Ok, I know Ville Valo has made his mark on the map of "Great Voices", but... I HATE H.I.M. with a passion. I'm not that great of a singer (YET!) but I think he sucks. I know he's got 5 octaves, and he can do the low notes pretty clear. But I would like an established singer to give an unbiased review on his voice. Not really for me, but for my friend, Drake, who is a really good singer... but claims the Ville Valo is the best- I'm sick of hearing it. Would anyone like to help me out? Thanks!

First off, whoever told you he has 5 octaves has to be counting vocal fry and and falsetto. He does not have 5 octaves in chest, mix, and head voice, which I believe are the only true full voice registers.

Stylistically speaking, and i'm not even sure if thats a word, i'd say he's good at what he does, but he doesn't use a whole lot of his upper register unless you count his airy falsetto. I was singing along with Ville back when I didn't have any concept of vocal technique, in fact, he was the first singer that I could actually keep up with on most songs. He does very easy vocal stylings for the untrained singer to sing along to and I believe that is probably his goal. Still i'd say in real full voice he's probably got about 2.5 octaves at best and most of them are low notes. His technique in the lower register is pretty close to flawless but his highs, not so much. All in all i'd say he's about as good as what you'd expect a watered down goth rock band to sing like. Still, it is all about style, and i'm sure alot of people really like his VOICE.

Thats one major thing to consider, its not always about people being good singers, its about them having good voices. Certain people just like certain sounds. There's nothing we can do about it, we just have to become the best singers we can and hope that people love it, and if they don't we have to remember that someone will.

Thanks Jay Sin!

Yeah, see... I am pretty good (I can sing in tune, hold notes, real clear) BUT! my "voice" is shit! XD
One of my favorite singers is Layne Staley- he wasn't that great of a vocalist, but his voice was insane!

one of my friends got that heartagram thing on his back. once i realized who popularized it i laughed at him. if you want him to recognize a good singer play some judas priest for him. if he then doesnt have it figured out he is beyond hope. incidently...you me and everyone in here will be a better singer then ville valo if they havent already surpassed h.i.m.

I would say just from reading Raise your voice we all already know more about singing than Ville Valo. If you listen to the way he breathes in songs, he's damaging and drying out his vocal chords, he chain smokes, he shouts, he does have a VERY airy falsetto, i've seen him live in concert with my ex girlfriend back when we were dating (it was her favorite band which is why I was singing along to him in the first place) and he doesn't drink any water while performing, but he does smoke during performances, he sings through his nose alot, stretches his neck.

He's really an example of what not to do. I'll give him this, in the lower octaves, he's good. In fact when going for low note expansion I still sing along with him, and occasionally i'll try one of his songs just to see if I can do it better than he can (I can ) And honestly, if you use singing his stuff while practicing resonance on low notes you can start sounding really good on the low octaves. Although there are vocalists who go alot lower than him, so once you can do his lowest notes, go to someone lower so as not to start practicing any of his bad techniques. My eventual goal is to have a range of at least as low as C2(I think I may already be able to go lower than this, but my keyboard upstairs doesn't go that low so I can't check for sure) and as high as C6. Currently that means I have to expand my range right around 1 octave in both directions. So remember people, low notes are just as important, if not more important than high notes. Who knows, maybe some day i'll be able to do a 4 octave siren. Thats my goal anyway.

Though his technique isn't the best, his voice is undeniably flexible, and he even has some extremely impressive melodies under his belt. St. Valentine features a chesty melody around B4-D5, and is very well controlled, not just random shouting. And his connected modal range is G#1-B5. That's definitely more than 2.5 octaves of significant notes (not counting his D6 or random fry dips). If you don't like him, fair enough, but you horribly underselling him. Also, not drinking water on stage isn't bad, Mike Patton doesn't do it often, and is an extremely technically proficienct vocalist, who pulls of almost every single preformance he does. I don't see how not drinking water on stage is being used against Valo, but whatever.

If you want to sing along with someone that has good technique all around. Geoff Tate has excellent High and low

Geoff Tate is the man! Queensryche WHOO!

Sorry, i'm easily excited. Another good high and low singer is Michael Matijevic, but only on certain songs does he go low. Like Loaded mutha and Say no more. Also keep in mind that MID range is the hard one. The transition notes between pure head and chest voice, for guys its usually F-B. A couple good singers to practice that area are Bruce Dickinson, Steve Perry, and Jon Bon Jovi. Chest voice is simple, Head voice above Tenor C is just a matter of keeping your placement and resonance strong, its that mid range area that is the killer. Thats why I am often more impressed with people with a strong mid range, not so much by people who can make dramatic jumps from below E above middle C to above tenor C.

I completely agree ^^^. Myself included when my voice is very worn out I can hit the low notes and the high note but the mid notes are almost non-existent. If I had to guess i figure its because its harder to hold your vocal folds close together(mid range) as opposed to far apart or zipping them.

Jaime says its because its right above your break point so putting it into pure head sounds really weak since you just came out of chest, so the idea is to keep the resonance in both. THAT is why its hard because you have to teach yourself to remain very resonant in that area without straining or pulling chest. Getting those notes isn't really the hard part, its keeping those notes strong, cause there is so much resonance, you've got to have it from you chest up to your head which means you have to have resonance in the throat without having the sound stuck in your throat. It can be extremely difficult. Lucky for us there are excersises like the siren which will help us bridge and connect so that break doesn't happen and the higher notes will get stronger. Really after you get to tenor C using the siren it should start getting alot easier to build those notes up. The falsetto slide is already helping me alot. Yesterday I went up a full note without pushing. There are alot of people in my house that are really not looking forward to me starting the siren week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-2pjM1fdAs

this is what ye needed XD