Park ChoA’s Vocal Analysis

0. M Vocalists: Mid-range vocalists, Companies: FNC Entertainment, Soloists, Sopranos, Vocal Analyses, Vocal Ranges: 3 Octave Ranges, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Vocal Range

D3 ~ D6 (3 octaves)

Supported Range

Bb3/B3 ~ A4/Bb4

Voice Type

Soprano

Strengths/Achievements

  • Consistent support up to A4/Bb4
  • Can occasionally bring support up to B4
  • Occasional resonance up to A4/Bb4
  • Supported sound down to Bb3/B3
  • Smooth legato
  • Switches in head register fairly easily

Points for Improvement

  • Airy chest voice
  • Does not lift soft palate consistently
  • Tight/strained sound above Bb4
  • Inconsistent head voice
  • Voice lacks projection
  • Occasionally produces a tight and tense sound in supported range
  • Voice below A3/Bb3 can become quite airy
  • Frequent throaty tonality in the mixed voice

Registers

  • Lower register: ChoA’s lower register is very comparable with the other vocalist around her skill level because she is only able to truly support her voice down to Bb3/B3 just like them. Below Bb3/B3 ChoA’s lower register loses much of the support, tone quality, and projection it once had, especially below A3.  Below A3 her voice loses almost all projection resulting in a weak and airy tone.
  • Mixed register: ChoA’s mixed register is the most consistent part of her voice because she is almost always consistently supported up to A4/Bb4 and on rare occasions can bring small resonance up to A4/Bb4 as well. ChoA’s mix on the upper 4th octave and 5th octave notes is very strained, weak, shrill, and throaty due to a lack of muscle co-ordination.
  • Upper register: ChoA’s upper register is fairly inconsistent because she has shown the ability to use a head voice, but often than not uses an airy falsetto. ChoA’s falsetto is fairly relaxed up to Eb5/E5 and has shown head voice up, albeit strained, up to A5.

Agility

ChoA’s agility is fairly uncoordinated and underveloped. She lacks the muscle co-ordination to skillfully execute each individual pitch in a given run with accurate flow and precision.  This is most evident when she tries to do more complex runs with multiple notes like in the acoustic version of “Short Hair”, though each note is heard the flow and precision is lethargic even though the run is being done in a fairly slow speed. However, in the same performance, she does a much slower run with fewer notes with better flow and precision.

Overall analysis

ChoA made her debut with AoA in 2012 as their main vocalist in the main promotional unit as well as AoA’s band unit, AoA Black. Since her debut ChoA has made her presence as the main vocalist known by handling the groups most difficult lines and by being the lead in the acoustic/vocal performances also appearing on Masked Singer.

Although ChoA is the main vocalist of AoA, she is not a very skilled vocalist. This is because her voice and technique are not developed well enough leading her to have many problems while trying to vocalize. One of her most glaring problems is her tonality. ChoA normally produces a nasal and constricted sound that does not carry power or projection. The reason why this sound is produced is because she does not lift her soft palate, therefore no allowing her voice to resonate in the appropriate cavities in the body in addition to that her sound is also centered in the back of the throat, therefore not allowing it to project forward in the mask. This sound is evident in each one of her registers and is most noticeable when she performed “Beautiful Restriction” on Masked Singer.  Throughout the performance ChoA sings with a very nasal sound due to a lowered soft palate, therefore not allowing her voice to project forward into the mask and keeping it in the back of the throat.

Aside from overall tone production ChoA’s mix has quite a few problems of ts own. Outside of her support range ChoA’s voice, due to her technique, becomes very shrill, strained, thin, and weak because of a severe lack of support and inadequate mixing, even within her supported area ChoA can have inconsistencies. Despite the inconsistencies within her supported area, ChoA has shown she is capable of producing a supported and, at times, resonant sound.  For example she has shown she is capable of doing supported and non-nasal A4s. In the example provided there is quite an glaring difference in ChoA’s sound in the line immediately before the A4 and during the A4. Before her voice is very tight, nasal, and constricted, but during the A4 her throat opens up, her palate lifts, and she projects her sound forward. In addition to being to support A4/Bb4, she has even shown she can carry up a non-nasal and supported sound up to B4.  What makes her inconsistent in her supported range is that she can get very throaty like during her “Empire State of Mind” performance and gets throaty and has tension on many of the A4s.  In the FNC Kingdom performance of “Empire State of Mind” she, again, does many throaty and tense A4s/Bb4s and along with scratchy C#5s. ChoA above C5/C#5 is the same story as her above Bb4/B4 very tense, unsupported, and strained, but even more so.

ChoA’s lower register is quite  underdeveloped only carrying true support and projection down to B3/Bb3 and tone down to A3. Below A3/Bb3 ChoA loses a significant amount of support leading to her voice having a very frail, weak, and breathy tone quality. Like most people, the further she goes into her lower register the weaker and airier he sounds gets. For example, her E3s in her performance “I Have a Lover” are essentially air; the tone quality is very weak and has absolutely no projection. Of course, E3 is a low note especially for a Soprano, but she has the same issue on G3 like in her song “Words I Cannot Say Yet.” G3 is much more comfortable for a Soprano than E3, but she is still producing a very airy and disconnected tone quality.

ChoA instead of head voice uses a falsetto due to a lack of development in the head register. Her falsetto is fairly relaxed up to Eb5/E5 above that her falsetto becomes tense and more pushed. Although she uses a falsetto production majority of the time, there have been moments in which she used head voice for instance her performance of “Without You” she does a head voice D5.

Musicianship

For the most part ChoA’s musicianship is similar to Korean ballad vocalist which is focused a lot around phrasing and showcase the meaning and beauty of a song. She also at times likes to incorporate a bit of rock-tinge to her singing by taking on a rougher sound by adding throatiness and rasp. When she’s not trying to sound like a rockstar she takes a much softer approach to her music singing in very smooth legato lines to carry the songs intentions.

Label (Type of Vocalist)

M Vocalists: Mid-Range Vocalists

Vocal Range Video(s)

Videos by: Hawaiipups and kpopvocalists

Best Vocal Performance(s)

N/A

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Analyzed by Pandayeu

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88 thoughts on “Park ChoA’s Vocal Analysis”

  1. In the Registers section, it says that her falsetto is fairly relaxed up to F5/F#5 but in the Overall Analysis section, it says that her falsetto is fairly relaxed up to Eb5/E5 above that her falsetto becomes tense and more pushed. So which is correct?

    anyway yeah ChoA! Thanks for the analysis~ 😀

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  2. I’m surprised that ChoA has even shown the ability to use head voice. Thought she’d be Weak to Average, so this is a nice surprise ^^ Thanks for the analysis, really well written!

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      1. podrian hacer de AOA Yuna y Jonghyun CNBLUE ! creo que que su voz es mejor que los cantantes principales de sus bandas !

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      2. Si que escuchamos los dos y Yuna no tiene una tecnica mejor que ChoA, y Jonghyun tambien no tiene una tecnica mejor que Yonghwa. Las analises no son sobre las vozes de Los cantantes, solo ta tecnica vocal.

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  5. Thanks for putting my video at the bottom! Nice analysis! As looking for her vocal range I noticed that Choa really focuses on the beauty of her voice. Her voice is very beautiful but I don’t think she was trained to be a strong level vocalist. AOA as a whole is a group who focuses on soft and sweet vocals with sexy dance moves. They truly depend on the tone and beauty of there voice and like you said sometimes Choa gets tired of that and goes rocker lol. She is a beautiful person and has a beautiful voice. She could do so much with it.

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    2. I personally think her best peformance is Without You. Has supported mixed A4’s, nice D5 in head voice and a supported A3. Maybe the user didn’t put it there because it’s not a hard song?

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      1. Yeah I was wondering since it says Not Applicable under Best Vocal Performance, so does that mean all her performances are around the same level of decent ness or they’re all bad? I hope the first and not the latter!

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  7. I was always so confused when Kpop fans put Choa up there with Ailee and other good powerhouse vocalists since she strains so frequently. I think Choa works well in AOA with their sexy sound, which often is just sort of nasal singing, but this finally makes me feel like I wasn’t going crazy since everyone always rates Choa as a top notch vocalist, but I never really understood why. Thanks for the analysis, I really enjoyed reading it!

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  8. Got7’s Youngjae only had 7 months of training so I’ve always wondered , throughout what u’ve seen of him how is he as a vocalist and how good can he be ? same goes for JB since he has much more performances
    okay I’m a jyp trash so more JYPE questions
    Day6’s Sungjin how’d u rate him ?

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    1. He could be very good, but he just hasn’t had time to work on his singing so it’s not fair to assess his singing. Youngjae so far seems like an average vocalist and JB seems like a weak vocalist. Day6, nobody stuck out to me as more than average but I can’t say for sure.

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  12. It sounds like Choa has vocal talent but is inconsistent. Could this be from a lack of training? FNC primarily has bands so could they emphasize instruments (and in AOA’s case dancing) over vocals? AOA did emphasize the band qualities when they first debuted. How do the other FNC vocalists compare?

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    1. You could click on the tagged FNC vocalists we have already analyzed to see but I don’t really know because the gap between Yonghwa and Hongki is so big that we can’t be sure if it’s FNC’s training or not.

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      1. I really like this haha, everyone says IU is perfect and Choa can’t sing. I know Choa is not good too but nobody would say Choa is better than IU even slightly 😀
        Sorry for bad English 😊

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  14. What do you think would cause Choa to be perceived as a stronger vocalist than she is? Would it be her ability to belt hard and loud?

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  16. owyeah, FNC vocalist! I’m ready for Juniel! Are you gonna analyse her since her indie days in Japan? Because she got a lot of footage then, and personally I like her japan’s discography more lol.
    As AOA is also girlgroup (not only band like other FNC artist), would you consider to analyse AOA Yuna?
    “when she’s not trying to sound like a rockstar” lol, FNC’s bad

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  17. Great analysis! Definitely agree about the projection… her voice seems stuck at the back of her throat, even when she’s belting.

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  18. It’s really unfortunate that her technique is so poor, considering her voice is pretty nice to listen to, but you can really hear what she does wrong. If she worked on her technique and using her voice properly, she’d definitely be one of my favourite vocalists, because I just really like the way her voice sounds. Such a shame. Hopefully she improves in the future.

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  19. She is the best vocalist of AOA, right? I have a little upset cause I though she is better. OMG, I have listened some of AOA’s song and I think all of them ( excepted ChoA) is weak. And Jimin’s voice make me feel…lol

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    1. ChoA is the main vocalist and she lacked enough material. The other vocalists of AoA are rarely showcased enough so they also lack enough material to be analyzed I’m afraid.

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      1. Well, ok… I’m gonna make you a suggestion Soyeon of Laboum this group is so underrated lol. Or Hyoeun of Stellar

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      2. Laboum debuted in 2014, so not enough material is available for them yet. Same goes for Stellar, they lack material but I have been shown videos of Hyoeun and Stellar and none of them seemed to be better than average at this point in time.

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      3. Really, I thought Hyoeun was at least average. And I have a last question if you know Stellar, do you know Gayoung of Stellar. I want to know if she is a mezzo or a normal soprano lol I don’t know how you say it… Because her voice sounds really low

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      4. She is average, didn’t I say that? Lol like at most from what I’ve heard she’s average. I didn’t notice a non soprano in the group.

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  24. Can you analyze yuna of aoa i am curious about her rating because she seems to be the main vocalist of aoa cream subunit

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  25. I know Sunny’s analysis isn’t finished yet, but from what you know, do you think ChoA has better or worse technique than her?

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  26. Hi again Ahmin, just a quick question about choa, I was wondering in one of AOA’s new songs from their comeback did choa use head voice, and if she did what note was it. The audio I’m wondering about is at 2.35 or there abouts, thank you? https://youtu.be/xc_RH1PdZlY

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    1. You mean like that quick falsetto exactly at 2:37? Yeah no that was falsetto. She was in falsetto the whole way through.

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      1. Hi sorry, no I was a bit vague on times, i didn’t mean that quick falsetto sorry, I meant the bit just after that, on the second “take me up”?

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  28. I feel like she’s gotten better with the ‘Good Luck’ comeback. That or all of the adlibs could just be doing her justice. If there’s more material that shows improvement, could we get an updated analysis?

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    1. If there is improvement, we always update analyses but vocalists don’t improve nearly as much as fans feel like they do. A lot of people expect them to improve with every comeback, but it’s never anything drastic if anything at all. I didn’t notice any improvement with ChoA in this comeback, she’s still singing all those C5’s throughout the song with a pretty closed throat. Also don’t feel like I’m attacking you, I’m just explaining lol >_<

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      1. Oh no, I understand xD My ear isn’t as trained as yours is, so obviously I’m probably going to hear things that aren’t really there. I was being a little biased as I was looking for improvements that weren’t there, since I really like ChoA’s tone, but I feel a little bad for it since she’s definitely not the best singer.

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    1. Sloppy, it’s too fast for her. Not as bad as I’ve heard other people but it still was far from a good run.

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      1. Thanks a lot of the quick response (and of course the whole blog in general!). Could you explain to me what exactly makes the run sloppy? The notes sound separated/on pitch, so what makes the run sloppy? This run does sound better to the runs given in Choa’s analysis. (Just to clarify, I’m asking because I want to learn not because I want to argue that Choa has improved or something!)

        Anyway, thanks in advanced for the response!

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      2. A good run is one where you’re able to hear each and every note sung very clearly, they’re hit right at the center of pitch. The rhythm is precise and sounds like it has a flow, the pitch is good and you’re singing within key. A sloppy run is one where you don’t separate the notes, so you end up sliding up and down through the notes, oftentimes going off key around it and kind of rushing the timing and so the rhythm ends up sounding rushed as well. I’ll show you a video where both vocalists have great agility and their runs are very clean and rhythmically they’re quite impeccable.

        I’ll highlight a run 0:48, 0:51, 1:08, 3:42 AND HARMONIZED.

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  31. Whoa, I just noticed that she doesn’t have B4.. she just barely scraped an Average rating, it looks like lol. I think I can see why she is Average, though, comparing her to a few within the Weak to Average category. Not having B4 took me by surprise, though.

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    1. It’s more to do with the style she’s using, in Just The Way You Are she sounds like she is trying to sing a bit more without sounding as “cute.” In the more recent video she is using more of a high larynx, while placing her voice in her nose and being quite airy. Both of these videos show a lot of tension, nasality, and absolutely no support but the older one wasn’t as high larynx and nasal in placement.

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    1. None of these people are vocal instructors nor are they talking bout vocal technique. They’re PDs, critics, musicians, while part of the entertainment industry they don’t have knowledge on vocal technique.

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  36. Hey can you list briefly the + and – of these four singers ? https://youtu.be/muCYQUX84tI

    L to R: Jaeyoon, Rowoon, Inseong, Dawon

    My personal observation:
    Jaeyoon: really airy compared to the other vocalists in SF9, his pitch are VERY imprecise, weakest sense of support (he has like… zero connection also)

    Rowoon: Less airier than Jaeyoon but still quite airy, especially when he sings lower, which baffles me since he’s an obvious Baritone. Upper register has some weak support there. Pitch okay I guess

    Inseong: Actually supports his voice, tone is the least muffled. I don’t think he is producing resonance. Pitch precision not good for faster melodies (his runs even in studio are also quite empricise)

    Dawon: Less airy than Rowoon and Jaeyoon. No support but I think his tone comes out clearly. His runs can be not clear in terms of note seperation. He doesn’t have much difficulty staying high in this song compared to the rest due to him having the highest placed voice here.

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    1. 0:35 ~ 0:37 flat, there’s too much air when Jaeyoon sings. Dawon is all in the nose, with a high larynx, limited diction. 1:05 again Rowoon is tight and nasal too. 1:15 Inseong is more in the throat than the other ones. Jaeyoon’s main quality is airiness, Dawon’s whininess, Inseong’s throat, and Rowoon is a high larynx. I wouldn’t say Rowoon is an obvious baritone. I don’t disagree with many of your points, only that Dawon has a higher placed voice than the others. His voice isn’t higher placed, HE places it higher. As for Inseong, I disagree that he has any support at all. I hear no support from any of them. This isn’t the first time I’ve come to this conclusion, but I wanted to listen to this to be sure that I wasn’t getting ahead of myself with such a conclusion. I remain firm with thinking none of them support. So Dawon and Jaeyoon are leads, while Inseong, Rowoon and Taeyang (?) are mains? What is FnC doing nowadays with their training..

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    1. Probably not, I had no intentions of doing it. No one in AOA has much live material even ChoA had limited material to go off of. Therefore, we would have a very difficult time actually finding material for an analysis. And would be dealing with things like incomplete ranges and what not. But really…AOA really doesn’t have much vocal skill..so we really wouldnt enjoy writing about them because we don’t like being negative.

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  40. Does Yuna have a better head voice than Choa? Or are they similar in terms of that? I feel like in Heart Attack, Yuna sounds better than Choa like the song is too high for her. Especially at 0:52

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      2. It sounds more like head voice in Beautiful, but I don’t necessarily hear support. But she does connect better in there.

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  41. Lots of people hated them in Heart Attack because of Mr removed videos -_- and they said they should’ve been better since it was made for them. Do you think it actually suited their voices and capabilities?

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