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I've been reviewing some old critiques and I realized I don't really know what this means, so I googled it and still am unsure, probably more confused. I thought it meant bland and one note over and over, but maybe it means no vocal or octave skips??

I'm not sure how a screener would define it or anybody else for that matter so take what I say with a grain of salt as its just an opinion. To my way of thinking this would be more scale like or without intervals. Do Re Mi and so on. In a line or linear. Not sure if that helps you or not...

Keith

Thanks for replying Keith! I have given up on trying to decipher all this stuff,lol! I think basically it means, "sounds like shit, try something else!".

I've never heard of that either. Linear "vocal style" would be one thing, as one note sung over and over (Lennon did this to great effect --- "Help"), OR a vocal line that is linear scale-wise and is repeated. But "range?" Range, to me, is your vocal range. Mine is basically 3 octaves, from G to G. I can sing higher than a "G above the staff" (as a male vocalist) if I go into head voice or falsetto. Maybe 4 octaves. Some of the most notorious female singers have a range of maybe 5 octaves. --- But, again, the word "linear" makes no sense to me. Personally, I think it's b.s. Maybe some screener trying to show his educational background. I'll ask my sister, who has a Masters in vocal performance AND musicologly from Northwestern U. She has always "put me in my place" with this kind of stuff!

My 2 cents,

Ern

Well the listing was for hot a/c I believe and they told me I sounded folk, actually I had a comment that I sounded like Leonard Cohen, and I was too linear for a pop-influenced listing. I was "moody and expressive...but didn't have honed pitch/tone (autotune???) that the listing was searching for. I was feeling not so confident in the vocal dept. so I figured I would try to learn something, but as you can see, it's over my head and I have only been more confused and less confident that I even know how to sing. I've shit canned them,lol, not out of arrogance, but because if I keep trying to decipher all this I will just end up lost and less confident.
If Ern and Keith don't get it, I don't feel so bad. I remember posting something about Leonard Cohen back when I got the return, I had not really heard of him, and thought that he probably had the same "linear range", so I thought it was a bad thing, but then I was surprised to hear that a lot of people liked him. Maybe I just submitted a bad song to the wrong listing.

Or perhaps a perfectly good song to the wrong listing.

Is it possible that the screener meant the melody of the song was too linear for the requested style?

I think you might be mixing things together. Your vocal style may be similar to Leonard Cohen but you or he could sing a melody with a lot of skips in it (not linear) as well as a linear melody (scalar motion).

Without the critique and song you submitted to refer to, I'm just shooting in the dark.

Like Mojo said, the song could be just fine, just not right for the listing.

I think that "linear vocal range" must refer to a particular singer's chest range (i.e. before the break into head voice/falsetto).



Stuart