[waterballoon]

lol though I think it's only natural for singers to have their off-form days when it comes to lives. for example, some of Kuu's lives I find to be unbearable, and I honestly thought Tohoshinki's performance of Bolero in their TSC tour was like their worst ever... but that's only natural.

Still if you look at Ayu, it's not that she has her off-form days... it has come to a stage where she's almost always sounding not-so-good in her lives. I would never ever use a live/performance from a DVD to judge her current vocals, because they obviously are edited to some extent.

Taking a look at the recent You were... performances, I have to say she has resorted to shouting to gain a "strength" in singing, instead of using her diaphragm. I don't know if it's because she doesn't know how to use her diaphragm when singing, or is it because she has lost her stamina and breath support through smoking.

While alcohol can damage vocals to a certain extent, I don't see it as a severe problem when 1) I know of other good singers who love drinking as well, 2) the "scorched" feeling in the throat after downing alcohol should heal after a while, unless you sing right after you drink.

If anything, I think the top 2 reasons for her worsening vocals are exhaustion and smoking. Asking Ayu to rest is like asking the sun to rise from the west, so I'd rule that out. The least she could do for herself as a singer is to quit smoking, which I hope she is doing.

And I remembered my memory of Ayu lives and this is a "timeline" of her vocals that I've come up with:

Debut - 2000/2001: Nasal vocals, with a lack of diaphragm support

2001-2002: Kinda a bad year if you ask me, especially with AT 02 which I hated so much, probably due to her not getting used to using her diaphragm to sing instead of her throat.

2003-2005/2006: Easily her best era in terms of vocal. Fantastic use of diaphragm and in those few years, I felt her voice was deep and rich, and she had good control over her own voice.

2007 - now: We can hear her voice just getting worse, with an overuse of vibrato, lack of breath support, and yelling to get strength in singing rather than diaphragm support, though I must say it sucked the most in 2007 to the beginning of 2008.

It seemed like she either found a vocal coach or miraculously got better with her "new" vocals, cos her lives after Mirrorcle World (Days) were better than her GUILTY era and Mirrorcle World lives.

Recently, she had a lot of shouting songs (Rule, identity, You were...) so... hmm not doing her any good if she's gonna used to shouting instead of singing~

Also, in BALLAD, her voice sounds very scratchy and husky... not sure if that's a consequence of smoking/drinking or a new evolution of her voice. ^^