Why I Chose this topic
As I first started listening to Kpop, one of the biggest differences that I found was how different Korean Songs were from American/Britain Songs. I really enjoy pop music and I am a big fan of many famous pop artists. I used to listen to a lot of western popular music. This refers to hit songs, songs that were in the billboard top 100.
Then one fateful day I was on youtube and I saw in my recommended videos "BTS AMA Performance". Pshhhhh I was not very interested but it was a new video and it already had millions of views so I (stupidly) clicked onto the link. I never knew that one click could change my life. (HAHA okay I am being melodramatic) But I really fell deep into the Kpop world after being exposed to the beauty that is Kpop.
This is the video that ruined my life. (In a good way)
When I first started getting into BTS, I quickly realised 2 things.
1. Their Songs were very High
2. They Songs were very Different from Western Songs
Songs being in a high key
I already talk more on this in another page. I soon realised that BTS songs were very high, especially for a male group. I am a girl but I find it extremely difficult to sing and hit some of the notes in their songs in the original key. I was very confused at this as for western male singers, this is rarely the case.
As I got more into Kpop, I realised this was a trend, and BTS is not the only boy group with a range that is high for males. Also, girl group songs are extremely high as well. I already have difficulty singing male group songs in the original key so I was very shocked to find out exactly how high some girl group songs actually are.
Songs Sounding different
I don't mean that the songs sound different in the sense of the language. (although that is no doubt a reason why it sounds different from western songs) I realised when I sang along to the songs it sounded a bit off and a bit weird.
I have been going for vocal lessons as a music school called Unison Music Group for about 2 years and there, they teach me how to sing with Western Vocal Techniques. I started to think maybe some of the difference I was hearing was because of the placement of the voice by the different singers and also because of the different singing techniques used by the singers from the different countries.
I decided to look into this more and to do some vocal analysis and research on this topic. I was unable to find any solid research papers done on this topic so I decided to use the minimal vocal analysis knowledge I had to analyse the techniques used and to get my vocal teacher to comment on my analysis and give me some of her input.
The other few pages contain my analysis, some research I did, in-depth look at specific singers of popular music and also me singing a few covers so as to better show these differences instead of describe them.
I hope that after visiting this website, you will leave seeing a difference in the two. However, I want to state that despite me trying to show a difference, I do not think one is superior to the other as I do enjoy and appreciate both singing techniques.
Alright! On to the analysis!
