw me off and ruined it for me. Other than that, great job.
Overall enjoyment: 17/20

Total: 60/100

1. Pitch: 14/20
I'm not very familiar with the song, so I judged your pitching based on whether it sounded right or not. You sounded a little off at 0:33. I don't know whether you were off-pitch or not but to me it sounded a little awkward. There were other awkward moments here and there, but they weren't overly off.

And were there harmonies? I think I heard them, but I'm not sure whether it was the backing vocals or not, and I quite liked them and they matched the main vocals spot-on. I quite admire you for that. Cause I absolutely suck at harmonies.

2. Emotion: 14/20
I couldn't really tell whether it was supposed to be happy or sad, so you lost points on the emotion factor.

3. Tone: 16/20
Your tone matched your partner's tone really well. The both of you have very similar styles of singing, and it brought out the essence (?) of the song better. To be honest, your tone is rather nasal, but other than that, you sound quite okay. :)

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 15/20
You tend to drag your words out and it makes them seem a little slurred. Since it's a rather stylistic thing, I won't be deducting points for that. If you aren't aware of your pronounciation, it's a cause for alarm, but if you did it on purpose, than I'm quite impressed that you managed to keep it so consistent.

Your rhythm seems quite on.

5. Overall enjoyment: 17/20
I like the effort you guys put into making this duet. I can tell that there was a lot of effort even on my first listen. I respect people who make the effort to sound good, so kudos to the 2 of you! And although the song isn't something that I'd normally listen to, you 2 honestly made it something enjoyable for me to critic.

Total: 76/100

1. Pitch: 6/20
Your pitching is a bit haywire. You may want to listen to the original song a few more times before recording.

You hit notes on the right pitch, and tend to go a bit off pitch afterwards. Maybe it's because your diaphragm isn't strong enough to hold onto the note, so you might want to do some diaphragm exercises. Sometimes, you don't even hit the notes on the right pitch, and as a result, your entire sentence is thrown off. Do take note of your pitching. It's one of the most basic things about singing. Without proper pitching, you can never make a song sound good.

2. Emotion: 7/20
To be honest, I couldn't really tell the emotion from you. Your partner made a good effort, (I'm assuming you sang the blue lyrics?) but your emotion failed to impress me. You should try to understand the main emotion of the song first. Without emotion, you will sound quite dead and unfeeling. So do try to inject emotion into your singing.

3. Tone: 12/20
Your tone is pretty average. It isn't horrible, neither is it outstanding. It's ranging somewhere between okay and good.

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 13/20
It isn't completely noticeable, but your pronounciation is a tad off. Your rhythm is completely fine, so no problems there.

5. Overall enjoyment: 14/20
The song you guys chose to duet was pleasant, but your pitching and emotion didn't make it appeal to me at all, and your tone didn't make up where your other categories were lacking. Sorry, but to be completely honest, I felt bored while listening to it.

Total: 52/100

1. Pitch: 20/20
Your pitching seems absolutely fine throughout the song. No problem here.

2. Emotion: 13/20
I could feel some emotion, although it wasn't as prominent as I would like it to. But good attempt, anyhow. You were a little soft, though. And you didn't build up momentum or do much vocal expression, so points were deducted there.

3. Tone: 18/20
I love your soothing tone. It makes me feel like I've been wrapped in something warm and comfy. And your voice is nice and low, which again reiterates the feeling of being wrapped in something nice and warm.

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 17/20
Pronouncatiation is fine, so is your rhythm. But you need a little more pronounced rhythm.

5. Overall enjoyment: 18/20
I have to say, I quite liked your cover. It had aesthetic appeal too. Was that you in the video? You're quite pretty. :) Good song choice that fitted your voice to a T.

Total: 86/100
Hey congrats you made it into one of my top cover critics!

1. Pitch: 13/20
It sounds a little strange overall, and I couldn't really tell whether it was supposed to be like that or not because I'm not familiar with the song. But you sounded a little off when you got to the louder parts. The quieter parts sounded fine, though.

2. Emotion: 15/20
Well I managed to feel your emotion well in this cover. :) I felt so sad when listening to this song, and I guess you managed to portray the main core emotion of this song rather well. Good job on that. :)

3. Tone: 14/20
Your voice sounded a little scratchy here, I don't know why. You didn't really sound like this in the rest of the covers that I critiqued before. Were you ill when you recorded this? One more thing: you still sound nasal. Do try out the exercises that I have told you off before. I think you'll sound much better if you gave them a try.

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 17/20
Once again, you stretch your words. Other than that, it's fine.

5. Overall enjoyment: 14/20
You were a little too soft at the start. Yes, you were probably trying out vocal expressions by making it seem soulful and gradually getting louder. But hey, you still have to use your diaphragm when singing the front parts too. Overall, you were pretty okay.

Total: 73/100

1. Pitch: 17/20
Sounds good overall, but with the occasional hiccup here and there, although they were mostly on the high notes.

2. Emotion: 15/20
The emotion was there, but it wasn't very obvious. Do try and make it more obvious or I would just think you were singing unfeelingly.

3. Tone: 16/20
If you want to pick a song with such huge jumps in pitch, do make sure that you don't sound so strained on the high notes. Every time I hear your high notes, I get the feeling that you aren't very comfortable with the range. You seem to be straining to get the notes.

However, you were very, very pleasant on the middle range. The low range wasn't outstanding. But the middle range was simply splendid.

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 20/20
No problems here.

5. Overall enjoyment: 18/20
First of all, I like your voice. Second of all, it's a nice song. And lastly, you pulled it off pretty well.

Total: 86/100

1. Pitch: 14/20
You went off somewhere in the first verse and in the last line of the verse, you died off the ending note, and you went flat there.

The chorus pitching was okay, though.

2. Emotion: 8/20
The way you tried to portray the emotion in this song didn't quite get me. I was listening to how you went loud and soft, but it seemed rather haywire and haphazard. (Think bumpy rollercoaster tracks). It went up and down and I got confused. It's good to have volume changes, just don't do it so often in one sentence because it can get a little over-the-top.

Furthermore, I couldn't really feel the main emotion of the song. The song is a melancholy one, and you didn't manage to bring that out.

3. Tone: 13/20
Your tone is rather nasal in this cover. The long note at "gasume" started off fine, but I could hear distortions when you were holding the note. Did you have phlegm?

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 11/20
Your pronounciation was off here and there, mostly on the words ending with "gul". The 'g' is pronounced in a way where it's almost silent, by the way. Try listening to the original singer and the way IU pronounces it. It should give you an idea of how the word should be pronounced.

Rhythm-wise, it's very different from the original. I'm very familiar with this song, since it's one of my favourites. And from what I remember, your rhythm is off at the second line of the chorus. And at the last line, it seemed a little rushed. I'm not sure whether you chose it to be that way or not, so I won't be deducting many points for this.

5. Overall enjoyment: 10/20
It's not a great cover, to be honest. I didn't really like it. But it wasn't completely bad either, because it did have some good points here and there. However, I feel as if you could've done better.

Total: 56/100

1. Pitch: 15/20
Not the best song for judging for pitching. First of all, this song needs so much effects that it's hard to judge which is actual pitching and which has been autotuned. However, I'm guessing that overall your pitching is rather okay.

2. Emotion: 4/20
I cannot feel emotion from you in this cover. From the start, you started off at a certain volume, and you more or less kept the volume the same throughout. In that way, no momentum was built. Furthermore, you didn't express any of the core emotion of the song. In fact, you sounded rather happy in the song. o.o Which I'm quite sure conflicts with the song itself. Even within the comparatively quiet bridge, I heard like, one slightly emotional sentence. And then it continued to sound emotionless.

3. Tone: 12/20
Your tone is rather pleasant on the mid-range notes. But when it came to the higher notes, you sounded like you just sang without considering the appropriate tone. It was rather piercing, in-your-face and quite honestly, a little jarring and unpleasant. Do take note of your higher notes. They sound a little nasal too. Refer to my previous critiques on tips on how to get rid of nasalness and to test for nasalness as well.

4. Pronounciation & rhythm: 13/20
Your pronounciation is rather off. For example, the way you pronounced "appa" is off. For this word, is sound be pronounced with a lot of emphasis on the p, and with a short break. The way you pronounce is sounds like "apa". There're a lot of other mistakes as well, but I won't list them down.

Rhythm is spot-on, no problems here. For a song with a lot of rhythm, you sure did well. :)

5. Overall enjoyment: 17/20
Although there were a lot of small technicalities that I picked on in this review, I did enjoy myself. Does it make sense? Well, it's been a while since I've come across a cover which sounds so... whole, so it really was a breath of fresh air. Good job. :) If you had just put in (a lot) more emotion, made your tone less nasal and improved a little on pronounciation, this cover would've been close to perfect. Keep trying!

Total: 61/100