Cho Hyunyoung’s Vocal Analysis

0. M Vocalists: Mid-range vocalists, 0. ML Vocalists: Mid-low range vocalists, Companies: DSP Media, Soloists, Sopranos, Vocal Analyses, Vocal Ranges: 2 Octave Ranges, , , , , , , , , , ,

Vocal Range

C#3 ~ G5 (2 octaves and 3 notes)

Supported Range

G#3 ~ B4/C5

Voice Type

Soprano

Strengths/Achievements

  • Strongest vocalist in Rainbow
  • Pitch is consistent throughout her range
  • Resonance has been produced up to B4
  • Mixed voice shows consistency in support up to B4/C5
  • Lower range is supported and stable down to G#3
  • Notes below her supported range often stay present with tone
  • Able to manipulate nasality in her singing
  • Shown improvement in placement and mixing overtime

Points for Improvement

  • Brightness in tone makes her voice stand out too much in harmonies
  • Brassy nasal quality becomes overbearing above C5
  • Runs are often sloppy, pitchy and messy
  • Uses only a falsetto, unable to sing in head voice
  • Mixed voice can become screechy above B4, with a shouty quality
  • Lower notes below G#3 lack support and can be pushed with a low larynx
  • Vibrato is often wobbly and uneven

Registers

  • Lower register: Lower range possesses tone even down to her lowest note but support is only kept down to G#3. Below that, her larynx can be pushed down.
  • Mixed register: Able to control mixing around her supported range and placement. Above B4 however voice becomes shouty, brassy and whiny.
  • Upper register: Unable to use a connected head voice. Transitions into falsetto are done with enough precision and falsetto is generally relaxed. Does not often sing in this register.

Agility

As a vocalist, Hyunyoung takes influences from both R&B, ballad, and pop vocalists and shows that in her singing. For the most part, she is unable to perform difficult vocal runs with accuracy, generally becoming somewhat pitchy and sloppy in her delivery. Her runs are usually imprecise with pitch, with the rhythmic idea and separation of each individual note showing to be somewhat challenging to her. When she performs easier and simpler runs, she’s able to take her time and slowly sing each note in a run without too much trouble, as shown in “Stickwitu” and “나 가거든“. However, runs quickly become an issue when requiring more complexity in melodic idea and speed, such as in “If I Were A Boy“, “If I Ain’t Got You” and “천국“.

Overall analysis

Debuting in 2009 as the youngest member and main vocalist of idol group Rainbow, Hyunyoung’s always been highlighted vocally in her group with adlibs and more challenging vocal lines. However due to Rainbow’s lack of exposure, Hyunyoung has been unable to participate in programs where she’d showcase her vocals alone such as Immortal Song 2 and King of Mask Singer and is often not highlighted as a vocalist. Her voice and tone are unique in quality due to her brassy style and bright vocal approach, making her singing quite piercing and her naturally high range be more easily showcased, as it stands out over others, such as her fellow Rainbow members.

Her lower range is one that stands out amongst the average female sopranos, where Hyunyoung not only is able to carry tone down to her lowest note, she is able to keep forwardness and chest placement in her lower range, allowing her to keep tone and project well below her supported range. She doesn’t often rely on airiness in her lower range and is mostly able to keep her vocal cords together while also relying on breath support in her chest voice. Down to G#3, she’s able to show stability and support, as shown in the G#3’s in “Listen“, “나 가거든“, “If I Were A Boy” and “애인있어요“, A3’s in “Black Swan“, and Bb3’s in “Something Special“. Below G#3, tone is often present but she has the tendency to become quieter and for her support to become more shallow, so fullness in tone becomes less present. However, she’s still able to carry some support below G#3, as shown by her G3’s in “If I Ain’t Got You“. As she descends lower in range, she may at times push her larynx down in order to reach lower notes, creating some tension in her lower range, such as the F#3’s in “참아주세요“. However so, that’s not always the case, as shown by the E3 and C#3 in “애인있어요”.

Her mixed voice is her register where most improvement can be heard overtime. Due to the nature of Rainbow’s music, Hyunyoung would often place her voice heavily in her nose and create a whiny piercing quality in her mix that would at times cause her to push her voice and sound quite shouty. Nasality was often an issue earlier in her debut, but over the years she’s been able to show that she can add less headiness in her mix and allow more chest voice to balance out her mix and lift her soft palate, opening her throat enough to even at times produce resonance in her mixed voice, as heard in the F#4 and B4 in “Listen“.  Not only that, but support below B4 is quite consistent and she’s able to comfortably phrase supported notes around B4 and below, such as the Bb4’s in “Cha Cha” and the B4’s in “Tell Me Tell Me“. Above B4, however, she still is unable to keep a stable larynx and to fully support her voice, often relying on her throat and pushing notes out. Notes above B4, particularly C5’s, are often inconsistent with support and can either be light and easy, such as in “무조건” and “Wannabe“, or tight and somewhat shallow in tone, such as in “그녀에게 돌아가” and “Beautiful Tonight“, but above C5 her mix becomes almost completely shouted and she shows a lack of ability to properly control her volume output, as heard in the C#5’s in “Black Swan“, “If I Were A Boy“, “내안의 그대” and “A“, D5’s in “8282“, “White“, “Something Special“, “Hoi Hoi“, “Now“, Eb5’s in “그녀에게 돌아가“, “애인있어요“, and the E5 in “나 가거든“.

Her upper register is the most underdeveloped part of her voice, where she uses mostly an airy falsetto and is unable to keep her vocal cords consistently connected enough to produce a head voice. Even then, her transitions into falsetto often prove not to be too challenging, as she’s able to do so quite easily, such as in “Stickwitu” and “천국“. For the most part the issue in her upper register is the lack of true care to explore and take on this register. She rarely ever uses falsetto and when she does, it’s often very soft, airy and almost tentative.

Hyunyoung is a vocalist who’s able to control her breath management and dynamics well enough to take on challenging ballads and perform with enough accuracy. Often being able to control her pitch and her mixing, her issues generally lie on her inconsistency with keeping her soft palate lifted to eliminate nasality and her bad habit of often pushing her voice out too much with her throat instead of supporting, which often causes her to have a wobbly and unstable vibrato.

Overall Hyunyoung is a vocalist who possesses a lot of potential but is yet to be given enough opportunities to truly improve and showcase her vocal ability with more serious songs, despite having a 6+ career so far. For the future, not only would working on placement help her but truly engaging in her diaphragmatic breathing in order to keep her from becoming shouty in her mixed voice help her, but also emphasizing her vocal ability and engaging in more vocally focused programs, where she could potentially have more vocal growth overtime.

Musicianship

Musically, Hyunyoung is able to come up with her own musical ideas in her covers of songs and she can at times be daring enough to not only do them in studio, such as in “나 가거든“, but also live. However so, the delivery may not always come out with as much precision as she might have initially planned out in her head. Despite that she shows potential in being able to add her own flavor to songs. Harmonically, due to the image Rainbow portrays, Hyunyoung often sings a whiny nasal sound stylistically which she doesn’t always control and when singing in a group while harmonizing, her voice often stands out too much as she’s unable to blend correctly with the rest of her duet partners or fellow Rainbow members, such as in “8282“, “Stickwitu” and “White“.

Label (Type of Vocalist)

M Vocalists: Mid-Range Vocalists

ML Vocalists: Mid-Low Range Vocalists

Vocal Range Video(s)

Video by: Daniel Galhardo

Best Vocal Performance(s)

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Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)

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61 thoughts on “Cho Hyunyoung’s Vocal Analysis”

  2. thx so much for this review, i love hyunyoung’s voice! i hope that after rainbow’s contract has ended she will continue her work as a singer and show some more improvements..

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    1. oh and also, who is the second strongest vocalist? jisook? i really don’t know how the other one’s sound except for jaekyung lol

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  3. I know I’ve been on this website long when I can start to tell their ranks just based on their supported ranges lol, I called A to AA just from that but read the strengths/weaknesses just to be sure.
    Thanks for the analysis Ahmin!

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  5. Is it bad that I don’t know who she or Rainbow is lol she’s better than Tiffany at least. What’s your next analysis? Soohyun?

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  6. I really like her voice! Especially enjoyed the second clip.

    Oh, and “Brightness in tone makes her voice stand out too much in harmonies” was spot on. I cringed at its accuracy. I’ve definitely gotten this feedback when singing in choir before 😉

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  8. Good that she’s above average but I always preferred Jisook and also Jaekyung.

    Hyunyoung always sounds whiney to me, especially when she does the high notes in Rainbow’s songs and for some reason that bothered me

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      1. Interesting that she would be weak because she seems to me to be the 2nd highlighted vocalist. She seems to get more lines than Jisook (haven’t counted or anything just seems like it), she seemed featured in “To Me” and she was also in Rainbow Blaxx

        Maybe it is because she’s the leader (kind of like Kim Boa in Spica)

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      2. She’s overly highlighted actually when I’m like.. “Why”. Kim Boa is an actual vocalist, it’s cause Jaekyung is the visual too.

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  9. Thanks for another great analytic write-up. I’d never really stopped to think about Rainbow’s members in terms of vocal technique, so this really helps to put things in perspective.

    I hope I may ask one question though, regarding this part from the first paragraph of the overall analysis: “[…] Hyunyoung has been unable to participate in programs where she’d showcase her vocals alone such as Immortal Song 2 and King of Mask Singer and is often not underrated as a vocalist.” I’d had the impression that she was underrated as a vocalist, so I got a little confused here. Is it meant in the sense that because Rainbow doesn’t get promoted much, she doesn’t have much of a chance to get recognized as a vocalist? I sometimes have a hard time understanding things so I hope you’ll be patient with me. Thank you!

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  10. I’m just curious cause I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere, what do you think of her sustained G5 in Rainbow’s song Privacy?

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  11. This is a reply to ahmin3 from above (wont let me reply directly)

    I know Kim Boa is a vocalist but she seems to be highlighted more than Bohyung when it comes to interviews/shows and she also does ad-libs. She is the one who the others say is really good at singing. But then again Bygyung doesn’t usually say much in interviews

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    1. Most likely Jisook from what I’ve heard is the strongest vocalist in Rainbow and is an average vocalist, or at least I hope so. lol

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  13. Hello! Sorry if I’m bothering but when should I expect Red Velvet’s Wendy’s analysis? I’m really looking forward to learn about her technique since she is my female UB😊

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    1. Hey there. If you check the future analyses page you will see we put an emphasis on not analyzing rookies due to lack of material, so don’t expect Wendy before many people who debuted prior to 2015 and 2014. She should be analyzed within the next few months but she’s not a top priority for her analyzer, Pandayeu.

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  14. Just wondering, will you guys be analyzing Seulgi along with Wendy. or just Wendy? Also where would you say Seulgi is sitting right now in terms of rating?

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    1. You should check the future analyses page for your first question. For the second question, she’s most likely Average for now.

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    1. 0:05 ~ 0:10 Her runs still sound the same, quite sloppy and unsure. She was singing slightly off here and there, 0:25 for an example. 0:55 Bb4’s, they’re not bad, good job Jisook. There’s support. They sound slightly shallow but the support is there, she’s making the conscious effort. 1:14 Nicely phrased Bb4’s, a bit of tension on the C5’s and the phrased C#5 was tight. The sound system for this performance is kind of bad. 1:48 around that section, she went up to C#5 and cracked on one, which is understandable since it’s high for her in terms of support. 2:07 the runs weren’t bad, but B4 and C#5 sound rough for Jisook. 2:27 tension on the C#5’s and phrased D5. 2:32 that B4 wasn’t bad, a bit pushed but not bad. There’s nothing really new in this performance.

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    1. This kind of question should usually be posted on future projects instead. They did well musically, generally good pitch, good harmonies. Too much nasality for ShinB and the other girl, specially the other guy who was really going for that cuteness factor with a slightly lifted larynx and airiness in tone. Yuju sounded pretty nice, full, good placement with head voice moments and occasional nasality. It was a generally easy range. ShinBs support is there but it’s not very strong.. It’s a bit shallow, same for the other girl. The middle one is ShinB .. Right? Lol

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      1. Yes, the middle girl is SinB and thank you !! It’s good to here that SinB is gaining some support and Eunha shows that they’re improve right? Sorry for my English I’m not very good :). Next time I will post in forums but thank you

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  19. from reading your responses to the other questions above i guess you won’t analyse the other rainbow members other than jisook, but can you tell me who’s better technically, seungah or jaekyung? seungah seems like their lead vocalist too alongside jaekyung. and maybe it’s just my ears but seungah sounds better to me than jaekyung despite not having as much line.

    she has been on musical too afaik. tho being in musical doesn’t always mean being a good vocalist in kpop world. lol

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    1. They’re both weak but Jaekyung has better connection, slightly. I was about to post Jisooks analysis, I am almost done with it so I’ve been listening to them lol

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      1. Oh wow, I always assumed Seungah was way better because Jaekyung has always sounded really unsupported in comparison (I think that’s the term) but then my knowledge of vocal stuff is quite limited…

        And sorry, I must ask, how do they compare to Seungyeon and Gyuri since they were all DSP (until recently that is)?

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  21. wow never thought she would be av to above av… but I think after her vocal chords surgery she’s being weaker than she was, don’t know if because of damage or she’s afraid to push too hard.

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  23. it’s so weird that i hear a little bit throatiness in her voice eventhough they’re supported. It seemed appear when she sustained her notes in ” If i leave”. i meant it started nicely but then .. u know..?
    I watch her sing Listen and don’t recognize the throatiness at all .Those notes from 2 separate perf don’t have the same quality. Did she truly show throatiness or I was wrong?
    so ridiculous am I , right?

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      1. my point is that i feel either her throatiness or airiness or both of them throughout this performance considered as her best one. Sometimes am i not able to distinguish between the airness and the throatiness clearly.
        i’m sorry for my bad english and crazy question .

        By the way i am so thankful for you. visiting your page day by day and learning about music technique more and more are my favorite activities now. I can improve my english skills as well. Hope you the best wishes 😀

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      2. Oh I see what you mean. Well the fact that it’s one of her best vocal performances does not mean it’s flawless. It’s just HER best. Thank you so much for your support!

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  24. Not sure if you heard, but Rainbow disbanded. 😦 Just letting you know since you usually take the group name out of the title when a group disbands.

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    1. She sounds really shallow, thin and nasal throughout. She was pushing her larynx down on the beginning, she kept using her throat during the chorus, she only sounded slightly relaxed when she sang slightly softer. Her pitch was also somewhat shaky in the beginning, she doesn’t have the basics of technique. She does have a pretty voice.

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