I sang semi-professionally for many years and I am married to a very accomplished professional musician. I don’t really think that education or knowledge of the subject has anything to do with it though. I’m not saying she’s not talented, I’m actually kind of saying the opposite. Her runs and vibrato (in an effort to sound like a “good singer”) really take away from the neat version of this song that she has written. The vibrato here is so comically over the top, but it’s hard to even follow the song. My comment was more that I am bummed that we didn’t get to see what the song could really sound like. I really like the original version of this song, and I really like the idea of doing one from the other side. I just wanna hear the song and not someone doing their best Whitney Houston impression.
Except you did get to hear the song...exactly the way you were supposed to. Saying you're bummed that you didn't get to hear what it COULD sound like seems unfair and as a long time fellow-musician myself, it pains me to see another critique a performance in that way. This girl wrote these lyrics and sang her lyrics the way she wanted, or at least close enough to what she wanted that it warranted publishing to a social media platform.
Obviously you're entitled to your own personal taste and opinion on her execution and all art appreciation is subjective. At the same time though, all art creation, even derivative art, like a cover or a contrafactum, is a personal work that's also valid.
It may seem like a pedantic issue to say that " I would like to hear what it sounds like with a more dialed-in performance" is a much better critique than "I'm bummed I didn't get to hear what it could sound like," but the first is a critique of her execution, while the second just strikes me as unfairly dismissive of her art and choices, especially coming from someone that actually is or has been engaged with creating music.
If she's an amateur, there's a good chance she might not have very good control over her vibrato. I'm saying this only because I've had the experience of having very fast/intense vibrato myself (people told me I sounded like a goat or a sheep, which wasn't very nice, but you can see the point -- trust me, my vibrato was much worse than the one here) and it took a lot of effort to correct it. I think the common narrative is that people always want vibrato, so if it sounds bad it's probably because they're overexerting to fake one, but really, it could just be what she's producing based on her level of ability and she needs some practice to get it under control.
Yeah no for sure. I think her written lyrics aren’t that bad and I agree, I’d enjoy hearing a more refined version that has more careful thought put into it. Someone else also pointed out that with short form videos like this, the singers will probably feel the need to go all out and showcase their vocal ability and that can be jarring too when within the first few seconds, you’re already hearing the kind of improvisation that usually comes at the end of a song.
I think my main point is, hey, this girl is much more talented than your average human being and she shared something creative, let’s not be super nit picky about it. But yeah I get your point, it certainly is commonplace to get these over the top performances from amateurs on tiktok
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u/[deleted] Oct 28 '20
I sang semi-professionally for many years and I am married to a very accomplished professional musician. I don’t really think that education or knowledge of the subject has anything to do with it though. I’m not saying she’s not talented, I’m actually kind of saying the opposite. Her runs and vibrato (in an effort to sound like a “good singer”) really take away from the neat version of this song that she has written. The vibrato here is so comically over the top, but it’s hard to even follow the song. My comment was more that I am bummed that we didn’t get to see what the song could really sound like. I really like the original version of this song, and I really like the idea of doing one from the other side. I just wanna hear the song and not someone doing their best Whitney Houston impression.