Useful techniques you need to know when you sing Japanese songs.
Hello, J-pop lovers! This is Melanie, Japanese vocal teacher at Honey Music School.
In this article, we are going to give you some useful techniques and tips for you to sing Japanese songs even though you’ve never learnt Japanese.
The song we’re going to learning in this article is called ‘HIBANA -feat. Hatsune Miku’ by Deco*27.
What is “vocaloid”?
If you are a big fan of vocaloid songs, you may already know that HIBANA feat. Hatsune Miku is one of the most popular vocaloid songs not only in Japan but in all over the world!
But for those who don’t really know about vocaloid, I am going to share with you what ‘vocaloid’ means.
What is vocaloid? Is it possible for us to sing vocaloid songs?
Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product originally developed by Yamaha.
If you input words and notes to the software, the software itself can create its own music.
Furthermore, you can choose different voice types from hundreds of avatars including the most famous character calledHatsune Miku.
If you want to sing your favorite vocaloid song, the first question that comes to your my mind is “Could it be possible for me to sing like a real vocaloid song?”.
Since all vocaloid songs are created by its software and sung by characters, it seems almost impossible for us humans to sing those kinds of songs.
Well, the answer for this question is, YES YOU CAN only if you go through those useful tips that I’m going to tell you from now on. So don’t miss them, stay tuned!
Tip No.1: Start practicing with a slower tempo.
As many of you already know, the melodies of vocaloid songs are quite complicated.
Sometimes they rise and fall so quickly. There is a tendency that memorizing and getting used to those melodies is quite difficult.
That’s why you should start practicing with a slower tempo.
Tip No.2: Cut the end of the verse to make your singing sound like a real avatar.
If you want to make your singing voice sound more like Hatsune Miku who is a lead singer in HIBANA, you may sing a bit choppy and try cutting the end of the verse.
(REMEMBER: you may not use this technique when you sing a normal Japanese songs such as J-pop, anime songs.)
Tip No.3 : Add your own flavor to the song!
Being able to sing exactly the same as vocaloid avatars is an awesome skill, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t add your originality to the song.
Therefore, for those who want to make your vocaloid singing sound unique, I’m going to tell you some professional techniques that you may use when singing.
Kobushi.
‘Kobushi’ is the technique that is used by Japanese professional singers especially when singing ‘Enka’.
When you use ‘Kobusi’, you can feel the vibrations in your throat and it makes your singing voice sound powerful and strong.
You may use this technique for the verse : ‘Motto chanto kotaete yo.’ for instance.
Change your voice tone.
In addition, you may change your voice tone according to the meaning of the lyrics.
When you sing the verse section, for example, you may use light and soft voice tones but when it comes to the pre-chorus, you may change your voice tone to dark and tight one.
Swap your chest voice to falsetto.
You can use falsetto especially when you sing higher notes during the chorus section.
If you keep singing only with your chest voice, it’ll be more tight and no time to take a break until the very end of the song, but if you use your falsetto at a certain time, your singing is going to sound more relaxing.
Learn More About How to Sing Japanese Songs at Honey Music School!
Thank you so much for reading this.
We hope you’ve learnt much about how to sing “Blue Bird” in Japanese with some Japanese pronunciation knowledge.
If you are interested in learning more about Japanese songs and taking lessons, please feel free to join us at Honey Music School. We’ll be waiting for you!
Information
I have been passionate about learning different languages and playing music since I was a kid. I engaged in childhood education, music education, and second language acquisition research while I was studying at Yokohama National University as a graduate student. After graduation, I worked at an international preschool in Tokyo. Currently, I’m working as a bilingual teacher at an online English school and writing some articles about research on bilingual education. I post the cover songs videos of my favorite artists and my piano performances on Instagram and Youtube, so I’ll appreciate that if you go and check my posts. Thank you.
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