A (very basic) Introduction to Utattemita

[fascinates]

Most people who visit this community obviously already know what "utattemita" is and the people involved in it. But for those who want to have a proper intro to the category and/or invite friends into the fandom, I hope this post will be helpful. Note that there cannot be an encompassingly perfect intro or guide into utattemita, since the best way to go around this fandom is to explore. :) So, this'll be common knowledge, very basic. I'm sure you guys can handle the rest.



I. "UTATTEMITA"

Utattemita (歌ってみた） is a subcategory of the Yattemita （やってみた） section in Nico Nico Douga. Utattemita literally means "tried to sing", that is why you will see that most of the uploads under this category have the "[song name]を歌ってみた" title (or variations of such). To be precise, the utattemita category is where amateur singers upload covers of various songs.

* Yattemita (tried to do) is a section of Nico Nico Douga where people upload videos of them "trying to do things". There are currently five subcategories in this section: utattemita (tried to sing), odottemita (tried to dance), egaitemita (tried to draw), ensoushitemita (tried to do a musical performance), and nico nico gijutsu-bu (arts and technology department).

* Utattemita (歌ってみた）is different from Awasetemita (合わせてみた). The latter means a mashup of two or more renditions of a song. Therefore it is not an original upload of the singer. Rather, someone took a few singers' covers and mashed them up to make a chorus-like version.


II. "UTAITE"

→ A person who uploads his/her cover in the utattemita section is called an utaite (歌い手) or 'singer'. You cannot call a person 'utattemita' since it refers to the place or section, not the person. Most utaite exclusively cover songs and upload under the utattemita section, but some of them have doujin circles and release original music/drama CDs during events like Comic Market and Vocaloid Master. A few utaite also have become partly or wholly professional singers and have released/will release their albums under official labels. Recently, utaite appearing in concerts and live events have also become popular and have become more prolific and public.

Here are some utaite who are part of doujin circles/who have released original CDs in events.
• Aerogel - Soy-SOUTH
• Hanatan - Cordelia
• Pokota - Egamyer
• Panyo - Romaria Crusade
• Usa, Yamai - Usa Colony
* As this is a part of the fandom I am not completely familiar with, I'll leave it to you guys to explore this part more, especially the Touhou section of this ^^;

Here are some utaite who have partially/officially gone pro and have released original albums under labels.
• Gazelle (now YanagiNagi) - part of supercell
• halyosy and that - part of absorb; have released singles under Crown Records
• Piko - to release "Story" under Sony Music Entertainment
• Clear - to release "Dearest" under avex trax
• Valshe - to release her second album "Storyteller" under Geneon Entertainment

→ An utaite/singer's wonderful covers are attributed not only because of his/her beautiful rendition but also because of the dexterous mixing and encoding of the song so it sounds high-quality. Sometimes, singers themselves mix their own songs, although some rely on mixers to perfect their songs.

Examples of singers who are also mixers (mixes their own songs or other people's songs)
• Wotamin (has mixed for clear, valshe, dasoku etc.)
• Asamaru (has mixed for Choucho, Jack, Keisen, etc.)

Examples of some popular mixers are:
• HYBRID SENSE
• madamxx
• PUPI
• AtarimeP
*AtarimeP and PUPI also upload their own covers, but they mostly mix for other people

→ If you are into Vocaloid, you know of Vocaloid producers, who are people involved in composing original songs or tuning Vocaloids to cover existing songs. Some of these people also sing and upload their covers under the utattemita category. The most famous (so far) producer who also sings is Tourai (minato/RyuuseiP). You can refer to this list for more producers who have also taken a liking to covering songs. You can find covers by producers in Nico Nico Douga under the tag "歌うPシリーズ" which literally means "singing producers series".


III. COVERS

At present, most of the covers uploaded in the utattemita category are Vocaloid covers. However, they're not the only ones composing the section. Earliest covers in the category are of songs from anime, musicals, sentai series, J-pop and even English songs. But since Vocaloid is the most prolific and probably one of the most popular community in Nico Nico Douga, most singers cover songs from there.

Here are examples of anime/jpop songs covered by popular utaite:
• Shangri-La (Piko) - original by Angela; from Soukyuu no Fafner
• Northern Cross (clear) - original by May'n; from Macross Frontier
• Karma (Jack) - original by Bump of Chicken; from Tales of the Abyss
• In My Dream (wotamin) - from Brain Powered
• Daybreak's Bell (Beeeeige) - original by L'arc~en~Ciel; from Gundam 00
• Laughmaker (Asamaru) - original by Bump of Chicken

Here are examples of songs from Tenimyu covered by utaite:
• Hand in Hand (Enari) - original by Aiba Hiroki
• Do Your Best (crack version) (Akito) - original from Imperial Match Hyoutei


IV. STARTING

There is no guide large and comprehensive enough to teach people the ways in the utattemita fandom because while the community is limited to the utattemita category and sometimes, the doujin music scene, it has a lot of personalities involved, a lot of songs, a lot of merchandise and events. Hence, it depends on the person on how to approach learning about the utattemita community ^^. Here's some helpful stuff you can do:

1) Make a Nico Nico Douga account. You cannot live in this fandom if you do not have an account to the website that started it all. There are tons of guides in the Internet on how to make one. And with an account, you can not only watch uploads, you can also view namahousou (live broadcast) of utaite you're interested in. You can learn about namahousou and watching them here.
* Some people prefer watching utattemita stuff in Youtube, which is definitely easier since it's in English. However, some songs aren't uploaded in YT (community only uploads, etc.) and sometimes people ask their works to be removed from YT. Therefore, a NND account is the best way to go.

2) Find your interests. One reason people enter the utattemita fandom is because it collides with a current fandom they have. For example, Hetalia fans get into utattemita because of the Hetalia MAD covers (this is also the same for Durarara, K-on and Haruhi fans). Of course, if you're into Vocaloid, it's even easier to learn about utattemita, as they are kind of inseparable partners now :).

Examples of utaite doing parodies/covers related to anime.
• Uta ni Oyabun (Hetalia)
• Limone-sensei (Durarara)
• Urata (Gintama)

3) Find your favorites. Trying to know as many singers as possible might not be good if you're just starting, since the influx of style, genre and information might discourage you. Also, the largely varied genre might confuse you at first. Hence, it might be important to find a type of voice that you like and go explore from there. Later on, you can try listening to one singer/genre at a time and see if you like their styles.

For example:

Males with medium-boy-next-door voices
- clear
- ShounenT
- Rumdarjun
- Anima

Males with high-idk-if-it's-male voices
- Kogeinu
- Piko
- Vip-tenchou

Males with deep-ikemenish voices
- Tourai
- Mucchi
- Miichan

Males with deep-so-sexy-i-died voices
- Dasoku
- Panyo

Males with rockish-my-throat-can-die voices
- Nodoame
- Gero
- Hagane Tsuwamono/Kouhei

Females with high-vocal-cords-can-break voices
- F9
- Choucho
- Ritsuka

Females with deep-so-sexy-i-died voices
- Yamai
- Yoru
- Saiya

Females with moderate-rich-voices
- Usa
- Mitani Nana
- Wotamin

Females with low-idk-if-it's-female voices
- Valshe
- che:Sakurai
- Hitori


V. LINKS

Here's a list of websites that can help you explore the fandom more.

informative:
list of utaite (might be incomplete)
Japanese utattemita wiki
Nico Nico utattemita community - good way to get to know new singers

for ripping .mp3s off videos
nicosound
nicomimi

for communities, updates, etc.
mixi


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I told you it's very basic/short. Nevertheless, I hope it'll be of help /o/. And no, I don't think I'll be making an intro to Vocaloid OTL. I think there are already a lot of those (a good Vocaloid writeup can be found in singing_robots :D).

If you have any beginner's question, feel free to leave a comment here ;_;.

Comments

LOL

[(Anonymous)]

I love this, though I'm surprised that 96Neko wasn't included, she'd fall into the Females with deep-so-sexy-I-died category

Re: LOL

[stephieku]

This article is pretty old :) Back when this was published 96neko wasn't as popular as a regular utaite (she was primarily a namanushi I believe?) . Most of her popular covers back then were parodies.