Are high notes worth regressing?

There's this belief that singers that only improve after debut or when training but that is actually not true, most idols I would say, go through some sort of regression in their kpop careers, and it's something that many attribute to the bad schedules and straining of their voices.

Do you personally think giving vocally based difficult songs/ or songs with technique kpop singers cannot reach are worth it when they are risking regression?

And for the idols with no technique, is it worth it for them to debut and then get hit with terrible feedback over their vocals?

I'm going to get destroyed for it but I'll give some examples of worrying regressions/improvements.

Regressions:

1) NCT's Taeil: Taeil had seen a considerable regression this year but in Sticker, has shown better coordination moments and seems to be working his way back up, but because of his high notes in NCT songs, had regressed in his mix. He seems to be regaining his regular level back in lives, but it will take another comeback to decide for sure.

2) Mamamoo's Wheein: This one breaks my heart because I am a huge Wheein fan, (Angel line stan here!) and have seen Mamamoo since Don't Wanna Cry. Starting from her collab with Baekhyun, Wheein was showing signs of regression. It seemed like a surprise at first, but over the year has had a massive regression, and I hate to admit it , but I'm REALLY worried. She went from high AA and the strongest in MAMAMOO to sounding like Hwasa with her coordination (low AA). I have no clue what is going on with this.

*3) While Ailee is the best technical kpop female vocalist active, she doesn't have much of an ear for technique, so her pushy-chest dominant technique leads to periods of improvement and regression with stress, weight loss, and scandals influencing her regressions in 2015, 2016 and now. Considering the recent loss she faced, I don't think this is caused by her songs, but her way of singing doesn't spare even the most technical singer.

4) Oh My Girl's Seunghee: I think this one has to do with experience, regressed from borderline A-AA to high A due to the influx of performances Oh My Girl have performed since they blew up with Nonstop and later Dolphin.

WJSN's Yeonjung

Improvements:

I'm going to just list them but you can ask more in depth:

SISTAR's Hyorin (LMAO yes)

NCT's Doyoung

Gugudan's Sejeong

Mamamoo's Solar

One more thing, most male BG vocalists tend to sound worse in their songs than they did before debut due to the high amount of straining, namely MCND's Huijin, CRAVITY's Woobin, NCT's Taeil, Doyoung and Jaehyun (although all 3 have shown better relaxed moments after debut in par if not better than predebut), and most worryingly, Ateez's Jongho.

Quote from Tic_tac_toe

It’s not like as if kpop idols are singing those high notes live every single night or anything. Even in concerts they’re supported by loud backtrack where they can take a break if they want to. With or without high note it’s all the same.

If it sounds good in the studio version it’s fine.

true -- but generally you record 8-10 versions of one song to serve as backtracks for performances, and you also are working early mornings, and late nights with often no time for warmups. Also heavy dancing while singing softly can have an impact.

Quote from Yumeku

I think the fear of it is why SM is making their artists use this COVID time as an opportunity to not sing live amap in many music shows. It’s wise of them tbh but it becomes bothersome. Also I myself don’t understand much so I am asking, can you tell the difference if someone is having a bad day or actually regressed? Because I have seen reviews talking about showing regression then showing better results in few months a lot with some of them. How does that make sense?

Vocals are very finicky, a bad cold, nodules, getting less sleep on tour, all can affect vocals. Ailee said this but the idol lifestyle is not good for a vocalist at all.

For me a regression is a repeated pattern showing a noticeable loss of technique over many showcases. I generally wait 1-2 comebacks to be sure and try to check as much live content as possible. Lia did not sound good in MITM but she didn't regress, Loco bsides had some of her best (:)) support yet. Someone like Ailee shows notable chest coordination loss but she regains it because she spends time training, so there's periods of regression and improvement, seen by the ease of her vocals. Taeyeon lost her D#5 which was very noticeable in all her lives, because SNSD sang live very often. Taeil too was showing less engagement over a year before I called it a regression, but he has managed to rebound in half a year so I think he will recover later.

It makes sense because generally if you have a good sense of support (Taeyeon) you already have better coordination up there so rest, recuperation and practice will help you regain that but she had to avoid all high notes for a while and it took some time before she sang the high notes without backtrack live besides encores.

Seunghee went on a show that is very popular in Korea and it has raw vocals, so I could see her regression but it's from overuse so it can be fixed with rest .

Some people are quick to call regression but I like to wait usually. I watched Wheein (Mamamoo sing live VERY often so it's obvious for me to tell) on several different shows and lives, and it's a problem when it's a pattern of bad engagement. And it depends if it's a huge gap or not, like Wheein's regression and Hyorin's regression were very easily visible, while Seunghee's was smaller.

Quote from selfmate

the only singer who I now have stated this very clearly was Suhyun from AKMU when discussing the high notes for dinosaur - I think it was during their Knowing Brothers variety where she said that she was shocked to see the notes she'd be expected to sing and told her brother that she wouldn't sing it on music shows if she did have to sing such notes...

She's right -- she has no coordination for those notes and she called it. I think she could Bs it but it's not a great thing to do.

Quote from okeechobee

Agreed. Not so much as of right now as you pointed out, but before I could see a noticeable difference in the strain and support levels of his upper mixed register that he was much more comfortable in during his early debut years. But I’m happy to see his regained improvement during Sticker era.

He seems to be rebounding, I followed the Raiden live and it was actually pretty good as well.

Quote from the101

I think this is quite interesting. FWIW, I don’t think anyone is going to come at you for a technical analysis, since you gave specific technical examples here.

haesoovoiceship said something similar around Taeil, so it’s interesting to hear two “tech” people make the same note. I’m not educated enough to hear it. What I did notice is that he seemed nervous recently during his song with Raiden. I’ve always seen him to be able to drop (to my ear) amazing notes just sitting on the couch with the guys or in karaoke, but he seemed to be a little shaky on the softer part of the song until he got into the bigger part of his voice (I’m not sure what that’s called). I chalked that up to the nervousness people in groups sometimes have when they have to go solo and can’t “hide behind” the other guys or use their confidence to support them (both Kai and Baek talked about this fairly recently.) I wasn’t aware that might have been tied into a larger issue.

Again to my untrained ear, I can hear the improvement in the strength and stability in Doyoung’s voice (perhaps the musical theater work?) but I notice sometimes he’s a little hesitant going for his first notes on the live encore stages in a way that the other vocalists aren’t. Once he settles in, he’s completely confident and strong. I’d be interested to hear your notes around Doyoung because I’m just a fan of vocals and music and not a knowledgeable person around the tech of it.

What are your thoughts on the other NCT mains? (Jaehyun, Haechan, Renjun, Chenle, Xiaojun, Kun, Ten). I’m always curious to learn..

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oo I think honestly the thing that worried me was Taeil's mix regressed after he sang several stages and From Home was where he sounded very stuck in his mix, it's basically because of high notes, he's always had a tendency to regress (because he's inconsistent) and with a chestier approach, again it's not surprising. He sounds much better in Sticker and now so I think he'll regain that hopefully. I think his nervousness there was tied to stage fright but he performed pretty well there. It wasn't peak but it's way better than his stuck G#4s last year.

Doyoung's musical theatre work has improved his technique but Doyoung struggles to bring that improved technique consistently on NCT stages, he'll get there but you're right, he's lacking confidence. Both Taeil and Doyoung are being forced to sing extremely high for NCT, like their parts are ones I really want them to ease upon. Doyoung had A4 down earlier this year. Doyoung was pretty bad with support at debut though, so this is like big, like...little Taeyeon LMAO.

Jaehyun is the next best NCT vocalist and the second NCT vocalist I think is most likely to improve. I feel like he is underutilized in comparison, he has some underdeveloped registers that could be developed pretty easily. I'm just really confused because he's like a hidden gem lmao. He's a good average though, but I haven't listened to his lives closely recently.

Xiaojun actually hasn't improved from predebut, he's a mid average. It's because all his time at SM was spent learning the language but his technique doesn't seem to have improved yet. He's by FAR the strongest vocalist outside of NCT127 and is one of the most stable vocalists in NCT. To me he's actually the NCT member who I feel has the most potential to improve. He's solid/consistent on what he has and can expand on more.

uhh Jungwoo is really confusing, I have no clue how strong his support is because he's pretty inconsistent but I feel good about him being in the weak to average category, of the Big 4, Eb3~Eb4 is really good for him, but he did way better in the NCT recording sessions (the youtube content) than he did in the recorded video and live. Has had some good moments E4~F4, think of like Suho. He's had some better moments than Suho but also some meh moments so if any NCTzen has some more updated info, let me know haha. Think like uh Giselle

NCT's Yuta and Mark have some shallow support. Yuta was my pick for the 3rd NCT vocalist to improve most along with Mark. So they're actually quite decent. Mark was one of NCT Dream's strongest vocalists. Yuta actually is probably around Haechan and Haechan was meant to be a lead/sub in 127 very likely.

Haechan...tries. NCT Dream is the weakest vocal unit out of NCT specifically because none of them were trained well because they were not planning to have NCT Dream remain as a permanent group. Haechan seemed to miss out on some crucial vocal development, is the vocalist I'm most worried about in NCT because he is screaming in a lot of his high notes. He's shallow so he can kinda(???) support but he's nasal imo. Some people do not consider him as someone who supports. Haechan though is very confident (IDK if that's good or bad) but he's not afraid.

Renjun, Kun, Ten, Chenle all are underdeveloped/shallow (Chenle was saying his throat hurt from the high notes in Hot Sauce because he is not technically supporting at all, and is pretty much straining it out). So they're not really engaging in much, they're stable and Renjun and Ten have had some good moments, but yeah. NCT Dream are not far from each other vocally. Renjun seemes to have better lows than Haechan and has had some E4s.

They're actually decent but the 4th gen gap is very apparent in Dream (which are actually a strong 4th gen male group...male vocals have fallen hard and fast)

NCT's biggest problem is that their best vocalists besides Xiaojun are all in NCT 127. I feel like the vocal gap needs to be addressed, especially when Aespa debuted with a very small vocal gap like CSJH. It would make everyone's job easier. There's potential too, I would address Taeil's issues, and rigorously work with Jaehyun because he could vocally improve by a lot, Jungwoo should work on being more consistent and I'd also ease on the NCT Dream song difficulty.

Quote from spark

Uhh what collab with Baekhyun? And in what way did she regress exactly?

Also can you be more specific about improvement you see with Solar?

It wasn't a collab it was the candy cover oops. I saw it as some sort of edit on youtube and that's when I noticed some of the problems. Basically she's lost her consistent support, she was the Mamamoo member that was most consistent throughout their career and she's lost her coordination with C5s. I don't know if it's nerves but she's always been the one with the strongest mix but now is very closed, less strong, and can be shallow on her lows. It's low AA for sure, but how low is the question. I think her best moments are like Pink Fantasy's Yechan honestly, she's gotten some okay mixed notes but nothing compared to her earlier level in Mamamoo. Regression is common, it's possible she is going though something hard and her vocals have been effected, and she will later improve. I'm just surprised because I initially thought her solo had a lack of proper support because she was trying for indie style in that and lowering her larynx to get a more emotional sound but no it seems to be an actual issue....

Solar has basically been fixing her problems with her vibrating jaw, tendency to be really chesty and her high larynx problems. She tends to go all out when belting but is now in check with her technique, and more importantly working on her air pressure problems in her highest range. I think she could be above AA and be fighting for AA-C if she continues this improvement, it's a pretty significant one because those problems held her back. Even her predebut auditions had this problem with Solar singing Whitney I believe, and it's a good improvement to make. I think again, it's been happening for over a year now. Slow and steady added up. I think at one point she will reach Raina level.

Quote from shiki01

I actually agree with Seunghee comparing her vocal performances from 2015-2017 the difference were really noticeable. I feel its happen after 2019 since that is their peak schedule 2 CB, continous festival performance and Queendom appearance.

CONTINUOUS FESTIVALS???? No WONDER.

Festivals are painful to sing several times at, and it's worse with a vocally imbalanced group wow. Hyojung seemed tired to me at first too. It makes sense now.

Quote from Tic_tac_toe

Are there a lot of cases of vocal issues in kpop idols? I haven’t heard of any prominent ones… people who sing high notes every night for very many years are the ones who have to worry about this

Kpop idols with their short careers and barely any proper live singing I don’t think it’s an issue or something to consider.

Most popular group main vocals actually end up having some sort of issue throughout their careers.