I don't really want to write a critique but I will because you asked. I was playing the devil's advocate as I stated and I was being harsher than I actually felt. Since I had asked ANR2011 to give me an example of a singer he felt was soulful and deserved more exposure than she was getting because of gender and no other reason, I was pressing the point as to why should she get more coverage.

It's hard to micro judge actual actions like that of why feeling didn't get transmitted... but I will do my best to express where "I" felt her shortcomings were in that particular performance. I am not judging her v.s. her recorded performance either and I am not making critiques because I've never heard raw voices either.

I am not going to focus on pitch too much for its own sake but rather things that probably caused her to loose pitch, that could have been fixed by altering arrangement, her delivery, or microphone technique.

I think she most likely sounds better than she came off as in that performance but - then again - that is delivery.

45: stable -
48: strain - pushes her off key
59: recovers

(1:00) they don't seem to be feeling her in the quite the right way.

1:16: lack of air caused by dancing and not singing.
1:32: pitch drifting again
1:33: sibilance due to proximity becoming audible cause she's on the microphone too much.

1:49: she knows there's a note coming that she's going to miss
1:51: she goes off - by quite a bit (you can see on her face she heard it too

1:56: she goes off but in a pleasing way

2:11: background doubles come on - listen to contrast between the tuned version of her and herself. The difference is - well - different.

2:16: she misses a change for a good sustain because she's out of air so she pulls back and takes a breath instead of holding the note.

2:26: that run was off - in a not so pleasing way.
2:29: the "ohahh" steped on a nice clean and lovely run - air again?

Rap - not going to care about pitch during this section - but timing was off and cadence was strained and it seemed like she isn't feeling her own words.

2:36: running out of air again | forcing her to go off
2:37: out of air now and dancing too much causing her to sing through the microphone with her nose rather than her mouth -

3:44: pulling away on her sustains again - causing volume dips - getting more air.

3:48 -> 3:56 : sounds nice and heartfelt

4:06: dancing getting in the way of singing again.

I don't know why people insist on sinning a song live - the same way it was recorded if it was recorded with some many double and layers that it is impossible for a human being to fill their lungs long enough live to deliver the same notes. Though I don't think that was the case in this instance for most of the time... there were some times where any lungs would have struggled to keep up.


As far as being in the right place at the right time with the microphone, that is something that can only be taken care of by doing it live - again and again until one understands that a small head-bob off axis this way or that way can produce audible effects when trying to direct sound into a microphone.

The people came to hear her sing, and he singing should come first before the acting and dancing - she is on stage to convey emotion with her voice and if the dancing accentuates that without getting in the way - wonderful, if it gets in the way at all it doesn't even out - it is not worth it.



Now on the part of her not carrying soulfulness in her music - I will stand by that statement. If the song is supposed to be sotto ma affettuoso I found it be more subdued and less emotional. There is something in the softness of vowels that intimates emotion - probably because we cry or laugh in vowels - Actually, I am just going to stop there before I end up writing a wall of text. I didn't feel it- and to me she didn't feel what she was singing either and that is where the lack of soulfulness comes from. The moment the listener detects artifice or exaggeration - the connection gets lost. That means too much forced feeling and it becomes a ham performance in an exaggerated mocking caricature and not enough emotion makes it impersonal and just someone singing. Now if they sing perfectly, that in itself is a praise worth achievement - operatic singers for instance would tend to want to be sonically perfect than emotionally conductive (that is soul less music in the delivery - but it is not bad music.)

Though now we are speaking in hyperbole and we've entered a gray zone where acting and singing merge and perhaps that's all I can say about it. One doesn't actually have to truly feel or believe what they say when they are acting, but they have to convince the audience that they do.


You sound wonderful.

But it is apples and pears vs performing on stage with microphone a few inches away from your mouth, with a band that is on autopilot and very different kind of song stylistically.

I do like the way you sound though - thanks for making my day a little brighter.