My first attempt to not suck at singing (a John Frusciante cover)

So I am not a natural singer at all, and I relate very much with the experience Justin described here How not to suck at singing! - YouTube
Nonetheless, that video inspires me to try and stick with it anyway, just because I love folk/songwriter genres and I’ve always wished I were able to sing, and perhaps there is a way to find out how not to suck even if it doesn’t come natural to you.

Anyway, I feel like I’ve improved, even if just a little bit, in the past month, ever since I started with the exercises in that video. My natural range is on the baritone-low side, but in this cover I try some “higher” notes too.

I’d love some honest feedback cause it’s hard for me to figure out how it sounds to other people (for some reason, I find it a lot harder to “detach” and listen to the recording “objectively” as I am more or less able to do when I record a guitar part, I don’t know why that is), so thank you in advance!

4 Likes

Hey Paolo. Some really good guitar work there, well done.
You say you want feedback on your vocal. I’m certainly no expert but although you say your natural tone is low baritone, I felt you sounded more comfortable when you sang the slightly higher parts of the song.
Have you tried playing the same chord shapes with a capo at perhaps fret 2?

Singing and playing both sounded pretty darn good to me, Paolo. Based on what you have shared to date, I’d say you set your bar to a pretty high standard. Nothing wrong with that.

Beyond me to make suggestions. All I can say, based on personal experience, it is absolutely possible to learn to sing, just as it is to play. If that is something you desire, my choice was Chris Liepe’s Discover Your Voice, but I am sure there are many options as well as face-face with a singing teacher.

That’s a really impressive first attempt Paolo! I thought both your vocals and playing were outstanding! You have nothing to fear with your vocals. Love the song choice too.

I don’t care a lick about singing other than to serve the song, to help carry the melody and to keep the guitar playing on time. You lost your timing in a spot or two, but if you focus more on the playing and less on the singing, it will all come together in a more cohesive manner. Singing will make you a better player, but it’s not the most important thing.

Your playing sounds good to me, nice and steady and with good tone. You are off to a great start!

Hello Paolo, to be honest, after listening to your song, I can’t understand what you’re worrying about. Your vocals sound pretty good :clap::slightly_smiling_face:. And you have definitely not chosen an easy song to sing.

I agree with Gordon, and would definitely experiment a bit with the capo. I use it quite often to find the best fit for my limitted voice range :wink:.

But besides that minor point, it all sounded really good :smiley:. Keep on going :+1:.

Hi Paolo,
Wow,… :sunglasses: :clap: :bouquet:,
And if you continue to develop your playing and singing, you will be playing in front of full pubs and??? in no time :sunglasses:
Greetings,Rogier

Hi Paolo that was great, big JF fan here and I can say you did it justice! Good playing and really nice sound quality. As for honest feedback goes it sounds really good to me for a recording type of song, using mic positioning and by twisting knobs can give a really cool balance which you clearly achieved. If you were to perform live I think it might had been a bit too quiet and you would struggle to punch through the crowd. But purely from recording point of view it was hi-qu for me!

That was well done Paolo. i agree with all the comments re nothing to concern yourself with your singing. AFAIC vocal and guitar were good.

@sairfingers and @NicoleKKB thank you both! Both of your comments further prove to me that I for some reason am still struggling to hear myself objectively. I hope that comes with practice too. You are right about the capo, but I also feel like I need to find the balance between using the capo to sing in the most comfortable range and not using it to try and learn to extend the range. Lots of work to do! :slight_smile:

@DavidP thank you! And yeah I saw the videos Chris did with Justin and found them great so I will look at his channel too, great shout!

@Eddie_09 @roger_holland @adi_mrok @Willsie01 thank you so much for the kind words :slight_smile:

@CT you are right, I did lose timing at one point but I was like “the hell with it…let’s go on” :sweat_smile: thanks for listening!

3 Likes

That was some nice playing and singing Paolo. I thought you did a great job with the song.

I agree with @sairfingers Gordon though, your vocals did sound better when you went higher.

Hi Paolo

Lots of good advice given so far on the singing side, so nothing to add but experiment and find a Key that fits. You can certainly hold a note and have a good voice. Oh and the playing wasn’t too shabby, in fact it was very good. An all round good performance, thanks for sharing.

:sunglasses: