Teen Top’s Vocal Analysis: Chunji

0. C Vocalists: Commercial vocalists, Companies: TOP Media, Groups, Tenors, Vocal Analyses, Vocal Ranges: 2 Octave Ranges, , , , , , , , , , ,

Vocal Range

A2 ~ G#5 (2 octaves, 5 notes and 1 semitone)

Supported Range

D3/Eb3 ~ E4/F4

Voice Type

Tenor

Strengths/Achievements

  • Strongest vocalist in Teen Top
  • Able to show consistency in support
  • Voice is clean and retains clarity within his supported range
  • Able to transition into his falsetto with ease
  • Able to perform slow runs with some accuracy
  • His mix shows development in support up to E4/F4
  • Lower range is able to maintain support down to D3
  • Able to harmonize well

Points for Improvement

  • Laryngeal vibrato is used
  • Tends to sound really whiny
  • Unable to lift his soft palate consistently
  • Tends to sing with a high larynx above F4
  • Sings with airiness in his lower range
  • Falsetto is very underdeveloped, airy and can be unstable
  • Tension starts to creep in his voice around E4
  • More complex runs can be quite pitchy
  • Voice is uneven throughout his range

Registers

  • Lower register: His lower range has a decent amount of tone development and produces the most relaxed sound throughout his whole range. Down to D3 he produces more consistent support in his chest voice but becomes airier and disconnected as he sings lower.
  • Mixed register: His mixed voice shows issues with the evenness of his mix and development above G4, where he generally becomes grittier and throatier with a very raspy sound. Support is kept up to E4/F4.
  • Upper register: The falsetto register is most likely his least developed register. He has the tendency to sing with too much air in this register, where he’s unable to control the stability of his voice and causes him to often go slightly off pitch.

Agility

Chunji lists his role models in terms of singing to be singers such as Park Hyoshin, Lee Hongki, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown and Jay Sean. While their music genres range from Pop-Rock to R&B-Ballad, there’s a consistent influence from vocalists who tend to sing slower ballads with R&B flavor to it. Chunji shows that mostly in his vocal performances, where he has shown the basic understanding of how to sing vocal runs without too much trouble when they’re quicker trills and simple. When attempting to sing runs, he often sings them accurately if they’re very simple, such as in “Angel“. When attempting more complex runs with more notes, which require better breath support and control, he tends to become very pitchy and to lose the center of key, sounding sloppy as if he was guessing the notes, which can be heard in “오늘 같은밤이면“.

Overall analysis

Chunji debuted in 2010 as Teen Top’s lead vocalist. Much like their main vocalist, Niel, he’s more or less stayed the same throughout the years as a young teen idol and now into his twenties. Generally favoring the style of singing he currently uses, little to no change is noticeable in his vocal approach throughout the years. His voice is mostly very boyish and bright in tone. He possesses a light instrument with a youthful quality that falls under the tenor fach in terms of range, timbre and placement.

The lower portion of his chest voice seems to be the part of his voice where he’s able to stay the most relaxed and keep the most consistent airflow. Not favoring style over technique, Chunji chooses to sing mostly with a clean tone throughout his range and in the range from D3 ~ B3, he retains a very clear and supported sound. He’s been able to show that the lower portion of his range is where he seems most comfortable and has developed the best support and muscle memory. Examples include his Eb3’s in “오늘같은 밤이면“, and his D3’s in “몰라” and “이별택시“. Below D3 although tone may be present, he seems to be unable to keep a consistent effort of his vocal cords stretching and thus becomes disconnected and airy. The lack of support results in a muffled sound that becomes quieter as he descends in range, which can be heard in the C#3’s in “눈의꽃” and “나였으면“, C3’s in “오늘 같은 밤이면” and B2’s and A2’s in “First Love“.

His mixed voice is where issues start to creep in his voice. He is able to keep a well relaxed and supported sound only in his chest voice throughout a somewhat small portion of it. Support is present with a relaxed tone generally up to Eb4, as heard in his musical performance and “오늘같은 밤이면“, but when singing above Eb4 he starts to lose the support and show some issues with throat tension and vocal tract shaping. This is generally countered by his breath support which remains present up to E4/F4, as heard in the E4’s in “환희” and “인형의 꿈“, and the F4’s in “니가 있어야 할곳“. However above F4 his larynx raises and he’s unable to keep the sound forward and supported. Instead he tends to push his voice out with a high larynx, a tight throat and more air pressure to overcompensate for the lack of a relaxed tone and support. This is obvious the F#4’s in his musical performance and in “남자를 몰라“, as well as the G4’s in “몰라“, “Date“, “” and “듣는 편지“, and G#4’s in “울다 웃다” and “눈의꽃“. Above G#4, he tends to become inconsistent with his tone production and yet another change of gears happens in his voice. He seems to switch the tone into a whinier tone around F#4 and around A4 he becomes much more head dominant and tends to push his voice out more with his throat, causing him to sound very raspy and closed. This is most noticeable in the A4’s in “이별택시” and “나였으면“, as well as the Bb4 in “니가 있어야 할곳“, B4’s in “듣는 편지” and the C5 in “오늘 같은 밤이면“.

His upper register is where his voice sounds most underdeveloped. He is unable to produce a head voice and even his falsetto seems to have issues overall. He has the habit of pushing his voice out in his mix until he runs out of stamina and then resorting to his falsetto which then becomes unstable, as heard  in “이별택시“. His falsetto is mostly quite airy and often placed in his nose, such as in “아침부터 아침까지” and “눈의꽃“. He is unable to show any signs of support and connection in this register, but has shown the ability to change its quality and placement. When attempting to create more volume in his upper register, Chunji chooses to compress his vocal cords tightly together and push a lot of air through in order to create a strained louder sound, mostly placed in his nose and mask instead of his head. This is heard in the E5 in “잘 지내” and the G#5 in Teen Top’s high note battle against UP10TION.

Chunji has shown from time to time the ability to control his airflow enough to match volume and produce tone with airiness or clarity at will. He has the potential to many onsets and qualities in his voice, but due to the underdevelopment of his instrument he usually falls short when attempting more advanced vocalizations. There’s still a huge issue with placement, where Chunji places his voice very heavily in his nose and is then unable to produce resonance whatsoever. Also with the raised larynx, he’s unable to stay relaxed and control his mixed voice. Another bad habit of his is how he tends to use a laryngeal vibrato, in which the oscilation of pitch is caused by an artificial movement of the larynx instead of by allowing the vocal cords to settle in place and oscilate the pitch naturally as their relax.

Despite issues with technique, Chunji should still be praised and recognized as Teen Top’s strongest vocalist. Out of all the members in the group, he’s the only one to have shown consistency in breath support throughout the years and any sort of development in his instrument. Due to his young age, it is likely that Chunji may improve over the years as his career as a singer goes on. If he chooses to further explore his career as a singer and soloist, going back to a vocal instructor who can help him develop better breathing technique and learning to control the movement of his larynx would help him relax his voice. Allowing a natural evenness of tone throughout his range, instead of sounding like he has 4 different voices, would also be a huge part of further developing his voice.

Musicianship

Harmonically Chunji has shown sufficient control of his instrument to allow him to perform certain tasks that one could use as a member of a group. He is able to sing and blend his voice well in harmonies, as shown by his performance in “인형의 꿈“, where he is able to hear his part well and still maintain a good blend of his voice as Miss A’s Min. Musically he’s shown the potential to add his own melodic ideas to songs he performs, but due to the lack of control of his voice and development of his technique, he’s unable to perform these musical ideas without straining his voice and losing control of his pitch. This usually happens because the idea in his head wasn’t produced as well as he might have planned when he actually came to vocalizing it, such as the performance of “오늘같은 밤이면”.

Label (Type of Vocalist)

C Vocalists: Commercial Vocalists

Best Vocal Performance(s)

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Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)

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45 thoughts on “Teen Top’s Vocal Analysis: Chunji”

  1. Thank you for so many analysis in such a short time. 🙂

    The fact that the strongest vocalist in a group (which debuted 6 years ago!) is weak to average is kind of shocking to me. Is this group one of the groups with worst vocals in k-pop then?

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    1. Of the long running male Kpop groups, it seems like they’re one of the worst if not the worst, although this doesn’t surprise me since their songs are much more focused on being upbeat dance songs.

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      1. I think BTS is worst, isn’t? They are all bad vocalist and diferent from other groups’ vocalists that can at least scream some high notes and feign that sing well for laypersons on the subject. But BTS can’t even pretend that they sing well.

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      2. BTS can scream high notes too, a lot of people think they’re really good vocalists too. If V turns out to be a better vocalist than Chunji then BTS will have a better vocal average than Teen Top but it’s not a big difference.

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    3. After listening to other groups, I can say with certainty that Teen Top isn’t the worst male vocal group there is. Or as a whole group even. KARA, although disbanded, Hello Venus, Dalshabet, ZE:A, Nine Muses and such manage to have much worse overall vocal technique.

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      2. Dalshabet? They didn’t improved then? Is Serri better than Woohee and Subin? Or Is Woohee better?

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      3. I don’t know for sure, I believe Subin may be a stronger vocalist than Serri and Woohee but they’re all weak vocalists at the end of the day so it’s just being really picky to find out who’s the least weak.

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      4. Wait, ZE:A? Damnit… I had hope for them 😦

        Then again, I seem to always listen to a group and think they’re well-rounded in the singing department because none of them are horrible sounding… when it turns out that they’re all weak or one of them is at most A to AA :/

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      5. I thought Serri was better cause from what I’ve heard Subin doesn’t control her voice at all like when I heard her singing high notes I was like Damn girl control your voice, she just sound like me hahah

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    4. I love Chunji vocals but also I have been conscious that he has some problems when singing high notes… As He always mentioned he would like to go solo + he’s very young I think he will improve more every year 🙂 Thank you for the analysis I really enjoyed reading it although I just know the basis in vocal technique

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  2. Interesting… I wonder why they even pick Niel as the main vocalist then… Shouldn’t they be improving through their idol career though?
    Why is it that so many popular singers aren’t as good as people make them appear?

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    1. If you sing the same exact way for 1 hour or for 1000 hours, only so much can change. If they’re not changing their approach to how they sing, then there’s no way they can improve unless they change their practicing routine. Well that’s just because the general public favors tone over singing technique, since they can’t truly judge based on technique.

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  3. Wow I expected Chunji to be avarage at least. Thank you for this analysis.
    By the way, what do you think about this performance and how would you rank his vocal? He is Monsta X’s Kihyun.

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    1. I watched these two performances of Kihyun before and I said:

      0:19 Heya then 0:20 should’ve been where he should’ve taken a breath and instead he took a breath on at 0:22 which kind of broke the flow of the line, it was an awkward breath that came in at the wrong time. He should work on breath marks, I’ll see if it happens more throughout the performance. 0:29 another awkward breath, he’s singing until he runs out of breath instead of taking well thought breaths that can hold on throughout a phrase, and his breath intakes are too shallow so he runs out of breath too quickly. 0:43 his voice is starting to give out because he was running out of breath. 0:46 he is placing his voice a bit too much in his nose, he lacks openness and he’s projecting with a weak approach, too soft. He may be nervous but breath marks are kind of basic. He gets better as he goes on and adds a bit more volume to his voice. 1:34 that F#4 could’ve been a lot more opened, he sounded slightly thin and a bit too nasal. His voice projects very little, he sounds pretty small. He lacks chestiness in his mix and roundness in tone, so his voice stays kind of trapped with a lack of space to truly project and allow for him to have more fulness in tone. The chorus is mostly G4’s, which don’t sound too high for him for now. 2:28 G#4 this is where tension and tightness catch up to him and he lacks the same support he has below that, even though it’s not strong support it kind of holds his ground for that area of his range. Again he may be nervous, but I was hoping for a bigger kind of dynamic breakdown but his voice stayed trapped in a single volume output and didn’t get more powerful or louder, he limits his overall projection too much due to lack of support and improper placement. It’s like nobody ever taught him how to breathe.

      He sounds more confident, his breaths are being taken better on the King of Mask Singer performance. He is still relying on a placement that’s too focused on his nose and not allowing for more openness. 0:43 he does bring the support down to E3 in his chest voice, but his voice is a bit too light and he lacks the development of his chest voice muscles. 1:12 he sounds thinned out and tight on G4’s, at 1:14 ~ 1:20, his G4’s are tight and lack support. 1:27 his runs are sloppy, the note precision was off. 1:36 his falsetto transitions aren’t that bad. 1:54 tight C5 and up to a sustained high larynx Bb4. 1:38 he supports F4 at least, but he lacks control of his support and openness. He sounds like an average vocalist at most to me from what I’m hearing.

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  4. Yay Chunji! It’s funny how him and Min was chose to sing a duet and they’re at the same level too XD Since Chunji is the strongest, does Niel actually have anything over him?

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  5. Hello, thank you for the analysis :). I guess it explains why I always liked his lower notes better. But I hope he will improve since he seems serious about singing and wants to go solo and I just really like his tone lol (preferences I know).
    Btw, may I ask you how he did here? it’s from some internet show

    and here, although he had a cold

    Thank you

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    1. 1:08 in 야생화 that E4 was quite nice, the D3s around 1:15 in the soundcloud link were nice. Yeah nothing different but at least more examples of what I already had concluded through the analysis. Thanks for these new examples. ^ ^

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  7. Wow, some of those performances were downright painful to hear. Kudos to you for getting through all of that haha

    As always, thank you for your thorough analysis. Your examples and the explanations and support of your conclusions really make your analyses robust, and I love reading it.

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    1. Oh no dear, this wasn’t that bad at all. I’ve heard vocalists who are kind of harder to get through, kind of like the vocalist I’m working on right now.

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  8. Hello and I’ve been following your page for quite some time;) Glad to see you put so much effort into it.
    Can you please check out this performance?

    What do you think? Who did the best in your opinion and how would you rate them?
    They are still newbies but I think their voices are quite attractive.

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    1. I’m going to copy paste my answer to this because I’ve seen this video before:
      “First guy to sing, he is the same one that I noted before that he can support. His lower range can get really muffled and airy, but he still has support, I’ll assume he’s Heejun. The second guy to sing has somewhat of a closed throat shape when singing and shallow support, his lower range is better than the first guy, I’ll assume he’s Jihoon. Then my husband Yoojin sings right after, again his support is pretty shallow, he sounds better here. They all do, he’s pretty nasal. Then Insung joins him and it’s hard to divide them but they both seem to be pushing too much. The harmonies are nice but individually there’s too much throat and almost no support. Insung’s part from 1:44 sounds really pushed, overly throaty, not like a rough throaty, just like a trying too hard and pushing too much air out and it’s mostly around F#4. 1:59 that was shouting. They all have really nice sounding voices, they all have range but they’re pushing way too much and not supporting enough, even my husband Yoojin he was just singing with a high larynx. The harmonies are nice, they got great voices and lots of range but they’re just trying WAY too hard with their throats, nobody taught them to support properly.”

      I can’t remember off of the top of my head who did best but it’s more like who did the least …bad. They’re at best average but I am going with weak or weak to average for now for them as a whole.

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      1. Thanks so much for answering:)
        I’d also like to know if Up10tion’s vocalists will be analysed? Do u think they are average or above average?

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      2. Hwanhee is average I don’t know about Sunyeol. Check the future analyses list, theyre there. They just debuted so it won’t be soon.

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    1. This analysis was posted in March and these videos are from last year, so there couldn’t have been any improvement.

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    1. I believe this song is mentioned in the analysis, and it’s no different than what’s described in the analysis. I really haven’t heard many people singing this song actually.

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  14. Just wondering are the vocalists with head-dominant mixed voice, like Chunji and Changmin, able to do chesty mix? Also I noticed some vocalist’s mixed voice are chest-dominant like Junsu, but he can only support down to E3. Are these 2 things relevant?

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