Vocal Discussion of Yuki's Singers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cerise
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Yeah, I know that...but to me, it's only laziness/lack of creativity :XD: /shot by Kaori's parents
 
Maya = 摩耶 = polished question mark
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I’m sorry, but lolwut?! :XD: :XD:

Wakana with her head voice that makes her mostly have to sing in higher notes and can't handle her lower notes well.
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:confu: I’m confused now…okay, so how do you tell the difference between head-voice and chest-voice and what’s the difference between head-voice and falsetto (I thought they were kinda the same thing...) Because I always thought Wakana’s normal voice is her chest-voice and I considered her singing in e.g. paradise regained, where the lights are, the land of water etc. to be her ‘head-voice’/falsetto (unless they’re different?) But I have no knowledge of technical music stuff so I don’t really know, I just go by the way it sounds in my ear… :spotlight:

wakana lacrimosa i think i see her limits specially some live i see some veins in her neck when singing higher notes
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Lacrimosa does seem to be hard work for Wakana to sing but I don’t think it’s because of how high the notes are because I’m pretty sure she sings higher in other songs without completely breaking down, like in storia, Eden etc. (just clarifying and reiterating, I don’t actually know if these songs are higher than Lacrimosa, they just sound higher to my untrained ear, so feel free to correct me :desksweat: :XD: )

Rather, I think the reason why Lacrimosa strains her is because the song is sort of fast and because the notes seem to jump from high to low rather suddenly (like the jump from lower to higher between the “la-cri” in “lacrimosa” – I always feel tense there because she sometimes seems like she’ll fall a little short of the ‘cri’ note), and Wakana’s voice is probably the least agile voice out of the Kala girls (probably the FJ girls too, actually) so she has trouble transitioning pushing her voice from low to suddenly high.

Just in general Wakana seems to strain much more on faster, upbeat songs whilst she could reach the same notes much more comfortably if she was singing a slow song. I think her voice is most suited to ballads and songs that maybe have a fast-ish beat but with moderate-speed singing and notes that don't have too big gaps in between them (e.g. Parallel Hearts, Toki no – they seem to be ‘upbeat’ but the actual singing isn’t too fast and all the notes are clustered in a certain range without many big jumps)

And because her voice seems to be hard to throw around so easily like Hikaru can or Kaori with her very light voice, Wakana seems to be more comfortable on songs that are either high most of the time or low most of the time throughout the song so that she doesn’t have to make jumps from low notes to high notes very quickly and vice versa. Or, she seems to do okay with songs where the notes gradually build up from low to high so she has time to ‘move’ her voice. Either that or if there's a jump between low to high notes, Wakana seems to be able to handle it in ballads and slow-paced songs where she has time to gather up 'momentum' to push herself up onto the high note.

It might also have something to do with how she seems to have trouble with short notes and ending them cleanly; her voice is the sort that needs a lot of time to round itself off and move itself around. But I think that’s also why I love Wakana can hold long notes well. :shy:

Going back to the musical instrument vs. vocal analogy, I always think Wakana’s voice is similar sort of to the sound of a violin; both of them sound sort of ‘tense’ and even have a similar ‘tragic’ tone or character. It seems to be much harder to play a short, sharp note that ends cleanly on a violin than on, say, a piano or flute or trumpet, which I think Hikaru and Kaori’s voices sort of tend to emulate (btw, this is not including techniques like pizzicato on violin which is like, I think when you pluck the strings to get short notes? Yeah…I’m only considering normal violin playing in this comparison)

Likewise, violins produce very smooth, joined-up notes (I think the term is legato) in a similar way to how Wakana sings, sort of joining her notes so the end of a note seems to ‘melt’ into the beginning of the next note – this sort of accounts for why she doesn’t make leaps as well, maybe, because she likes to join up her notes. Similarly with a violin, it seems to be hard playing fast songs that have shorts notes that leap from high to low and everywhere.

Note, the violin analogy I just used was in reference to Wakana in her good form when her voice isn’t stressed out and tired like it recently has been. Although thinking about it now, the violin analogy still applies to her voice, except recently she’s been sounding like how a beginner or less-skilled violinist tends to play, sort of making the notes choppy (I’ve noticed she’s lost a bit of that legato-style singing, especially in recent oblivious lives where she chops up all her notes in contrast to the Seventh Heaven live oblivious when she still had that smooth legato sort of singing).

And because her voice seems to be stressed and a little hoarse recently, it’s sort of like when you apply too much pressure to the strings of a violin and the sound comes out sounding a bit scratchy, squeaky, not so smooth, perhaps even screeching on higher notes. Maybe Wakana’s vocal cords are under too much pressure as well. :cry:
 
Sorry, sorry for double posting :bow: :bow:

I have a query, from interview with Haruna Luna, apparently Yuki taught her this:

My voice is pretty low, but she taught me to sing high more easily by raising the corners of my mouth as I sang.
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Does that mean singing whilst smiling can actually make you sing higher? (Because smiling involves lifting the corners of your mouth, right? :confu: )
 
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aki said:
^ but isn't Keiko always smiling when singing live? :ayashii:
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True, and Wakana looks melancholy or serious most of the time...so maybe it's lifting the corners of your mouth in a different sort of way to smiling? :confu:

/is trying it

/fails :blood: :XD:
 
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aki said:
HimeWakana said:
^ but isn't Keiko always smiling when singing live? :ayashii:
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she has really a beautiful smile :sohappy: :sohappy:
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sometimes it's really scary though :hide:
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Yep. I noticed in most of the live concerts Keiko tried to put on a serious face but a smile keep breaking through till I though she's gonna burst out laughing. :ohoho: Like in "Kagayaku Sora no Shijima Ni Wa", it's supposed to be a sad song.
 
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Cerise said:
aki said:
^ but isn't Keiko always smiling when singing live? :ayashii:
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True, and Wakana looks melancholy or serious most of the time...so maybe it's lifting the corners of your mouth in a different sort of way to smiling? :confu:

/is trying it

/fails :blood: :XD:
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Yeah, Wakana's really serious when singing on stage. But it's different when she talks... so bubbly and cheerful. :XD:
 
This is probably slightly off-topic, sorry, but I wasn't sure where else to ask:

In 'paradigm' from KnK, is it Wakana doing the low harmonisation for Hanae or is it Hanae layered over herself? :confu:

Also, (more on-topic now), does Hanae use vibrato? I don't hear it AT ALL, her voice is so amazingly smooth!
 
In 'paradigm' from KnK, is it Wakana doing the low harmonisation for Hanae or is it Hanae layered over herself? :confu:
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Yeah, it's Wakana.

Also, (more on-topic now), does Hanae use vibrato? I don't hear it AT ALL, her voice is so amazingly smooth!
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It depends on the song. You can hear her use vibrato in Himeboshi and Mezame.
 
^ Oh, thanks! :bow:
reiteration of a previous question: is there a difference between 'falsetto' and 'head voice'? I thought they were the same thing... :confu:
(Also, how do you tell the difference between a 'head voice'/'falsetto'/whatever it's called and a 'chest voice'?) :desksweat: :XD:
 
Well, from my opinion head-voice and falsetto is sort of similar. Chest-voice on the other hand, usually results in vibratos. Honestly, I think powerful vibratos are produced from chest-voice but then again that's my opinion.
 
^For me, it's definitely different for the singers themselves. It's clear for me that when does my head voice shift to falsetto. (The first voice resonance in my head while when it comes to falsetto, all just vibrates weakly in my throat.) But for the listeners, it may be difficult to tell the different between weak head voice and strong falsetto. Read the last paragraph :).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_voice

A clear example of head voice is Wakana&Eri perf for YK live. Yuki's English vocalists like Emily Bindinger, Deb Lyons, etc tend to use head voice as well. While falsetto is classified as a technique to reach higher notes that are almost out of your range, using head voice is viewed as the most efficient way for singers to handle the high note.

IMO, Wakana also uses chest voice when she sang the song in lower register (ex. Mizu no Akashi, Utsukushisa) She tends to use head voice when she does chorus in live performance. (ex. Oblivious chorus, Magia chorus) BTW, for Kajiurago OST songs and Where the lights are, I'm not sure whether it's her head voice or falsetto.... :cry: (I guess that it's the latter.)
 
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Kagaribi no Hanabira said:
^For me, it's definitely different for the singers themselves. It's clear for me that when does my head voice shift to falsetto. (The first voice resonance in my head while when it comes to falsetto, all just vibrates weakly in my throat.) But for the listeners, it may be difficult to tell the different between weak head voice and strong falsetto. Read the last paragraph :).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_voice

A clear example of head voice is Wakana&Eri perf for YK live. Yuki's English vocalists like Emily Bindinger, Deb Lyons, etc tend to use head voice as well. While falsetto is classified as a technique to reach higher notes that are almost out of your range, using head voice is viewed as the most efficient way for singers to handle the high note.

IMO, Wakana also uses chest voice when she sang the song in lower register (ex. Mizu no Akashi, Utsukushisa) She tends to use head voice when she does chorus in live performance. (ex. Oblivious chorus, Magia chorus) BTW, for Kajiurago OST songs and Where the lights are, I'm not sure whether it's her head voice or falsetto.... :cry: (I guess that it's the latter.)
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What about the last line of the first stanza in "Kizuato"? Do you think Wakana use chest voice to produce the vibrato?
 
I think she use chest voice for the whole first&second stanza. I'm not sure about some part of the third stanza but in the fourth stanza, during "Ne, ikiteiru to" she shifted to head voice and the (kite)'i' sounds like falsetto but it's possible to be just her 'weak' head voice as well. (For good singers, it's quite difficult to tell when they shift their head voice to falsetto, the 'shift' tends to be the very smooth one. But it's very obvious in some generic J-pop singers.)

I think a good example of chest voice VS head voice VS falsetto is Hanamori no Oka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj0wTWx55NA
Kaori use the mix of head voice&chest voice in this song. Mainly chest for the verse and mainly head in the hook. While she touch the (eien) 'wo' in the hook with her falsetto.

Wakana use her head voice in the english part and may be falsetto in the bolded parts in

Kiss me and believe me in love or pain
no i'll never lose my whole love for you
Kiss me and we'll find the way into the light
The lights are here

These parts sounds a bit ambiguous... I can't tell whether they're Wakana's (strong) falsetto or (weak) head voice. If it's really falsetto, that means she has very strong falsetto&very smooth shift as well. For TTB&Manten, it seems that she uses head voice so much.

Moreover, I don't think there are any relationship between vibrato and chest voice. Vibrato can be produced by chest voice, head voice, and stamina voice as well.
 
Yeah, I agree with you that Wakana used too much head-voice in "to the beginning" and "manten". No vibratos. :cry: If Wakana sing both of the songs with chest-voice with vibrato as well like she did in "Kizuato" and "Kimi Ga Hikari Ni Kaete Yuku", it would be a blast.
 
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