100%’s Vocal Analysis: Rokhyun

0. MB Vocalists: Mid-range belters, 0. MH Vocalists: Mid-range head voice vocalists, Companies: TOP Media, Groups, Tenors, Vocal Analyses, Vocal Ranges: 2 Octave Ranges, , , , , , , , , , ,

Vocal Range

B2 ~ Bb5 (2 octaves, 5 notes and 1 semitone)

Supported Range

D3 ~ G#4/A4

D3 ~ C#5 (with head voice)

Voice Type

Tenor

Strengths/Achievements

  • Strongest vocalist in 100%
  • Able to produce resonance consistently
  • Able to manipulate his tone production quite efficiently
  • Has shown a supported connected head voice up to C#5
  • Transitions into head voice are mostly smooth
  • Lower range possesses support down to D3
  • Mixed voice is mostly consistent with support up to G#4 and A4

Points for Improvement

  • Tends to be nasal, which seems to be a stylistic choice
  • Runs are often sloppy and pitchy
  • Lower range below D3 is unsupported and lacks proper connection
  • Head voice tends to sound pushed and tense above C#5
  • Mixed voice becomes very closed and tight above A4
  • Inconsistencies with his overall condition causing throatiness within his supported range

Registers

  • Lower register: His lower range maintains the right amount of chest placement while still being supported and projected down to D3. Below that, he tends to lack the proper development and sounds shaky.
  • Mixed register: Mixed voice has been consistently well developed even prior to his debut. Able to produce resonance consistently even up to A4. Above A4, tends to sound tight and tense.
  • Upper register: Has shown good improvement in his upper register and learned to use a connected head voice, which he now favors over his falsetto. Nonetheless tension is present above C#5.

Agility

Rokhyun has shown that he is a fan of R&B and adding his own runs to many songs, but has also never been able to quite get it right throughout the years. He’s always had issues with the proper precision, where his runs would simply have no true connection, no flow and no control of pitch. The result would often be very sloppy and messy runs with questionable musical ideas behind them, as heard in “나쁜 놈“, “두걸음 걸어요“, “이 노래” and “나같은 놈.” More recently he’s shown that he’s taken the time to improve and simplify his runs, which although still not precise are much smoother and cleaner than early on in his career, as heard by the runs in “사랑을 모르다” and “추억은 사랑을 닮아.”

Overall analysis

Rokhyun made his debut in the K-pop industry as the main vocalist of the duo JUMPER in 2009, which unfortunately disbanded soon after. He then re-debuted again as the main vocalist of idol group 100% in 2012, with fellow lead vocalist Hyukjin. As a member of 100%, Rokhyun usually takes on the most challenging parts of songs and is able to showcase his skill and the natural light weight of his voice with the high repertoire they’re given. One can clearly hear the lightness and brightness of his youthful voice, very strong characteristics of a light lyric tenor.

The lower portion of his range is mostly under-explored and not used very often. Nonetheless Rokhyun shows a good understanding of proper support and placement as he descends into his chest voice. He’s able to maintain proper chest placement while keeping his vocal cords connect and his breath management engaged to properly support his voice. Having said that, he still shows a lack of development of his chest voice muscles below D3, where his voice starts to lose connection and tone, becoming muffled and shaky. Support down to D3 can be heard with the D3’s in “나였으면” and “사랑을 모르다“, while anything below D3 tends to become fairly unstable, as heard by the C#3’s in “두걸음 걸어요“, C3’s in “사랑을모르다“, “단발머리” and the B2’s in “추억은 사랑을 닮아.”

His mixed voice is the area of his voice where he seems to be most comfortable. He is able to shine through and project quite effortlessly, and has done so ever since he was a teen. However as he aged, issues with nasality started to become more apparent as well as having a more whiny quality to his overall singing. This can be attributed to him adopting a different vocal style after his second debut, because he has shown in many different occasions that he’s able to eliminate nasality at will and has been able to produce resonance consistently up to A4. Examples of him producing resonance include the F4’s in “I’ll Be Back“, “눈이 부셔“, “Yes!“”F#4’s in “Lovestory“, “꽃피는 봄이 오면“, “Love in the Ice“, G4’s in “심장소리“, G#4’s in “Missing You“, “나같은놈“, “Go On Girl“, “사랑을 모르다“, “나쁜놈“, and the A4’s in “나였으면” and “단발머리.”

There are issues within his supported range where he tends to become more fatigued, in which his voice starts to become scratchier and throaty even within his comfortable supported range, as heard in “심장소리.” However, issues with strain and nasality are only truly a problem for him above A4, where he has yet to truly the ability to keep proper support while maintaining an open throat. This is caused by him often letting his larynx raise as his throat closes, making his voice become much tighter and squeezed in overall tone production. Thus straining his voice whenever he sings notes above A4, as heard by the Bb4’s in “나였으면“, “못해“, “아름다운 우리 나라“, and C5’s in “야생화.” On occasion, he has shown a more opened approach above A4, such as the Bb4 in “Love in the Ice“, but that is a rare occurrence. He tends to also lack a proper balance of chest and head voice the higher he sings in his mix, becoming tighter and headier the higher he sings.

His upper register is the area of his voice where most improvement can be heard. Early on when 100% debuted and prior, Rokhyun would often use an airy and somewhat throaty falsetto when singing above his mixed voice. However as time went on, he started to opt for a more connected and fuller approach as he learned to support and produce a connected head voice. The contrast can especially be heard by comparing his falsetto in “Rolling in the Deep“, “Missing You” and “Go On Girl“, with his head voice where support is present up to C#5, as heard in “추억은 사랑을 닮아“, “사랑을 모르다“, “눈의꽃” and “메리크리.” Above C#5, he tends to become loud and pushed, as he’s unable to control the volume of his voice while maintaining the proper amount of air supply to support his voice. This results in a strained and tight head voice, which can be heard by the F5’s and G5’s in “너와 나“, G5’s in the high note battle in Weekly Idol, and Bb5’s in the high note battle with Niel and Sungjae.

His overall technique has shown great consistency over the years, especially with his ability to produce resonance as well as his good breath control and dynamics. He also favors using a more natural vibrato and has shown that he’s able to choose when to sing with more opened versions of vowels in order to keep his singing full and better projected, as heard in “Love in the Ice.” He does tend to have issues with nasality that can be a bit overdone when singing more pop oriented songs, but he’s shown more than enough times that he can produce a more opened sound at will, while manipulating his tone and placement well.

Rokhyun is a vocalist who’s lucky enough to have been given the chance to appear as a member of 100% on shows like Immortal Song 2, where he’s been given the opportunity to showcase his vocal ability and gain recognition as a vocalist and artist. For future improvements, exploring the rest of his range along with being given the chance to appear on TV shows such as King of Mask Singer could further help him develop himself as a vocalist and give him the encouragement needed to realize his full potential as he ages and matures.

Musicianship

Rokhyun’s overall ability to harmonize with every other member of 100% is one of the things that helps them stick out as a more well balanced group vocally. Even if not everyone may have the same level of development vocally, all the members know how to blend their voices and match each other quite well, as heard in “야생화.” Musically speaking, Rokhyun’s musical ideas and additions to many of his songs don’t often come out right. His most common way of embellishing songs while adding his own flavor to them is adding runs, which are often unclear and pitchy, which may at times come out right in pitch but could always be more precise. This can be heard in “Rolling In The Deep.”

Label (Type of Vocalist)

MH Vocalists: Mid-Range Head Voice Vocalists

MB Vocalists: Mid-Range Belters

Best Vocal Performance(s)

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Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)

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50 thoughts on “100%’s Vocal Analysis: Rokhyun”

  3. What a truly pleasant vocal line. I’m always thrilled when I see a male vocal line with more than one member in a AA category or higher. I feel that if the best is AA and the rest are weak or average, the weaker part of the vocal line relies too much and actually pushes the brunt of the difficulty on the main vocal. I never knew about 100% and wow, the fact they are from top media, home of teen top, is almost baffling when comparing the two groups vocally. Great job on both, Ahmin, I read them thoroughly.

    Ahmin, I hope you and frostprincess and pandayeu are doing well. Is it alright if I ask a question (to whomever of the blog that can answer of course, please chime in)? Actually I have a few, but none of them are videos and I hope they are easy to answer. I’ll split them so they look less ugly on the blog.

    A. Bassier Sound – I’ve noticed, in tenors particularly, and sopranos and baritones as well, that when a vocalist develops his or her lower range, he or she acquires a bassier sound. Anybody that hears EXO Chen, D.O, Baekhyun sing knows that Chen-D.O-Baekhyun is the order of the brightest to the darkest voice. Same with Super Junior which would be more or less Ryeowook-Kyuhyun-Yesung. However, if I hear Kyuhyun speak next to his fellow tenors, I find his voice bassier (support down to B2/Bb2). If I listen to Chen speak, he definitely has the bassiest speaking sound of the three. Would my theory be true?

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    1. Wow okay so this is a lot of questions, so I’ll try to answer them all as quickly as I can lol We’re doing well, thank you for asking haha

      A. Actually if you have stronger chest voice muscle development in your mix or the area you sing in the most, your overall sound will be bassier naturally. That’s why those with chestier mixes sound thicker and bassier. However if your lower range is better developed, when you speak you could speak lower and still sound comfortable. Kyuhyun and Chen can speak lower than the rest with better projection because they can sing lower than them with better projection as well.

      B. I think gay voice has more to do with a learned diction and with associated stereotypes on what a gay person is supposed to sound like, like things they say, intonation, diction and perhaps a lisp as well. Of course that is a stereotype that has some ground, as some more effeminate gay males may speak that way but many less effeminate gay males may be just as homosexual but have no difference in how they talk. That’s a lot more to do with speech habits than your sexual orientation so I don’t know if being a light lyric tenor has to do with it, since it can be noticed on lyric baritones as well. Some of the males you mentioned may or may not be gay, so it’s also hard to tell just based off of speech and vocal habits. I think this a discussion I wouldn’t have since it’s not exactly to do with technique and more to do with speech therapy.

      C. The full lyric voice is not far away enough from the light lyric voice for them to have a gap in how they mix and how hard notes are for them. It’s not as if it was a spinto, a dramatic and a light lyric. Light and full lyrics are very close and often overlap. Their passaggi may be different. As far as I am aware, I may be wrong.

      D. Well we do have a larger number of competent male vocalists and about as many Above Average vocalists, we just happen to have a few more good females. I think it has more to do with the mentality that the higher you sing the better you are at singing, more so than to do with how much emphasis is put on dancing vs singing. Since many vocalists barely show improvement during their trainee days anyway. It goes from one individual to the other, but I think many of the weaker tenors are tenors who value yelling high as opposed to singing well.

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      1. Thanks for answering, Ahmin.

        A. Thanks for the clarification. This makes a lot of sense with what I have observed.

        B. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take the discussion outside of technique. I just took a very scientific and vocal-oriented approach to deconstruct the concept of a ”’gay” voice since I never believed in the baloney known as the ”gay voice” or the concept of sounding ”gay” because I don’t live life by typing others. But yes, I apologize, I just had a purely scientific mindset when I asked this particular question because I was starting to see certain patterns having to do with Light Lyrics in particular. But yes, I understand all of your points, so thank you for your input.

        C. Thank you, this was always a subject of doubt for me. Now I know for sure, if it was a Spinto vs a Lyric, a Spinto with a supported range of E3-G#4 would be better than his counterpart with a same supported range.

        D. Yes, I understand, Apart from the yelling, we also have to take into account that female voices were made for the notes that these weaker tenors often have to yell, so they might have an easier time developing vocal strength through some of those notes; however no male would ever benefit from yelling a C5. But Yes, your input was very helpful, as usual.

        P.S. Did Splitting the questions help at all? Were they too time-consuming to answer or was it hard?

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      2. I know your intentions weren’t bad but some people may feel offended yknow. It wasn’t your fault, I was speaking more on my part. Oh no I think it’s okay to just put the questions in one comment tbh. lol

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  4. B. A ”Gay Voice” – I believe I have finally deconstructed the bigoted ignorant concept of a voice that sounds ”gay”. I believe the voice is simply a Light Lyric voice with none or not enough lower range development and a little bit of a particular vocal color (excluding speaking style because I know that is another factor). Examples would include Taemin, Ryeowook, Leo, Ken, Niel, Kevin, Suho, Hongbin and N from Vixx. I hardly mentioned any baritones but most of them I meet on average have what would be perceived as ”gay voices” and I can tell they lack more bass to their voices. Any thoughts on this?

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  5. C. Light Lyric vs. Full Lyric – I was wondering about a comparison between these voice types in terms of support. Here are my hypothetical tenors, supported range is B2 – C5 for both of them, equal skill levels and resonant. One is a light lyric; the other is a Full Lyric. If a Full Lyric has a lower voice than a Light Lyric, does that mean that the Full Lyric in my example put in more work to support that C5. Therefore, would the Light Lyric in this scenario be better? Another question is if a Full Lyric starts mixing at C#4 or D4?

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  6. D. Vocal Lines – Do you think that the fact that male vocal lines have much harder choreoraphies than their female counterparts is one explanation to the disparity in vocal skills? For example, we have a large amount of higher skilled female vocalists.in comparison to males. I would think that males have to spend more time on choreographies and less time on their voices. For girls, it would be the opposite. What are your thoughts on this?

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  7. 100% is absolutely underrate, even UP10TION is more popular while they’re rookies. Teentop still the most popular i think.

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  8. I feel like 100% is incredibly underrated by the general public as vocalists. Hopefully with your analysis more people will discover the group! Thanks as always; I love reading your posts.

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  9. Thank you for doing the analyses on Rokhyun and Hyukjin. Though 100% unfortunately are not very popular, I’ve always enjoyed their music, especially Rokhyun’s vocals and it’s satisfying to see that he’s AA to C and constantly improving.

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  10. Can’t believe I just discovered this blog! Coming from a mostly classical background (with a little jazz in between), your articles are excellent primers for the world of pop vocals! Love your blog and please keep on doing what you do 🙂

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  11. I’m so happy that you analyzed them. I’ve honestly been waiting since 100% are my favorite group. I was actually thinking that Rokhyun might be competent or competent to good before the analysis from the praises you gave but Above Average to Competent is still such an accomplishment and especially that he’s always improving along with Hyukjin. I just have two questions and I hope they aren’t a nusicance to you. One which company other than S.M. are good at improving the vocal skills of their artists because TOP Media aren’t really good at it. Second compared to them predebut and debut how much do you think Hyukjin and Rokhyun have improved and yes you can count Rokhyun’s Jumper era.

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    1. I honestly don’t think there is enough consistent improvement from any company for there to be a pattern I can detect. Actually honestly, I don’t really think they’ve improved much aside from Rokhyun’s head voice. They’ve stayed pretty stagnant.

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  14. Hey Ahmin,

    I want to ask an irrelevant question to the article. My singing teacher and I just managed to make me support my voice very well. I know how to project well now. The thing is, right after the class, I feel extremely painful at my belly and the day after, I had to put it A LOT of effort to support and I was even sweating and feeling dizzy. Is this normal? Because this is an improvement so I guess I’d feel pain

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      1. Mhmm it’s not common but people feel things differently so if you feel this and it works for you, then perhaps you are supporting and that’s just your process.

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      2. Thank you for replying to me 😀 one other question, listening to NCT’s Moon Taeil, even though he’s just debuted, do you think he’s an analysis worthy singer?

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      3. When is a main/lead vocalist not an analysis worthy vocalist? lol As long as they have enough material.

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  17. here is one of their comeback singing. in song “Better Day” Rokhyun and Hyukjin actively switch chest and head register. is there any improvement in their new song?

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    1. How often it’s done, on what kind of songs it’s done, if it’s switched on and off. Nasality is only stylistically if the vocalists has shown sufficient times that they can choose not to be nasal just as easily as they’d choose to be nasal.

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  19. i just re watch his singing 추억을 사랑은 담아 and i cant help focus on jonghwan, he is so cute especially at the very end. he is the same age as me but somehow he can manage that cuteness haha

    in that love in the ice, jonghwan seems good tho. i like his feat with rokhyun at last verse. it might be because he sing in a comfortable range? i like those kind of voice
    anyway why dont you mention hyukjin singing love in the ice? he straining all the way like changmin did. what is the note? is it his highest mix? the one at 04:02

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      2. He sings a bit heavy in his throat, there is inconsistency with support. He relies on the throat a bit more than he needs to. Jonghwan tends to be kind of inconsistency which is why I always kind of wasn’t sure about his singing. I’ve heard some support carried up to D4 or even E4, and then throatiness around C4/C#4, so I’m not sure what to say.

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    1. 1:19 The A4 didn’t sound bad, I’d say it was supported. He’s not very opened. 1:49 The A4 portion wasn’t bad but then the G4 was lazy in terms of support, he pushed more than he needed to so he ended up losing the proper stretch and support, he started singing with a high larynx as he went G4, A4 and Bb4 was just a high larynx. 2:24 Bb4 and he peaked at C#5 and it is just as you’d expect, high larynx and a tight throat.

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  23. Did you hear what happened? Minwoo, the leader of 100%, passed away at 33. I know they can’t read this, but my condolences to the members of 100% and to Minwoo’s friends and family.

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    1. I did hear and honestly it’s terrible, my condolences to the family and the members. I am glad you brought it up because I feel not many people are aware or know about it. I only found out two days after it happened.

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  24. It was a short performance of Rockhyun last year. Would you mind taking a look at it?
    And did he produce any support/resonance or did he sing with a high larynx in this performance? Thank you for taking the time to read this comment.

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  25. On February 2nd Rockhyun appeared in King of Mask Singer. Would you mind leaving a comment about his harmonies since 2:57 and 3:59 please? I wanna hear your thinking about his technique in 2019 :<

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