Vocal Range
E2 ~ G5 (3 octaves, 1 note and 1 semitone)
Supported Range
E3 ~ E4/F4
Voice Type
Tenor
Strengths/Achievements
- Able to switch comfortably into falsetto register
- Voice is very light and sits comfortably in a one octave range which he sings in mostly
- He is able to support a bit of his lower range down to E3 and D3 at times
- Notes up until E4 and F4 are oftentimes relaxed and not very squeezed
- Able to stay mostly in pitch with his falsetto
- Intonation has improved from debut, as well as falsetto register
- Lower range isn’t exactly breathy
Points for Improvement
- Nasality is a very present part of his singing, unwanted unintentional uncontrolled nasality
- Intonation is still a problem and can many times become flat and pitchy
- Vocal runs aren’t very smooth or produced through separating every note, pitch isn’t precise either
- Tends to raise his larynx and squeeze his throat very low in his range
- Unable to correctly support his voice, notes above F4 are often strained and whiny
- Narrow supported range
- Underdeveloped vocal registers
- Falsetto is often breathy and disconnected
- Lower range is often quiet and not a well explored register
- Instability at times present in his voice
- Absence of vibrato
- Breath support isn’t very evenly controlled
Registers
- Lower register: Very unstable lower range, with a lack of extension on that part. Notes around E3 and below lose volume but not exactly cord connection. Although that’s a plus, the volume drop and lack of projection is quite evident on notes below E3.
- Mixed register: very underdeveloped overall. His larynx has the tendency to shoot up very low in his mix, he will often squeeze his throat and project his mixed register through his nose, straining through most of his range. However so, he does not tend to try and sing much outside of his comfortable mixed range, ending around F4 to G4, which does not hurt his voice as much.
- Upper register: Breathy and not well controlled, at times he will be able to smoothly transition into his falsetto, but many times his falsetto will be either very unprojected and breathy, or just very nasal and thin. His control of his falsetto often becomes unbalanced in pitch due to how squeezed his throat is when singing in this register. However so, he’s been able to produce more well placed falsetto notes than in other registers, such as his F#5’s in “Love You To Death”.
Agility
His voice is that of a tenor, which in theory should allow for easier vocal runs to come about. Taeyang draws a lot of influence from R&B music and hence often sings vocal runs, but they lack a lot in terms of note separation and pitch accuracy, often hitting flat or off key notes, or simply sliding through notes in a vocal run without actually emphasizing each individual pitch in his vocal runs. This area is one that needs most work due to the style of music he chooses to sing, which requires vocal agility and ornamentations.
Overall analysis
According to YG entertainment and fans alike, Taeyang is Big Bang’s main vocalist. As such, he’s also been given many chances to go solo and has had a very successful and popular career as part of Big Bang and as a soloist. Taeyang’s voice is very smooth and light, often showing that his influence is R&B, since his tone sounds very R&B-like, such as Ne-Yo, Chris Brown and Usher. He is a tenor, therefore his voice is supposed to be able to handle higher ranges and sit more comfortably in a higher area than where he usually sings in. Following the YG formula, however, Taeyang shows more artistic freedom and feels more like an artist and dancer than a vocalist who focuses on vocal technique. He explores his musical side, but his vocal skill limits itself to his specific style of singing and has not changed much since debut until now.
Taeyang’s lower register is a very under-explored register overall. On notes in between E3 and B3, his voice seems to sit very comfortably and it’s usually as low as he sings. On occasion he will sing lower and hit notes below E3 down to C#3, but most of the time his volume will drop and his voice will sound shaky and unsure. He lacks control also in pitch the lower he goes, which can be caused due to the lack of breath support and the vocal runs that descend into his lower register. He doesn’t go lower than C#3, which isn’t very low for any male, which may show a lack of confidence and comfort in that register. His voice, as a tenor, however sits slightly higher in range and although the natural tenor tessitura should be able to handle C3 and above, those voices start to shine more into the upper third octave and mostly when they hit the fourth octave.
In his mixed register, Taeyang often sings very comfortably and often around C4 to E4 and quite constantly will hit notes around F4 and G4 in more dramatic climaxes. One of Taeyang’s biggest issue here is how his voice isn’t properly supported and how he intakes breath too often in very short periods, not allowing for his diaphragm to fully expand and support his voice to create a better produced and fuller tone in his voice. Taeyang’s larynx also tends to go higher on F#4’s and G4’s, losing tone and starting to sound quite strained. Anything from G4 up to C5 is often very strained and squeezed with his swallowing muscles and throat closing around his vocal cords. However so, he doesn’t often go that high because his songs don’t require him to and he seems to know his voice well enough to know where he can comfortably sing and where he can’t. It’s quite hard to find songs where Taeyang actually belts and sustains high notes. Examples include his belted Bb4’s in “하루하루”, his A4’s in the bridge of “Fantastic Baby” and his G4’s in “눈, 코, 입”.
The falsetto register is more often used than the belting register and it feels like a safer, more comfortable register for him. Notes in this register are often more relaxed and confident, but lack in terms of production and projection. Throughout the years he’s been able to improve his ability to more smoothly transition into this register, but has yet to learn to explore the fullness of this register. For the style of music Taeyang sings, the thinner more nasal falsetto often feels like a better stylistic choice, but by the sound of the tone produced, the throat being squeezed can clearly be heard. His falsetto can at times be cleaner and more well placed than his other registers, but still lacking in terms of support and resonance. He can also sound slightly uncontrolled and flat in this register, more often than his other registers.
Taeyang’s biggest flaw as a vocalist is his nasality. Nasality, breathiness, throatiness and such, can all be vocal effects done depending on the genre of music one sings, however those can only be considered stylistic choices when they are, as mentioned, choices. In other words, singers choose to sing that way but can also choose to sing differently if they like. Taeyang’s never shown the ability to control his nasality, which along with his lack of breath support, directly affect his lack of ability to produce fuller, better placed resonant notes. Most of the times Taeyang projects and sings through his nose, one of his most noticeable vocal flaws, which causes his voice to be very thin and small in tone overall as well. Another flaw that shows a lack of ability to relax his voice and support it properly is the absence of vibrato, which is just not there in his singing. Vibrato is often produced by the relaxation of the vocal cords along with proper breath support, both inexistent in his singing. Another flaw is his pitch which will at times go off in many performances. An example would be the live performance of “You’re My“, where his transitions into falsetto and back brought him off key and off pitch.
Overall, Taeyang is much more of an artist than he is a vocalist. He’s learned to use his voice comfortably in a narrow supported range which is used effectively to sell and promote his music. He does not heavily try and promote himself as a vocalist, instead, focusing more on a the performance side of his music, often by dancing and giving a good show. He is an artist who’s very successful in Korea and even though he not be the most technical vocalist, the direction his music takes isn’t about being the most vocally capable vocalist out there, but instead a smooth sexy R&B performer focusing on choreography, which he will always deliver very effectively.
Musicianship
Taeyang most of the time will not change much of the melody of his songs, but will add energetic movements and runs through the stage by screaming and bringing the energy up. On ballads, however, he will at times try and add different vocal runs or change the melody, but it will be mostly flat or feel out of place. However so, most of the time he tends to sing without changing much or taking too many risks, which helps his music be delivered more effectively to his audience.
Label (Type of Vocalist)
C Vocalists: Commercial Vocalists
S vocalists: Stylistic Vocalists
Vocal Range Video(s)
Video by: 2NE1Bang
Best Vocal Performance
—
Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)
(Originally analyzed by Chung)
K-pop Vocalists' Vocal Analyses 
He looks so relaxed on stage, is it any better than other performances?
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There’s nothing truly noteworthy. He still is really heavily using a nasally placed sound for his singing throughout. He is letting a lot of the backing track do the higher parts and mostly singing the verses of I Need A Girl, which are around Eb4’s mostly. Then 2:00 closed flat F#4, then E4’s and then 2:03 another flat throaty F#4. 2:13 shaky and flat falsetto. 2:30 very closed F#4. He sounds a bit tired throughout, he is not really attempting to breathe properly throughout. Body is similar, a lot of backing track doing the higher parts. Most of what he’s doing is singing parts that are basically “Hey everyone sing along!” He’s focusing more on engaging with his audience than singing, since these songs aren’t really vocally focused. 2:23 his lower range down the octave, around E3 and such, it sounds a lot better produced and more comfortable than the rest. I mean honestly…these performances are not focused on the singing whatsoever, they do him no favors to show any sort of improvements vocally because he’s barely focusing on singing well.
I keep hearing this tongue tension that I know Jimin from BTS emulates because he copies Taeyang’s singing a lot, but I didn’t notice it much before. It feels like back before 2010 it used to be less prevalent but it became more of a bad habit recently. This song, Love You To Death, it only goes down to like G3 and up to Eb4, aside from his falsetto. 2:58 tight F#4’s and G#4’s, but his mix doesn’t sound that bad. It’s pretty balanced, it’s clean, it’s just his throat is tight and he’s not supporting at all. 3:12 his falsetto is pretty tight too, the pitch isn’t very precise through the adlibs but he doesn’t sound too bad. I’m afraid the answer is no, it isn’t really any better than other performances of his. He’s had better ones.
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Hahaha, you went more than what I asked for really. Thanks for the really though response 🙂
What I got out of this is that because of Taeyang’s nice voice he doesn’t really get noticed as a vocally weak singer. He’s just a good performer.
Thanks once again for the response
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Just came back after I saw this video.
Taeyang sings with the presence of vibrato in this early video, however the years after this I noticed that he sings without a vibrato. Like most of his songs from 2009 onward, I can’t hear it at all. Could it be probably for stylistic purposes? I have to ask something, is his vibrato natural? And is it healthier to sing with vibrato or without it?
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It’s healthier to sing with a natural vibrato. A NATURAL vibrato indicates healthy singing most of the time, a forced vibrato is a bad sign. His vibrato and his breathing sounds nice here, I’m adding this to his best vocal performances because he is actually making a conscious effort to support and breathe throughout this performance. There’s a lot more singing, I think it’s the R&B style he’s going for that’s more vibrato heavy. I think it’s probably stylistic yes.
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Thanks for the reply, I didn’t notice it. I’m not familiar with Taeyang’s early solo career, so this was new to me. After stumbling on the video randomly, I did try to find more videos with him focusing in singing, but then he would start rapping and dancing midway. I did find a video of him singing a solo performance of A Fool’s Only Tears, but he was playing the piano and then rapped and talked midway so, I guess it can’t pass. haha
I did notice that his early solo concert is more stable despite dancing most of the time than his more famous solo/BB concerts. I can sometimes hear him sing with vibrato on BB’s first 2 years. That brings me to question if his singing of Cracks of my Broken Heart is better than his most recent vocal performances? If so, did his technique regress for the past 10 years instead of improving?
Sorry, for asking too much. ^^;
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His technique didn’t necessarily regress, he just became less focused on singing.
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Hey why is this dude still marked as “BIGBANG’s weakest vocalist” whilst Seungri is weaker than him?
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Also do you think G-Dragon actually tries to sing with correct technique? He generally sounds bad (e.c. Sober 1at Verse) and I really wonder if the dude actually tries to sing well
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I don’t know him on a personal level to be able to answer a question like that. I can only hear what he does, which is singing with improper technique. I can’t guess if his intention is different from the end result. Also Seungri is a sub vocalist. That part is referring to lead and main vocalists only.
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Hi, what’s Taeyang using at 2:30? Head voice or falsetto? I believe it’s head voice.
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Perhaps a very tight and whiny head voice, it’s hard to tell cause I feel I hear a backing track mixed with his voice.
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wow, reading through the comments this seems more like a “come and bash Taeyang” page 😦 I know you’re not biased but do you have any nice things to say about Taeyang at all?
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I hope you’re not referring to us, the analysts. We have nothing against Taeyang, we like his songs but since he’s not a highly rated vocalist, the comment section can seem less favorable. I apologize about that.
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No, no, don’t apologize. What I meant was that the amount of criticisms directed at Taeyang’s technique were getting to the point of people only highlighting and focussing on his flaws without having a single nice thing to say about him, which I think is an unbalanced and unfair style of critique. Instead of being constructive criticisms, they felt a little belittling at times. The amount of negativity was very saddening.
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koreaboo, don’t be so sensitive, cause people discussing about troubles and in every kind of job you have to talk about it, that you could to learn, to progress… and here are talking about technical things which for most people not musicians are hardly understandable. But doesn’t mean that some people (who are fans) don’t enjoy and don’t write compliments in other sites, just there is no blind biasing and no hate 😉
cheer up
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Hi ahmin, I saw what you posted about Taeyang and my curiosity took over. At what note did he start potentially mixing earlier? You think he could be a baritenor maybe?
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I don’t think he’s a baritenor, but he could be a baritone. I heard mixing around E4, I heard even some mixing quality around D4 and up to B3 I was confused about his voice placement.
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Taeyang.. a baritone?..Did I hear that correctly?..
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I don’t think he is one but it is a possibility cause he always sings in mixed voice even in his lower range.
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but its possible to train yourself to mix lower than you naturally would for a tenor, like it is for a baritone to mix higher than a baritone usually would naturally right?
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Yes of course.
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so how would you go around finding out if he is a tenor a baritone? would there be a noticeable difference in that low mix (B3 – D4) between a baritone and a tenor? less weighty perhaps? or maybe more weighty? since he would need to add more weight chest mix to go that low, just like a baritone would need to lessen his chest mix to go as high as a tenor,
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No, it would be about finding out how low he NEEDS to mix.
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“He is Big Bang’s weakest vocalist”
Does this mean that he weaker only than Daesung or weaker than all other members of the group?
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At that time I was being ambiguous on purpose cause I wasn’t sure. Now I’m sure that yes it’s just that way amongst the lead and main vocalists of Big Bang, so between him and Daesung only.
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Oh good Lol, got a bit of a shock there😁
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Because even though I love his tone, G-Dragon sounds nasal.
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But that’s the same case for Taeyang ._.
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I love how you acknowledged that Taeyang (and to be honest, Big Bang as a group) explores himself as an artist and is more focused on aspects of musical creativity like composing and songwriting. Because that’s exactly what… I guess…he’s about if that makes sense? Like imagine him, or Big Bang as a group, doing ‘idol-ish’ stuff instead of owning the stage with charisma and stage presence and touching our hearts with the sincerity in their lyrics (lol imagine G-Dragon and TOP as a part of an SM ‘idol’ group omg TROLOLOL xDD). That’s who they are as a group and that’s what we, VIPS, love and appreciate them for ❤
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The reason he is a weak vocalist is because he was originally a rapper, YG told him to sing and he basically had to start from scratch to learn to sing. Even in his first album you can see that he lacks confidence in singing. He’s definitely come a long way from then to his recent album
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Look…I know this is a studio version but since I ( -am lowkey an impatient person- ) *cough* can’t contain my *cough* excitement I have to ask this. Even if it’s a studio version, can you hear ANY, like, absolutely ANY improvements in Taeyang’s vocal technique? I know you like specific questions, so I’ll be more specific…are there any improvements in his support and nasality? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlDRgxce3JQ
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dang it, it doesn’t cross out and show a line effect
#badyoutubehabits
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I doubt there’s improvement but damm rarely hear Taeyang belt so high
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No, unfortunately I hear nothing different than how he has always sung. He mixed a few A4’s and Bb4’s, which is not too common for him. I hear nothing new, no.
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Did he ever undergo proper vocal training?
It doesn’t matter really as long as he writes good shit. I just hope that he explores more on his vocals to add more variation to his stuff.
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There’s not a single YG vocalist who has received proper vocal training from the company. Lee Hi was already able to support before she joined YG, same for Seungyoon. Daesung and Minzy, on the other hand, developed a sense of support and improved their technique by themselves by receiving external coaching, most likely. Taehyun (ex-winner) would be average.
Every other YG main/lead vocalist is weak to average at best or very weak at worst.
If there’s one reason I strongly dislike YG, it’s because he refuses to give his idols proper vocal training. At least SM gives proper vocal training to 1 or 2 vocalists per group and JYPE has some okay-ish ones.
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i think in King of Masked singer some composer was complimenting Seungyoon that he sing much better than he heard him in Kstar2 (or how it calls), some progress can see. I’m just kinda disappointed about Daesung, in last few years his singing become worst, some “bad” rasp in his voice and special when he end words he make that small shout (i don’t know how to call it)
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It’s been a while since I’ve seen Taeyang just sing on stage rather than just perform. I guess, this one counts despite being a duet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM7akm_WW7M
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In the first paragraph in the overall analysis, the last sentence says that he is Big Bang’s weakest vocalist. Does that mean he is also worse than Seungri?
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Oop, nevermind I just read a comment about it, my question is answered lool
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I meant lead and main vocalists. I was not thinking of Seungri because I saw him as a sub-vocalist.
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Can you shortly talk about Seungri? I don’t mean to ask you to write an analysis for Seungri since I know he’s a sub-vocal, I’m just curious about how you will evaluate him.
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Your question isn’t very specific unfortunately, so I can’t really answer it any further.
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Has he improved anywhere in his recent music? I really enjoyed his ENL duet on Fantastic Duo; what can he improve on that performance? Thanx
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You mean the performance in which he sang with the girl? I mean is that the most recent performance of his we can talk about? Cause that would be the most recent I remember seeing myself too. I don’t remember him singing any differently from what I’m used to from him. From that performance, how do you feel he did and what do you believe could’ve been done better? Do you mind linking it?
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Hi! Taeyang had an unofficial YouTube channel before with 2 covers. He was not really performing, just singing and playing the keyboard. Would this be one of his best vocal performances? What do you think?
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I’ve been listening to a lot of Rain recently, & I was curious to hear some thoughts on him since his sound seems to have been a big influence on Jimin & Taeyang.
Some features of Rain’s singing I’ve noticed:
Positive –
Consistently utilizes breath support
Does not seem to have the same issues with timing his breaths that Taeyang does.
His transitions into falsetto are generally smooth & relaxed.
Has improved his vocal technique noticeably over time.
Intonation has improved as well
Smart vocalist, sings almost everything above his second bridge (high 4th to low 5th octave & above) in falsetto rather than trying to belt & risking strain.
Has developed enough feel for his own songs that he’s able to add unique elements, like high notes & runs, into his live performances & execute them reasonably well.
Negatives –
Has a habit of pulling off of notes quickly. This is certainly a stylistic choice for him, but I feel it might be a bit concerning.
Nasality & some whininess is still quite present in his singing, although it mostly occurs when he goes higher into the 4th octave.
Can keep his jaw a little too closed at times & squeeze/overcompress on notes higher in the fourth octave. Can also be throaty at times.
It sounds at times like he’s starting out from an over-compressed place & pulling back abruptly to create an emotional sound.
Here’s two of the best performances I found of one of his most demanding songs, Love Story (it has a number of sustained notes in the high 4th octave & sustained C5 note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pNycwe7zR8,
Vocal Range – A2-G5, according to this site: https://therangeplanet.proboards.com/thread/436/rain
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I’m not a vocal coach & don’t have any formal education in singing so if I mischaracterized anything or there’s something I failed to catch, just let me know.
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This vid helped with my thoughts too:
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“Breath support isn’t very evenly controlled” Did that mean his airflow were unstable while mixing? Btw, Do singers with good vocal technique necessarily have better stamina than ordinary people?
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