Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - TROUBLE TOUR 2019-2020 A -misunderstood- II
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Old 19th May 2019, 06:33 PM
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AJFmzk AJFmzk is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by _dandy_ View Post
Thanks for sharing that - I thought that was interesting.

What you've described however - and that's what *I'm* getting from it, and I could be wrong - is that this sounds like the recipe you need if you wanted to end up with singers who sound *exactly* the same live as they do on their album, and that's *boring*. Celine Dion, for one, is guilty of that, to an extreme
Glad you like my technical explanation, hopefully it wasn't too all over the place. Again I have to stress I'm not an expert, but I am trying to explain as someone who has been studying vocal technique, with several different teachers for almost 8 years now and each one has had a different approach. The approach I am taking now is using the techniques I explained, and I have seen the most consistent progress and result with it. I face(d) some of the same challenges that Ayu has been facing, so I can kind of relate, though at at a less severe level, and my ears have mostly recovered from that temporary damage and now it's about re-training how to use my ears properly again to make relating to the pitches second nature which is more what I was getting at. The interesting thing is that when I was still complaining of not hearing things properly, the teacher said it shouldn't matter as long and you can still hear the pitches and match them, even if you have to focus more and really internalize how the resonances feel, but even then you have to use the music as the reference not your own internal listening. I think that's the best way for Ayu to approach it, based on my experience, because you're using your ear for the intake, not the output, if that makes any sense...and we know Ayu can still hear and match pitch, it's just not consistent, and there can be many factors.

Your take is certainly a valid one, and I can definitely see how you would get that from what I said. Basically, there are two parts to it: memorizing the melody, which as you correctly point out, would eliminate spontaneity (and I do love when Ayu does that, it certainly makes things more interesting and I would rather her do that and go off key than sound robotic, for sure, but it would be nice to have the best of both worlds). The reason why I stressed the memorization and pattern stuff is that Ayu and most singers do rehearsals in order to memorize and ingraine the songs in the way they want to sing them in the show, it can be different from the album version, but it still needs to be ingrained and memorized as a new pattern. The other part is listening to the music and hearing the "reference pitch" which is how you "sound good/on key" in a song. Ayu would not necessarily have to follow the exact melody that she was memorizing, she can harmonize or include something spontaneous, but she would really have to be listing to the music so she can choose a note that would fit in the context i.e. the key. Of course she can include some atonal or passing notes out of key, but it really needs to. be short and passing for it to work. It all depends on context and use if you're straying from key-specific notes. Even if you want to be spontaneous, you still need to relate everything to that reference. If you shoot out in the dark without really listening to the music, you end up with off key notes. Of course it's not always from lack of listening, bad technique, not hearing the music in the monitors enough and a tired overworked instrument can also cause the note to come out too sharp, too flat or straight up the wrong note. You need everything working together, the listening (whether memorizing the pattern AND listening to the live reference or just listening to the reference, but most people do rehearsals for a reason!), the breathing and a properly maintained voice for everything to sound great.

Last edited by AJFmzk; 19th May 2019 at 10:52 PM.