Vocal Range

G2 ~ Bb5 (3 Octaves, 1 note and 1 semitone)

Supported Range



Eb3/E3 ~ Eb4/E4

Voice Type

Tenor

Strengths/Achievements

The most relaxed singing technique out of all tenors in BTS

Pitch is relatively good when not doing vocal runs

Tends to favor falsetto over mixed voice, minimizing vocal strain

Shallow support is present to an extent in his singing

His lower range maintains sufficient connection down to Eb3

His middle voice maintains a relaxed approach up to Eb4/E4

Falsetto can be relaxed at times

Transitions into falsetto are relatively well done

Points for Improvement

Tends to favor style over technique, completely limiting the development of his voice

Tends to sing with a lot of breathiness in tone, not allowing his vocal cords to be connected completely

Lower range is often very soft and whispered, lacking developing

Mixed voice is very underdeveloped, often has to falsetto when unable to mix properly

His larynx raises early on after his first passaggio, around F4

Tends to place his voice in his nose and sound very whiny

Unable to support with consistency, breathing is almost completely neglected

Falsetto can sometimes be flat due to too much airiness

Vocal runs are often messy and pitchy

Unable to use a head voice with support

Registers

Lower register: Most of his lower range is underdeveloped as he doesn’t generally tend to sing too low or too high. His chest voice maintains projection below Eb3, but support is only present down to Eb3. Below that, his voice lacks clarity in tone and becomes quieter.

Mixed register: His mixed voice is mostly on the head-dominant side, as he sings with a soft approach most of the time. Very early on in range he starts to sing with a tight throat and a high larynx, even as low as F4.

Upper register: In a way, his most developed register. His falsetto is where he seems most comfortable, as he tends to switch to falsetto very early on in his range. Nonetheless, this register still lacks proper support and development overall.

Agility

Jungkook shows that most of his influences come from singing R&B music and that’s where he seems to be most comfortable in terms of genre. As such, he takes a liking to adding his own musical ideas to songs and they’re usually in the form of vocal runs. He has the tendency to add them in many occasions, as he seems to have confidence in this area of his voice. However, due to his young age and to an extent lack of patience, there is a lack of clarity and development of his agility. When it comes to the flexibility of his voice, Jungkook actually possesses the correct muscle memory and rhythmic bounce to clearly sing through different notes in simple trills, as long as they’re short and simple, as heard in “I Need a Girl.” Unfortunately, he tends to add overly complicated runs to many of his vocal performances, which lack precision and accuracy overall. His vocal runs often sound rushed, as he’s unable to sing the notes as quickly as he needs to. Thus instead of taking the time to practice vocal runs slowly first and then speeding them up to the correct speed, his runs often sound like they’re mostly improvised and thus not carefully thought-through. The result is usually sloppy runs that lack a clear idea of key center, as he adds too many notes that don’t necessarily fit in terms of pitch. This can be heard in many occasions, such as in “Sofa“, “Paper Hearts“, “뻔한 멜로디“, “Boyfriend“, “눈, 코, 입“, “Love is not Over“, “You’re My“, “Miss Right” and “If You.”

Overall analysis

Jungkook debuted in 2013 as the main vocalist of Bangtan Boys, more commonly known by international fans as BTS. He is one of the four members of the main vocal line, three tenors and one baritone. The group debuted as mostly a hip-hop based group where most of the focus of their music is on rapping as opposed to singing. As such, a lot of their songs are mostly rapped verses with hook choruses sung by the four members of the vocal line. Jungkook’s voice stands out with a very smooth and mellow timbre. His voice is light and bright, as well as very soft in quality which is often enhanced by many of his stylistic choices. Although not often singing very high, his voice lies in a generally higher range and he would most likely be classified as a light lyric tenor.

The lower part of his chest voice is often neglected and not truly showcased through BTS’ music. As their songs are focused mostly on hooks for the vocalists, the range they’re written in is usually narrow in order to keep the listener hooked in. Thus Jungkook is unable to explore a wide part of his range when singing BTS’ music. Most of the time he stays within a relatively comfortable range and doesn’t sing below D3. This has caused him to often lose projection of his voice when he does need to sing anywhere below an Eb3. As low as E3 and Eb3, he often sounds comfortable as his vocal cords are able to come together and his voice projects without much trouble, as heard in “Sofa“, “Love is not Over” and “샤방샤방.” However, as soon as he sings below Eb3, his vocal cords lack the strength to remain together and his chest voice starts to become breathier and quieter. This can be heard with the B2’s in “Paper Hearts“, “Fools” and G2’s in “나그대에게 모두 드리리.”

Due to his stylistic choices, Jungkook often employs a very unique approach to his singing. He never tries to paint himself as a powerhouse vocalist and uses the natural smoothness of his voice to his advantage. Instead of mixing and belting high, he often sings softly and with a lot of breathiness in tone throughout most of his range. Not only that, but in order to maintain the smoothness and softness in his singing style, he often chooses to sing with his falsetto as opposed to mixing and thus has yet to create the correct muscle memory and development of his mixed voice. For the most part, his mixed voice is quite light in tone and lacks power. His mixing technique relies on a more head-dominant approach and a lot less on his chest voice, which helps him maintain a smooth soft tone overall. Stylistically, it fits exactly the way he intends it to.

However due to him being unable to develop his mixed voice properly and by using too much breathiness in his singing, his larynx tends to be raised much earlier than a more developed tenor would. He actually often mixes quite low and is not known for being a very high belter. Most of the time his mix only goes up to F#4 in their repertoire, only occasionally singing up G4 and G#4. When he sings up to Eb4 and E4, he sounds mostly relaxed and is able to maintain some support, even if it may be shallow and lack depth. However anywhere above E4, his larynx raises and his throat starts to become tight, which results in a mostly whiny tone production. His voice is unable to escape the tension, causing him to sound thin and closed above E4. This can be heard when contrasting the C#4’s in “양화대교“, D4’s in “모릎“, “Fools“, Eb4’s in “See Through“, “뻔한 멜로디” and E4’s in “心中的日月“, with the F4’s in “Coffee“, “Butterfly“, “Miss Right“, F#4’s in “샤방샤방“, “Let Me Know“, “Love is Not Over” “Tomorrow“, “Lost Stars“, G4’s in “See You Again“, “눈, 코, 입“, G#4’s in “I Need U“, “잡아줘” and Bb4’s in “Bang Bang Bang“, “If You” and “Perfect Man.”

His falsetto register is, relatively speaking, his most developed register. He seems to be the most comfortable in this register and is able to transition into it much earlier in range than most tenors would. While many tenors would rather mix up to A4 at least while singing, Jungkook will opt to use falsetto even as low as F#4 while phrasing songs, as heard in “Too Much“, “모릎.” Most of the time, Jungkook choses to use a falsetto over his head voice, by maintaining his vocal cords somewhat separated and allowing air to come through, creating a breathy sound that mostly works stylistically. He is able to use a head voice as well and has done so a handful of times. However due to his inability to grasp breath support properly, even when singing in his head voice, he is unable to maintain a neutral larynx and properly supported tone production. The lack of support in his upper register usually causes him to lose control of his voice and make him sound somewhat pitchy and/or flat. His head voice is thus quite pushed and loud, lacking in control of volume, as heard with the F5’s in “Dope“, the G#5 in “Oh Happy Day!“, as well as in “See You Again” and “Lost Stars.” The highest he’s ever pushed his falsetto was the Bb5 in the high note battle amongst the BTS members.

Many of Jungkook’s issues lie solely with his lack of understanding of proper breath support and many of his stylistic choices. As addressed by Dr. Iris Stevenson, Jungkook tends to use his throat muscles a lot more than necessary and doesn’t truly allow his diaphragm to expand enough to help him support his singing. If he’d take the time to properly breathe and be more conscious of his diaphragm, he’d be able to maintain a lot more support throughout his voice and thus allowing him more freedom when singing higher. His stylistic choices often have him choose airiness, nasality and softness over powerful singing. This may work for him for the time being, but it also limits him to being able to sing in one specific genre only. Breathiness in singing is perfectly fine if it can be turned on and off at will, however for him it’s become such a habit that he has yet to develop many areas of his voice. His mixed voice, head voice and chest voice all lack proper development and often sound as though they can only be sung in one specific volume output. He tends to sing quietly and smoothly only, which works stylistically but not in every genre. Although Dr. Stevenson addressed his breathing issues, one session alone won’t fix a bad habit he’s created for years.

Although it may be true that Jungkook’s overall voice is not fully developed in terms of technique, this does not take away from the natural qualities he possesses as a vocalist. With BTS’ music, the focus is not on powerful belting and extremely well developed vocalists. Instead their focus is a lot more on smooth and soft singing within a relatively narrow range, which Jungkook delivers very effectively. He may not be the most technical vocalist out there, but the way he sings works perfectly for the type of music he currently sings. When comparing him to the other two tenors of BTS, Jin and Jimin, Jungkook is the most relaxed out of the three. Jimin’s singing tends to be very tight due to issues similar to Jungkook’s, but also a lot of tongue tension. On the other hand, Jin sings with a lot of throat tension even with a relatively low range for a tenor.

Thus it is actually quite clear why Jungkook would be their main vocalist. He is the tenor with the most control of his voice and who’s most relaxed when singing and even though V may be able to grasp breath support slightly better than Jungkook, BTS’ music is not written for a baritone voice. Their music generally stays within the F3 ~ G4 range, which is a relatively comfortable range for a tenor but actually quite challenging for a baritone to constantly be singing in. Thus it makes sense that Jungkook is their main vocalist, as he’s the one who’s most comfortable within the range their music is written in. For the future of his career as a vocalist, Jungkook would need to undergo training for basic singing technique in order to improve his singing. However that would be necessary if he were to take a different road musically and change his singing genre and style drastically. As it is right now, his singing style may be limited but it is sufficient for his chosen repertoire as he stays generally within a comfortable range and doesn’t often abuse his voice by singing outside of his supported range.

Musicianship

Jungkook’s main idea of musicianship usually derives from his idea of the R&B genre, where he tries to add his own musical ideas to songs in the form of vocal runs. As previously addressed, his vocal cords lack the full muscle memory and control to execute his musical ideas as accurately as he intends them to, which usually results in a sloppy pitchy delivery overall, such as the runs in “If You.” However when it comes to other aspects of his style, he has a good sense of knowing when to soften his voice and when to blend his voice with others. Since he usually sings with a softer and mellower tone, he allows his voice to blend more easily with others in harmonies, as heard in “Some” as well as in “You’re My.”

Label (Type of Vocalist)

S vocalists: Stylistic Vocalists

C Vocalists: Commercial Vocalists

Vocal Range Video(s)

Video by: Riki Kudo

Best Vocal Performance(s)

—

Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)