Vocal Range
E3 ~ G5 (2 octaves, 1 note and 1 semitone)
Supported Range
A3 ~ C5/C#5
Voice Type
Soprano
Strengths/Achievements
- Support is present throughout the voice
- Able to support her mixed voice up to C#5
- Lower range shows support down to A3, occasionally G#3
- Transitions into falsetto are smooth
- Intonation is mostly accurate
- Runs are produced with relative smoothness and flow
- Resonance is produced with consistency up to C5/C#5
Points for Improvement
- Diction is too speech-like, vowel shapes aren’t as opened as they could be
- Most closed vowel tends to be Ah (아)
- Support below A3 is almost inexistent, voice becomes very soft and airy
- Mixed voice above C#5 generally lacks power and becomes tight
- Larynx raises above C#5
- Unable to sing in a head voice
- Runs can become sloppy when too complicated and not carefully thought through
Registers
- Lower register: Support is consistent down to A3 and occasionally some support can be carried down to G#3. Generally sings with a very soft and airy chest voice below A3.
- Mixed register: Able to produce resonance with varying degrees of openness due to closed vowel shapes. Above C#5 tends to sound throaty or very tight with a high larynx.
- Upper register: Not ever shown the ability to sing with a head voice, but does generally well with falsetto transitions. Tends to sing only with an airy falsetto and the limit of her falsetto range is still unknown.
Agility
Although mostly promoting as a ballad singer, Ben’s agility is not completely overlooked nor underdeveloped. She has shown more than a few times that she has the right amount of muscle coordination in her vocal cords to allow runs to flow with relative smoothness, as heard in “눈, 코, 입” and “천일동안.” However, her voice still lacks full control and flexibility when doing runs, as she often becomes somewhat pitchy and loses the rhythmic flow as runs get faster and more complex, as heard in “다시 사랑할 수 있을까“, “You Are My Everything” and “키도 작고, 예쁘지 않지만.”
Overall analysis
Originally Ben debuted in 2010 as the main vocalist of the female vocal trio Bebe Mignon, dubbed to be the female version of 4Men. With a relatively successful debut, the group’s career was short lived and after the departure of member Gaeul, they disbanded. Her mentor, Vibe’s Yoon Minsu, did not let her talent go to waste and Ben soon debuted as a solo vocalist. As a soloist, she’s been recognized as a powerful vocalist despite her height, about 147.5 cm tall or 4’10”, she is always able to impress those around her as a tiny girl with a big voice. She’s been a guest on TV shows such as Yesterday and Immortal Song 2 where she has made a name for herself as a powerhouse vocalist.
The lower portion of her range is by far the most neglected and under explored part of her voice. Her chest voice generally carries tone down to G3, but support is only truly present down to A3, as heard in “사랑으로” and “천일동안.” There have been occasions where some support was carried down to G#3, but most of the time her voice becomes fairly airy and soft the lower she sings. This is due to her vocal cords not coming completely together as she descends in range, causing her chest voice to be unable to project or be produced with much tone as she sings lower. This can be heard in the G#3’s in “만약에“, “사랑으로“, G3’s in “사랑합니다“, “한숨“, F#3’s in “인연“, “갈색 추억“, F3’s in “Let It Go“, “늦은 후회“, and E3’s in “거위의 꿈.”
Her mixed voice is the area of her voice where Ben is able to showcase the most control and power. Consistently being able to place her voice correctly in her mask, while also supporting properly with a good balance of chest and head voice muscle development in her mixed, she’s able to sing through her mix by producing resonance. This can be heard whenever she sings within a comfortable part of her supported range, where resonance is produced with fulness and power up to C#5, as heard by the Bb4’s in “My Love“, B4’s in “J에게“, C5’s in “그대는“, “알고 싶어요“, and C#5’s in “잠시만 안녕“, “내 인생은 나의 것” and “파도.” When she also holds back on the volume output, she is able to carry support up to C#5 as well with more ease, as heard by the C#5’s in “인연.”
Ben’s main issues in her mix voice usually have more to do with her vowel shapes than issues with support. While support is carried up to C#5, she has the tendency to enunciate overly clearly with a more speech-like versions of vowels, as opposed to creating easier versions of vowels to sing. In singing, it’s common to alter the sounds of vowels in order to allow for them to be in the most opened spot in the throat, allowing for a shape that’s more opened and relaxed. Ben tends to close her throat a lot even when carrying support and resonance, which causes her to sound tight even within her supported range, as heard by the C#5’s in “갈색 추억“, “거위의 꿈” and C5’s in “Fight Song.” This mostly happens on the Oh (오) and Ah (아) vowels. Above C#5, her larynx raises and she’s unable to carry support, even though she has produced resonance up to D5 as heard in “J에게“, she mostly strains in that range. This can be heard with the D5’s in “그대는“, Eb5’s in “Let it Go“, “갈색 추억“, E5’s in “오늘은 가지마“, “지나간다“, “우리들의 이야기“, F5’s in “잘해준 것 밖에 없는데“, “바람기억“, “사랑은 언제나 목마르다“, F#5’s in “사랑으로“, “두근구든“, “내 인생은 나의 것” and G5’s in “Tears.”
Her upper register is produced as a falsetto. Ben has yet to show the ability to sing with a connected head voice, instead opting for an airy and soft disconnected falsetto. With the ability to produce a head voice, she has yet to develop her head voice muscles properly. As a result, her muscles are used to her simply singing with a half closed approach where a lot of air still tends to pass through her vocal cords in her upper register. Nonetheless, her transitions into her falsetto are generally quite accurate in pitch and she tends to sound mostly relaxed up to F#5, as heard in “눈, 코, 입“, “이별 10분 전“, “꿈처럼“, “만약에“, “그 남자, 그 여자” and “천일동안.” The true limit of her falsetto register is still unknown, as she might be able to sing much higher than F#5.
Her overall ability and technique are quite adequate. Ben may show issues with tension, but within her supported range she tends to sound very strong and full. Her control of dynamics are quite well shown when performing ballads, as she’s able to sing with the right approaches to fully convey the message of songs. For future improvement, working on proper vowel shaping to open up her mix could benefit her and give her a lot more freedom in her mixed voice. Also working on her head voice and chest voice could allow her to sing a much wider repertoire of songs.
Musicianship
Mostly working as a soloist throughout her career, Ben has very few chances to showcase her ability to harmonize. Nonetheless, she’s shown that when it comes down to it, she’s able to blend her voice well and handle her parts when singing duets and harmonies. When it comes to musical changes in songs, she tends to add very subtle and minimal changes that are often well executed within her supported range in terms of pitch, but outside of her supported they still carry a lot of tension, as heard by her run in “천일동안” as well as her musical changes in “거위의 꿈.”
Label (Type of Vocalist)
MB Vocalists: Mid-Range Belters
Best Vocal Performance(s)
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Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)
K-pop Vocalists' Vocal Analyses 
What is too speech-like just curious cuz I’ve never seen it.
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It’s explained within the analysis if you read further, actually.
“Ben’s main issues in her mix voice usually have more to do with her vowel shapes than issues with support. While support is carried up to C#5, she has the tendency to enunciate overly clearly with a more speech-like versions of vowels, as opposed to creating easier versions of vowels to sing. In singing, it’s common to alter the sounds of vowels in order to allow for them to be in the most opened spot in the throat, allowing for a shape that’s more opened and relaxed. Ben tends to close her throat a lot even when carrying support and resonance, which causes her to sound tight even within her supported range.”
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I usually see her name on Immortal Song and radio performances so I figured u might have tons of material lol… she kinda sounds like Lena Park to me XD
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I love Ben’s voice, and I’m surprised that the analysis did not mention the unique color of her voice, which has a child-like timbre (a bit similar to Heyne’s voice, but not as overtly infantilized). It’s very obvious when she sings more upbeat/cute songs, such as “Palpitations” from the Producer OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH7cIlrRhlQ
It seems that if every singer were to sing with impeccable techniques that this site prizes so much, they’d all sound very similar and that would be really boring. So much of what the analyses lists as the singers’ weaknesses are exactly what makes them sound different from each other, giving each of their voices their unique colors. This is why operatic singing all sound the same and is actually quite boring to listen to in terms of expressiveness and personality. I’ll take a good pop singer with flaws but has an enticing style and able to convey the feelings of being coquettish, melancholic, sultry, adorable, nasty, soothing, pathetic, angry, timid, proud, etc. over operatic singing with impeccable technique but everything simply sounds sonorous and not much else, due to the need to always project loud enough for the entire audience to hear. It doesn’t sound natural at all, because human beings don’t constantly talk with a sonorous and full voice to be heard by an entire theater, and that is why pop singers sound much more natural and expressive since they sound much closer to how human beings actually express themselves.
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Uniqueness in tone could’ve been mentioned but I forgot to. I don’t believe impeccable technique would make them sound similar nor boring. There’s nothing similar about Aretha Franklin, Natalie Weiss, Sohyang, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston. None of them sound similar, nor do they sound boring. Having good technique does not take away uniqueness, we praise stylistic choices that sacrifice technique as long as they’re choices and not bad habits that can’t be turned on and off at will. Vocal health is very important. We don’t even talk about operatic singers on this blog, so the comparison didn’t quite make sense in the context of this blog. If you’re talking bout preference, we all have preference but this isn’t a blog about preference nor what we like to listen to, this is about praising those who have worked hard for their craft and bringing attention to those who may hurt themselves in the future. Being a good technical vocalist does not mean incapable of emoting since all of the excellent vocalists I mentioned are capable of doing exactly all that you said.
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I guess it’s a matter of taste. All the singers you listed are the type of singers I categorize as “I respect their ability, but I never listen to their songs because I find them too proper/conventional.” Yeah, they have range, control, power, proper/superior technique, etc. but none of them have the kind of uniqueness I find attractive.
For example, in all the analyses done at this site, vocalists get criticized for sounding too nasal, or whiny, or breathy, or in the case of Ben, pronouncing her vowels too speech-like, and so on. But that’s EXACTLY what makes their voices instantly recognizable and interesting. Imagine Jimin of AOA without that sassy nasally quality–it just wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. Imagine IU without her breathy voice–she’d lose one of the most interesting aspects of the personality of her voice. Imagine Baek Yerin without the “half-breath, half-singing” expressiveness–the intimacy would decrease instantly.
There are so many vocalists in the history of music that are flawed in terms of technique, including using harmful approaches, yet they are so captivating and interesting to listen to PRECISELY because of their uniqueness that includes their flaws or “unhealthy techniques”. Tom Waits and Billie Holiday are two great example. None of the vocalists you listed have the same kind of earthy, soulful charm. Hell, almost all the vocalists in aggressive musical genres like rock, punk, metal, etc. would be severely criticized by the vocal analysts on this site. The point is, even those without adequate range/skills as vocalists can be very pleasing to listen to, such as the often criticized Lisa Ekdahl, Blossom Dearie, Kahimi Karie, etc. None of the singers that you listed have the same kind of adorable charm as them. It’s similar to how a middle-aged mature woman simply cannot exude the same kind of appeal a young teenager girl can when it comes to innocence, freshness, youthful joy, etc.
I personally feel that your website needs to address this, because every time I read any of the vocal analysis posted on this site, I feel compelled to tell the writer that it’s very important to include a section in the analysis that’s focused on the personality/appeal of the vocalists’s unique color/approach, DESPITE whether it is considered good technique, and celebrating their uniqueness instead of criticizing them for it. Without covering that aspect, all of you analyses end up too dry and technical and lacking any consideration to emotions/feelings/appeal. At the end of the day, aren’t those elements the main reasons why most people love music so much?
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Vocalists only get criticized for those things when that’s ALL they can do and when those things aren’t done ON PURPOSE, for stylistic reasons. Wishing to have a certain speech-like whispery tone in singing for style can work for you if it’s something you do at will, but if that’s how you sing indie..then R&B, then pop-rock, then musicals, then we know you’re limited to that style and you lack technique. Jimin of AOA is not a comparable example because she’s a rapper. Again all of those things can be done healthily and on purpose, instead of being a limited approach that some vocalists have. Also I disagree with “these characteristics make them sound instantly recognizable” as if having proper technique made people sound the same. Again I don’t think it’s possible to say that you would listen to Mariah Carey, Beyoncé or Sohyang and tell me that any of them sound similar voice quality wise, music genre wise NOR that they’re not instantly recognizable. So uniqueness of tone is not strictly linked to bad vocal habits, a voice is unique in itself and what you do with it helps as well. Actually style makes people sound a lot more similar than proper technique. Proper technique allows flexibility and your real voice to come out, with style you stay hidden in a voice that often is not your true tone…and many vocalists who sing the same genre sound fairly similar. Many R&B male artists in America have very similar sounding voices due to their vocal habits. Many indie-pop vocalists sing with swallowed tongues and airy qualities that make them sound fairly similar. Ellie Goulding’s singing style is not hard to emulate and many people sound like her. So what you like and what you personally consider unique can’t be used as a measurable standard for what we here or anybody else for that matter should consider to be unique. We do not criticize uniqueness, we criticize uniformity of sound causing limitation of one’s technique due to bad vocal habits. Bad vocal habits that are shared between individuals who wish to sound like someone they’re not.
Again I think you seem to fail to understand the difference between an appealing artist/singer and a vocalist. A vocalist is one who’s skilled at using their voice as an instrument. An appealing artist/singer has uniqueness that helps them be popular and sell music. You just prefer the appeal over the skill, which is fine. That is YOUR preference. Nobody said they weren’t pleasing to listen to, we never say that in the analyses. Pleasing to listen to is entirely subjective to your taste.
I’m sorry but what you’re asking us to do is VERY subjective, irrelevant and specific to what YOU think. Your perception of emotion, appeal, feelings, child-like color and uniqueness are very specific things that you feel when you listen to Ben and other artists and we simply can’t guess what you’re thinking or what you want us to say in the analyses. We may not feel the same way about these vocalists as you do so whatever subjective section we may create within the analyses to address “unique color/approach” may not satisfy simply because we’re not you, so what we think is appealing could very well not be what you consider to be appealing. Also “all of your analyses end up too dry and technical” …but that’s 100% exactly what they are. They are NOT subjective analyses of artistic appeal and successful styles within the music industry. They are objective technical vocal analyses. You’re asking them to be something they’re not.
I appreciate the thought but you’re missing the point of the analyses overall. This isn’t a blog to talk about who your favorite artist is, why, why people love them, why you SHOULD love them, what makes them unique, appealing. No, that was NEVER what we suggested and if you read our criteria carefully, it’s very clearly stated that is NOT what we do. You’re asking us to conform to your way of thinking when your way of thinking is very personal to you and others may not share the same feelings simply because they’re subjective. It’s a blog for vocal technique made by vocal instructors, not producers. We are not trying to seek out new talent that’s appealing and could be successful because the big masses will like them. We are instructors, what we do is instruct, we talk about technique, we help students improve their singing ability. What you want is not what we do, so maybe you have the idea of the website confused with something else you expected.
Perhaps you, as an artist and producer, are more entitled to write what you feel about artists and consider it “Artist Appeal Analysis” or something like that. What we do is Vocal Technique analysis, we do address appeal to an extent and what keeps an artist going in terms of their place in the music industry, but we can’t dedicate so much of what we do to trying to guess what we should consider appealing or not so that every fan out there will have their opinions considered. We don’t read minds, we don’t know why each and every fan likes a specific artist or not, unfortunately. Even we may listen to artists because we genuinely like their music. I listen to Ailee’s music and Shannon’s music because I genuinely like their songs, not because they’re great at singing necessarily. I like many IU songs, I like many Britney Spears songs for that matter, but why I like them isn’t something I can put into words and push onto others. Despite me considering Whitney an excellent vocalist, I prefer Mariah Carey’s music which again is subjective and nothing to do with vocal ability.
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We have addressed this kind of comment before, but I guess there is no harm in addressing it again. You wrote a lot so I may have missed some points and therefore not address them in my response. First of all, it is personal taste. Who you like to listen to is all about your personal taste; it has nothing to do with technique. In no way are we telling anyone “you shouldn’t listen to this because they have faulty technique,” in fact we even address that on the first page. Who you like to listen to is who you like to listen to and there really is not anything we can do about it..and we aren’t trying to do anything about it.
The point of the analyses is to point out a vocalist’s positive and negatives and from an objective technical standpoint. In other words, we have to address those technical faults or we aren’t doing our job. Those are technical faults and we have to address, we just have to if our goal to be objective and hold them to a technical standard. We understand that people like that vocalist can have a whiny, breathy, nasal sound and those are fine when done stylistically they are only problem when a vocalist can’t show they have the ability to go back and forth between clean singing and more stylistic singing. Everyone on this blog as of right now is a vocalist. We all sing. We all perform. We use breathy tonality at times, more speech-like, more whiny, more nasal quality we understand its place and why it’s done and how it can further a song, but we also understand that we need to know how to turn it on and off because that represents skill. Everything you mentioned in this paragraph has to do with style and matching a song. Yes, Yerin’s breathy, intimate sound may suit nicely on “Love You on Christmas Day,” but it wouldn’t be appropriate singing “Why” by Taeyeon which requires a cleaner tone production, breathy vocals just wouldn’t fit with that song, but that’s the only way Yerin sings so she would be limiting herself in terms of delivery if she were to sing that song because the breathy intimacy of her voice just wouldn’t work. Does that make sense? You need to be able to have style, but you need to be able to adapt to other styles as a vocalist.
Again we know that just because someone isn’t the most technically advanced does not mean you can’t enjoy them. This is where it just becomes subjective, and it’s just you like who you like. I also feel in this section you are being very opinionated especially when you say “None of the singers that you listed have the same kind of adorable charm as them” that’s your opinion, I’m not going to comment on that, but I am just letting you know that that’s your opinion and not a fact. Same with the your next statement about middle aged women and young girls..it’s an opinion and not a fact..considering how Rizzo from Grease was a woman in her 30s. Also uniqueness is also subjective. This whole paragraph is filled with subjective points that I can’t prove you wrong about because they are your opinions and you are entitled to them.
I understand what you are saying, however that’s not the point of this blog. We aren’t here to cover things like emotions, subjective aspects and uniqueness. The point of this blog is to analyze vocalist through am objective technical scope to the best of our ability and mentioning those subjective things just aren’t necessary and really doesn’t further the overall point of the analysis. Also, you guys already know about a vocalist’s emotions/appeal and that stuff..like you form those opinions on your own..so what would be the point of us sharing ours about them when you already know and it is because of those reasons as to why you like a vocalist.
I feel you misunderstand us, I truly do. We don’t just listen to vocalist that have stellar technique, we don’t. In fact some of our favorite vocalist are that aren’t technically amazing at all. Like, I love listening to Yoona’s voice and she definitely isn’t technically amazing and Matheus likes Tiffany’s voice and she isn’t good technicall either. Also just because a vocalist has a good technique does not mean we are going to like them, now I might get flamed for this, but I don’t like D.O’s voice..he has adequate technique and many people love his voice because they like his tone and such, but it just does not vibe with me..I definitely prefer Chen’s and Suho’s voice over his and I know people hate Chen’s voice..so like technique has nothing to do with whether we like a vocalist or not..like we like who we like..just like you like who you like. The point of this blog and the analyses within them aren’t to sway your opinions on vocalist..it’s not to choose which vocalist you should listen to and which one’s you should not. The point is to inform fans about the technical aspect of an idol’s singing to really explain and show how they are using their voice and that’s it. We aren’t concerned with the subjective even though we try to sneak that in with the “musicianship” section, we are just trying to inform fans about objective technique through kpop idols therefore making it relevant to them.
I hope i have made myself clear and if you have any further questions or concerned please say them.
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@ahmin3/pandayeu – Thank you both for the detailed and thoughtful replies. You’re right in that I was hoping to see an element added to your analyses that’s not necessarily fitting for the M.O. of your website. As a composer/songwriter, I’m much more concerned with emotions and appeal than the technique of the vocalist, and as a fan of music, what I love often don’t align with how much technique a singer has. I’m happy to know that you guys are the same way–that you do also love singers who aren’t considered skilled. Knowing that actually helps me relate to you guys so much more.
To address the point that it’s too hard for you guys to include a section on style/appeal, I’d like to suggest this approach: What if you wrote with the objective perspective of, “the fans of this vocalist have often cited these characteristics as what they find appealing, and the way the vocalist achieves those effects is by singing in the following ways.” I think any vocalist that makes it onto your site will have a sizable enough fanbase to give you idea of what the fans generally find appealing about the person’s voice/singing style? (Assuming you follow comment sections for their videos, forum discussions, etc.) But there might be cases when you really don’t know what the vocalists’ fans find appealing about their voices/style, so in those cases, you won’t have to try and guess and can just not mention that point.
In some of your past analyses, you’ve covered that aspect, but I think it would be nice if you can make it a persistent aspect of your analyses.
The reason I think it would be a nice addition, is that you’ve obviously had to field similar questions/remarks often in your comment section, so people are reacting to your analyses that way for a reason. By addressing it in the analyses themselves, you’ve already headed off those comments since there’d be no reason for people to react that way anymore. Also, even though your blog has disclaimers, many people won’t read them–they just land on a analysis page from some external link or web search. This means you’ll continue to get similar comments over and over. Which might not be a bad thing because it prompts activity in your comments sections. But I don’t know if you guys will get tired of having to explain yourselves over and over.
Anyway, I fully understand where you guys are coming from now, and I won’t bring this point up again in the future.
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Again yes we’re not robots. lol We all have preferences, but we are able to separate preference from objective facts. I prefer someone’s voice and someone’s music, but I can still acknowledge that someone else is much better at what they do. Now having said that, I also don’t feel personally, just me, that emotions are measurable nor are they part of someone’s singing. I never think of someone’s singing as emotional, I always think that the song is beautiful and emotional and I never think it’s because of the singer. To show you just how subjective emotions are in singing.
See the problem with that is that then it becomes more subjective and it may come off as bias as well because like Ben, Ann One, Naul…they are known for skill or high notes, but they’re not known internationally. They don’t have huge fanbases. I often look up a background on the vocalist, their careers, their history, and whatnot. Now to go beyond that to look at comments and find out what fans like about artists, if there’s little material to know what fans think, then it’s unfair not to include it for every analysis. Also a lot of fans think the same exact thing about everybody. It’s always emotion this, stable that, words thrown around that are meaningless and vague. We can’t describe exactly how fans feel about an artist’s singing unless we make polls asking everybody their personal feelings towards a vocalist’s singing, get their stories, compile them and make some sort of average opinion. It’s not feasible. That would slow down what we do a lot and become a lot more fan-oriented, a lot more subjective, prone to bias a lot more as well. As long as we’re not the fans of a certain artist, we don’t know EXACTLY how they feel. Some people can’t even put into words what they feel, so again it’s too subjective to include on our analyses. It’s a lot more work that’s irrelevant to technique and that’s just above and beyond and could potentially backfire.
Again although I appreciate that yes people often come with their subjective opinions and they think their favorite singer is the best ever out there. So for us not to agree is offensive to some. Now the thing is we can’t please everyone. What we do is what do. If some people don’t like what we do, as polite, respectful and professional as we can be, then there’s nothing we can do. There are always going to be people who will think we are biased, we won’t like that we didn’t mention this and that about someone’s singing and we can’t live to try and please everyone and address everything everyone feels about a vocalist’s singing. Honestly though aside from you, we haven’t really had anything recent that I can think of within our comment sections that is an issue. We haven’t had people come to the comment sections asking about this and that. Most people will mention it vaguely and we explain it’s not what we do. It’s fine, I don’t explaining it because again opening that door could lead to a lot of backfiring. A lot of it could turn completely against us. I prefer that we stay neutral, objective and stay on technique because yes we’re all vocalists and some instructors ourselves, we may as well be artists, but we have to be logical enough to know when to be one or the other. We can’t be both at the same time. So I hope you understand.
I would love it in a perfect world if we could analyze vocalists and people would be able to differentiate taste from technique. I also would love it in a perfect world if people could have differing opinions and still co-exist without name calling and trash talking. I also wish we could be in a perfect world where I could know exactly how a vocalist’s singing makes everyone feel, but we don’t unfortunately live in that world. So not to be biased, not to be subjective, not to cause problems, we can only remain professional about this. Thank you for understanding. ^ ^
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The reason they don’t sound the same is because they aren’t the same. And I’m not just talking about differences in technique–I mean differences in level, too.
Natalie and Sohyang aren’t excellent vocalists, anyway. Probably the two most over-hyped vocalists this blog has stacked up. Sounding boring is subjective anyway, but Natalie would certainly fit that bill, in my opinion. She has one style of singing, lol.
I’m not sure that Aretha was ever excellent, certainly not a good as Whitney.
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Did you achieve what you set out to do when you came to this old comment section? It’s kind of funny of you to come here talking about over hyping a vocalist. But okay.
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I didn’t set out to do anything other than read this analysis, then saw this comment and thought I’d correct it. Yeah, it’s kind of funny how I would talk about it when I’ve literally overhyped like two people over the course of six years, and you’ve done it to a blog full of people. I notice Sohyang’s still not back up. That’s probably a good thing, as she’s just getting worse.
And it’s worth noting the people I overhyped are still better than people like Shannon and Ailee, who certainly do not “resonate E5s.” Even worse, though, they don’t even have good notes in the fourth.
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My only purpose was to read this analysis, and then I saw your comment and wanted to add to it.
You mean like the two people I overhyped compared to your blog-full? Two people who are better than most of the vocalists on here, anyway?
I notice Sohyang still isn’t up, by the way. That’s probably a good thing, seeing as she’s just getting worse and worse. But how about y’all be fair and create an accurate analysis for her?
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Wait, you’re talking smack about the vocalists in this blog while you claim certain vocalists support F5’s? If you don’t agree with us, why come here and claim to wanna read this analysis? Since we mostly disagree, why waste either of our time? ._.
About Sohyang, that’s Pandayeu’s analysis. What he decides to do with it is his business, but it’s got nothing to do with you. We didn’t take it down because of you.
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What vocalist do I currently claim supports F5 who doesn’t? I’m waiting. You can’t name one. Be specific. Being vague is just a cop-out.
About Sohyang. Yeah … sure. I just happened to get lucky and leave that comment the day before y’all planned to take it down.
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I’m going to be very honest with you. I don’t know what you’ve got going on in your life right now. But I have been less active for a reason. I’ve got more important things to do. It’s not a cop out, you know exactly who I mean. It’s Lee Sunhee, who else? I didn’t give a name because I don’t care for petty arguments. If you’re looking for arguments about singing, you can go back to YouTube and fight there. I’m not here for it. You can believe whatever you want, about cop outs, about what your ears tell you, and about Sohyang’s analysis. I don’t care. I’ve got other things to spend my energy on right now, so I’m out.
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Oh, please, you’re talking about a million years ago. I haven’t said Lee Sun Hee supports that high in years. Like I said, you can’t name one. But supporting to F5 by your definition isn’t even that impressive, because you tend to like very constricted and light-sounding vocalists.
The point is that the reason none of those women sound tonally similar is because they have very different techniques, and most of them aren’t excellent at all. I’m tired of this blog stacking up people who don’t deserve it while tearing down much better vocalists like Barbra Streisand. It’s an insult to Whitney to act like Natalie Weiss is anything close to her level, and even more of one to suggest, as your past comments would seem to indicate, that Barbra’s not even as good. You even give Shannon and Ock Joo Hyun similar or larger supported ranges compared to her, which is highly inaccurate.
I’ve got a lot of vocalists on my channel. Go watch them and tell me where I’m wrong instead of dredging up six-year-old comments.
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You literally came to a comment that’s also a few years old and you’re telling me not to dredge up old comments? I don’t know if you didn’t care to read or if you just pretended not to so I’ll repeat. I’ve got more important things to do than petty online arguments. I want to focus my energy elsewhere. Aka I don’t care. I don’t have to defend what I hear. We’ve done this many times before, what’s the use? Wasting hours typing to end up agreeing to disagree in the end like always? If you want an argument, go to YouTube and find one. Not here, not with me. If you think you know better, then sure. If you’re tired of this blog, then don’t come here. It’s simple. I disagree with you but don’t wanna waste my time with you, so I don’t go looking for your YouTube channel, etc. Do the same please. It’s nothing personal, I’m just tired and I really don’t care.
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The difference is that I don’t stand by what I said. This comment is sitting for the public to read quite easily, so I wanted to add to it so that people reading these comments can gain more perspective.
You run a whole, very influential blog about vocal technique that has literally erroneously changed online perception of some vocalists’ ability–which as you say, they have worked hard for. You should be prepared to defend that. I get that you have more important things going on–I do, too–but if you’re going to put information out there, you have a responsibility to defend it.
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You’re still talking? You’re mentioning ratings that have been removed from the blog that weren’t even in that comment. If I stood by them, they wouldn’t have been removed now would they? Listen, I don’t have a responsibility to fight the same people online about the same things over and over again. I’ve done it enough, and I know there’s no point. I do not own you an argument dear. We will go around in circles, I’m past that. If you’re not, that’s on you. Go do the other more important things you have to do. I won’t be responding anymore. Remember what I said about circles? It’s happening right now and I am not even talking about singing. It’s just who you are, you don’t listen and you’re hard headed. I don’t care for these arguments, you can find someone else who does. You’re not listening to me right now, why would I try to defend anything knowing what the outcome is? Good life to you sir.
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You mean the comment that calls them excellent vocalists? You took the ratings off, yeah, but do you honestly expect people to believe that doesn’t mean you don’t believe some vocalists are better than others? Of course you do.
Nice rewording, but that’s not the point. People aren’t saying that you have a responsibility to argue with people over and over again. They’re saying that you have a responsibility to defend your views when they’ve helped discredit really great vocalists, vocalists who are better than the people you’ve stacked up, for that matter. If you put information out there and you’re not willing to defend it, it’s honestly cowardly, especially when this blog has as much influence as it does.
Why are we going around in circles? Because you’re rehashing old arguments and bringing up claims like LSH–instead of actually talking about what I said. The truth is that I made an objective vocal claim about the singers you listed in that comment, and you’re trying to frame this about everything else under the sun in order to not have to defend what you said. That’s why we’re going around in circles. It’s all a red herring to distract from the fact that you placed people on the same level when they’re quite clearly not.
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People are saying that? You mean you’re saying that? Okay. You think these vocalists aren’t in the same level vocally? Okay. You’re free to think that, I don’t honestly care who’s better than who. If you do, that’s on you. Good day to you.
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I have no idea who she is but she sounds pretty and is above average so I’ll listen. Is that closed throat diction that you explained or is it something different
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Yes it is.
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Well was she fun to analyze she’s like a textbook above average lol with all of her strengths and flaws. Is she stronger than Wheein seems like it from the analysis but I can never tell because Haruko analyzed her and he’s harsher.
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She is not, nope.
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*She’s
My mistake sorry.
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wheein have G#3 – C#5 with constant resonance up to C#5
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great analysis as always!!! love the work you guys do here & you guys don’t get enough credit 🙂
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Dear Ahmin, Thank you so much for your hard work.
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Thank you so much for your appreciation. ^ ^
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Thanks for writing this analysis!
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Hi Ahmin! You are not a human (about remember Yuju flat F#4 on anthem)!
I am little surprised about Ben, because she doesn’t have head voice and she is still above average..
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Most Above Average vocalists don’t have a head voice actually. Solji, Wheein, Solar, Bohyung, Jea, Lee Hi…actually only 4 of them have head voices. Ben follows the pattern of most other AA females, she’s actually better than a few of them.
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Wow, i am very surprised right now.. Wheein, Solar and Solji don’t have head voice.. How about Hwasa? It’s her birthday today 🙂
I think she shows somewhat head voice one of performances on Immortal Songs 2, but i really don’t know for sure..
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Didn’t I say Hwasa? Yeah she doesn’t either. I don’t see why you’re surprised, it says so in their analyses. lol She only shows a high falsetto.
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I just realized that, too. Only Minkyung and Narsha are capable of supporting head voice, with the latter as the best in AV category.
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Hahah “Ben” what a name XD ! Other than that, what a cute looking person ! ^^ Thanks for this analysis Ahmin ! Never knew this girl until now ! Was really anticipated reading the “female version of 4Men” line. I generally dislike female voices but I really like this one though.
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Ha. It sounds like her mixed register would fit in with Mamamoo really well with support up to C#5.
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She sounded really like Lee Sunhee in her version of To J.
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was her vowel in 2:24 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-_JM8qaso sound weird?? cause it sounds weird to me when i contrast it to the studio version
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She closed the throat too much for that, she engaged muscles in the back of her throat that changed the vowel from Ah to like a tighter Uh.
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Hey Ahmin 🙂 isn’t Bennie using her head voice in this performance towards the end (roughly 3:40 onwards)? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQVOYkDTeIM
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Did you just call Ben “Bennie?” lol 3:40 is a resonant A4. I..uh, I think you might have a misunderstanding of what the term “head voice” means. That was all her mixed voice from 3:40 ~ 4:20 before I stopped watching to make sure. There’s no head voice or even falsetto after that, it’s just mix and chest voice.
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woopps, thanks for clarifying that ^__^ Idk for some reason I have a very bad tendency to associate ‘high’ notes to head voice. Need to do some more learning on that. AHAHAHA heyy it’s just an affectionate nickname cmon xD like you know, Taehyung = TaeTae, Jungkook = Kookie, Hoseok = Hobi
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I’ve just never heard anybody calling her that lol Well…have you watched many vocal range videos? You can see the hear the head voice section t get more familiar with the sound of it.
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ahaha, I guess you could call it my special nickname for her xD hmmm, I kinda have but it was mainly just for fun purposes. I shall revisit them to hopefully figure out when chest/mix voice ends and head voice begins. About resonance, how hard is it to achieve resonance and establish proper support, how long on average does it take? As a rookie, should I just initially try to get my head around support before jumping to resonance?
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It’s not really about where mixed voice ends and where head voice begins, but instead the difference in sound quality from one to the other. Establishing proper support isn’t “hard” in the sense that you have to do a lot for it. The thing is you have to have as minimal tension in your body as possible, THAT is what makes it hard for people since they are always trying to oversing and overdo stuff when singing. So resonance is the next step and it can be quite hard. Yes most definitely support should always come before resonance. There’s no set time, everybody has different vocal habits.
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woowww thanks so much ^__^ you have so much knowledge that you share and it motivates me to keep on learning! Just one last question about nasality. For the past couple of years, I have been very vulnerable to the ‘nose’-side of hay fever systems. It’s nothing severe really, just that my nose is VERY sensitive and it’s really (and I mean, REALLYYY) easy for me to get hay fever symptoms like a runny/blocked nose etc. As a consequence, I’ve noticed that a lot of the time, my nose isn’t really fully ‘unblocked’ but it’s not to the extent that I can’t breathe properly. When I practice singing, I can feel this causing complications but it’s hard to explain how exactly. For example, sometimes it..it sort of limits like how ‘freely’ I can sing before my voice gets trapped in my nose. That’s my weird little problem. So my question is, to what extent will this affect my singing in terms of nasality? How big of a problem will this be in terms of establishing proper support since this most definitely causes a LOT of tension in my throat when I sing. Sorry, this is probs so irrelevant to ask on Ben’s vocal analysis, I should post this question somewhere else but since i already asked you about support and resonance here, I hope it’s okay 😦
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The tension can affect support for sure and the health of your vocal cords but you should be able to eliminate nasality despite a blocked nose.
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hello! i’m not sure if this question has been asked before, but, how’s ben here?
at about 3:17 and then again 3:37, is she straining? and also if you have time to listen to the whole thing how’s she overall!
digressing abit, i was wondering if you liked the songs b1a4’s jinyoung produces? i mean he doesn’t seem to be amazing as a vocalist but he does seem to have good musicality!
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3:17 D5 yes strained and F5 Eb5 3:37 yes strained again. I don’t hear anything new, she’s singing her usual way. Slightly too closed in her vowels, keeping her Aye’s more throaty than necessary, soft on the lower notes, but resonance is present up to C#5 at most, as it’s her usual. Jinyoung producing B1A4? I wasn’t aware that he did, so I really can’t comment on it.
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oh he produced quite alot. the above song was produced by him too and so were a few IOI songs
thanks so much!
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Hi Ahmin, would you consider Ben to have a very light voice (like how light Sistar Hyorin’s voice is)?
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I would say so.
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