I actually am a huge fan of the whole "A Song for XX" album. it was just so nice...and that's very random...because before i saw this i was going to make ASFXX sig O.o..
Anyway, yeah, i think she used to sing through whatever they are talking about up there ^ but yeah.

^ Those were her voice lessons in Japan. She went to the ones when she moved to New York to study. :)

Oh i so agree.

that's true, you lose your voice SUPER easy when you sing with your voice, and i think that you have less range when you sing with your throat

a lot of her old music is like really high, it's funny when you listen to NOTHING FROM NOTHING, the chorus part sounds really mature, a different key maybe with lower notes?

how do you sing with your diaphram?

i think so too! :)

Yeah, NOTHING FROM NOTHING sounded beautiful, LIMIT also! How do you sing from your diaphragm? I joined the school choir team and was pestered to do that eventhough I couldnt.. :P

The air comes from your diapragm, but you can control your tone and vibrato with your throat.
In Ayumi's early days she was controlling her tone with her nose.
That's what I meant. :P

It's probably to difficult to explain through text. Really the only good way is to take a vocal technique class.

It's much easier to control your tone through your nose, and you also are able to sing with more air through your nose. You use your throat to control vibrato.

Yeah, the chorus of NOTHING FROM NOTHING really supprised me O.o It was better sounding than the whole of A Song for XX album and it was like, 3 years prior to anything.

Well, peoples voices change as they get older. A lot of people sound really great as kids but nowhere near as good once they become adults.(just look at Britney Spear's Star Search performances and compare that voice to now.)

it's not that she sings bad in her first songs. it's because she's starting the music business, and she wuz a soprano back then. as she grew up her voice overwent changed, and now she's more of an alto than a soprano. i, too wuz suprised when i heard her singing YOU

But I actually think it deproved from NOTHING FROM NOTHING to A Song for XX...

Her voice seems so weak in A Song for XX whilist it seems quite energetic in NOTHING FROM NOTHING...

The A Song for XX pitch register is generally higher than Nothing from Nothing..And well, she couldn't really sing at that pitch.

I'd take A Song for XX over MY STORY anyday.

*Still needs to buy A Song for XX* ><;

That's what I'm saying. Some peoples voices sound better when they are younger. With A Song for Xx, I think Ayu was going through a transitional phase. She hadn't figured out her adult voice yet. Personally I think her voice in A Song For Xx fits the lyrics and feel of the album - it's about adolescence and her voice was adoloscent to match.

yeah, it sounds really good....

i read somewhere that you push the notes out, so i guess that's singing from your diaphragm??? instead of making the notes in your throat, you push it out from your stomach.

The diaphragm is the muscle connecting to the bottom of your lungs and moving it accordingly will pull air in or push air out, learning how to properly control your breath and your diaphragm takes training and obviously not everyone can do it right off the bat.

Sound is produced from your vocal chords since it shapes the air that is pushed out by the diaphragm. Your nasal passages are some of the best resonance chambers in your entire head however many people do not know how to properly use them in conjunction with their soft palate (stick your finger back on the roof of your mouth and feel how it's hard and then goes soft, that's it).

The biggest problem for singers is that society frowns on looking healthy so most people whether they realize it or not, hold their stomach in and that hurts their ability to use their diaphragm. Stick your stomach out and take in a breath and see how different that feels (don't raise your shoulders either, bad form and unnecessary). Then try sustaining a note pushing the air in a controlled fashion from the base of your ribcage. If you need more practice with it, take in a deep breath, sufficient but don't go to bursting, and try to sustain the breath blowing through your lips as if you were using a straw. There's lots of different ways to work on the technique but that's a basic one.

Everyone has a different way of singing and what works best for them is not the same for others however there are generally accepted ways of getting a voice to sound better, smoother, and stronger.

Now that the lecture is over, I hate her nasal/cutesy voice, it's aggravating. The chorus from Nothing from Nothing astounded me since the rapping was just terrible but the chorus was probably some of the best singing I've ever heard her do. Natural-sounding, good breath control, pretty good glissando (seamless sliding from one pitch to another without any gimmicky tricks), and overall very sweet tones.

Most of the time here and there Ayumi uses a lot of nasal-y tones, tightens her throat, does not sing from the diaphragm so it's called, and doesn't raise her soft palate very often, you can hear it and it's not doing any favors for her singing or the longevity of her voice =/

She has come into her voice and it has matured quite a bit and gotten better however she still falls back on the little vocal tricks she's used to get a song out, but not to make it sound wonderful (false vibrato *shriek*).