Mellowncholy - Frank Ocean Vibes

Hey, love the sound of the instrumental. Your vocal delivery is wobbly, you need to take deeper breaths, warm up your vocals, no dairy products or nuts or smoking before or during your vocal session. There's definitely an artistry to the vocals but the ear doesn't like too much vibrato with that kind of echo effect as well because the reverb taps into harmonics that clash. Also there needs to be more variation in your vocal arrangement. You sing the same melody quite often. Your vocals can be lead guitar, they can go anywhere, and you keep goin to the store. Nah man. Go on adventures. :)
finally lyrics, you wanna say what you mean but you don't wanna give it all up on the first listen basically. Ppl should work to understand your perspective. You are speaking generally. Songs are personal. Your lyrics should be the way you express yourself, very very much YOU not just hello good morning how are you. But things you experience, that make you feel like this that and that. Say you wake up every morning to see a Baywatch poster on your wall. Instead of saying I woke up, you can say, Baywatch came back into my view. Wtf does that mean? You know! And the listener has to find out!

but super cool cool ideas and I am listening to some other tracks and I can tell you're really trying to make something interesting. Vocals, melody arrangement, sharpening lyrics and monitoring instrument levels and tones, man... it's gonna be some good stuff! Keep it up!

hope this helped!
 
hope this helped!
Ummm...can I get a heck yeah? This is amazing feedback. Real real feedback. Can't wait to reply to each element of what you said right now.

Hey, love the sound of the instrumental.!
Shout out to wrain on the beat.

Your vocal delivery is wobbly, you need to take deeper breaths, warm up your vocals, no dairy products or nuts or smoking before or during your vocal session.
Don't smoke and don't drink. Also lactose intolerant and I don't snack lol! So yes it's more technical then...I do warm ups - about 25 minutes of lip rolls, vocal frying, yah-yahs, you know the drill. Basically stuff my vocal coaches taught me in the past that I have been sustaining on my own for about 2 years since I stopped seeing one! Noted on the breathing - I feel sometimes you can take too much in as well, leading to a bloated sounding delivery. The balance is always a bit tough moreso when performing with a mic that can amplify even a whisper into something that sounds powerful. I think gain-staging may play a role here as well! Thanks :)

There's definitely an artistry to the vocals but the ear doesn't like too much vibrato with that kind of echo effect as well because the reverb taps into harmonics that clash.
It's funny when I met my first or maybe second vocal coach I always used to say I want to sing with vibrato because it sounds emotional - I couldn't deliver with any vibrato really - notes just sounded too straight...which I found boring - and as is human nature I gravitated to listening to singers with a lot of what I didn't have in the form of vibrato in envy that I could not deliver an "emotional" performance like that. Guys like August Alsina whose strong vibrato on songs like "Song Cry" make their voices sound like they are truly crying while singing over the beat - for me I loved it. Maybe it wasn't so good to seek that out - I believe I can sing straighter for sure but for this song now that you mention I think as you say there is too much vibrato, probably even forced vibrato because I probably was consciously trying to impart vibrato into my voice to deliver softer mellow tones like I do in this song. But I definitely know what you mean - listening again I hear at 2:30/2:31 the reverb/delay definitely caught the tail end of the vibrato and that echo of a vibrato doesn't sound so hot haha!

Also there needs to be more variation in your vocal arrangement. You sing the same melody quite often. Your vocals can be lead guitar, they can go anywhere, and you keep goin to the store. Nah man. Go on adventures. :)

This aspect of the feedback I'm a bit torn on - I actually thought my cadence was pretty good on this - I thought the verse was variable enough no? That within the verse I didn't stay on the same flow too long and I had some good use of repetition/emphasis on certain phrases? Had a long note in there, some normal talking, singing and effective use of small pauses? I think maybe the "that ain't right girl" flow part may have dragged on a tad too long but other than that it was switching up enough for the simplicity of the beat style no? Curious on your more detailed thoughts regarding this!

Finally lyrics, you wanna say what you mean but you don't wanna give it all up on the first listen basically. Ppl should work to understand your perspective. You are speaking generally. Songs are personal. Your lyrics should be the way you express yourself, very very much YOU not just hello good morning how are you. But things you experience, that make you feel like this that and that. Say you wake up every morning to see a Baywatch poster on your wall. Instead of saying I woke up, you can say, Baywatch came back into my view. Wtf does that mean? You know! And the listener has to find out!
This is extremely intriguing. First of all let me say thanks for giving the lyrics their own section for feedback - for me lyrics are the most important thing by far by far by far. I really want people to process the lyrics. Now here's where I want to engage with what you said: I always kind of approach writing lyrics from the perspective of I am writing a personal story about something that happened to me, something about me, or for someone I know who has impacted me (i.e. in the case of this song which I obviously wrote about a certain individual in particular). However, I write this personal story from a more general perspective - not because I don't want to own the story or because I'm afraid of judgment - but because I always thought if I generalize it a bit then the story is more relatable to a listener. That is, someone could listen to this song and instead of it being the person I wrote it about coming to their mind, it can be a person that the song reminds them of instead coming to their mind and the song becomes "theirs" in that sense. That's why I try to refrain from dropping actual names in my songs; however, if the person I wrote this song for heard it, that individual would instantly know it's for them...without me having to say it directly. But for the listening audience, I don't want to create the image in their mind I want them to create their own image for themselves using the lyrics there written...The song after I deliver it is for the listener at that point and no longer for me...even though it's still for me too because I know the original intent of what the intention behind the phrases were...if that makes sense? That's why I tend to slightly generalize my personal stories or conceptions for songs a bit. But it's a very very very interesting and compelling discussion when it comes to deciding where you draw the line when it comes to making something personal - because the other extreme can have some negative connotations as well - if a song gets too personal it can make a listener uncomfortable and a song can become too unrelatable as well! Got a bit carried away in my response here but, like I said, the actual writing is really what gets me excited, although I do like to perform as well make no mistake about it.

But super cool cool ideas and I am listening to some other tracks and I can tell you're really trying to make something interesting. Vocals, melody arrangement, sharpening lyrics and monitoring instrument levels and tones, man... it's gonna be some good stuff! Keep it up!
Thank you so much. This is why feedback is so invaluable - I will never consider myself to above feedback - all of what you have said will help me keep improving - as long as I'm improving I can never view myself as a failure regardless of whether I ever make a track that gains a lot of attention or not. The real beauty is in the creative process and the discussion that takes place after bringing something that did not exist yesterday sonically into the world today.

Thank you so much Aleya.
 
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