Question(s) about singing and sense of pitch.

**Matthew_84** · #1 05-07-2011, 11:41 AM

Hey guys,

I am by far the worst singer you'll ever meet. I once sung Free Bird at a karaoke bar and cleared out the entire establishment except for two bikers. And when I changed the lyrics right before the verse to, ''Lord knows I can't si-i-i-i-i-ngggggg'', as a joke, one of them looked at me and said, ''You got that right!''

My question is this, if you can't sing a tune to save your life, does that mean that you have a bad sense of pitch?

I think as far as the bass goes, I'm relatively okay. I can transcribe simple songs fairly quickly, and although I sometimes get the key wrong, I think that I get the intervals right. If I'm playing a TAB, I can quickly distinguish the wrong notes and replace them with the right ones, I think I do anyway.

But although I can transcribe Happy Birthday, if I sing it, I'm completely off. How can this be? I guess my concern is that I go the typical route of trying to get my pitch right. I've done Relative and Perfect Pitch training courses, and singing courses (on the computer, not with a teacher, which may be a route to go.. but a VERY costly one). Every time I pick up a bass, the first thing I do is play every note on the fretboard and recite it. Every time I play sheet music, I recite the notes as I play them. But I can't seem to lock my singing pitch with the notes, which I think is doing more harm than good.

So really, my real question is how can I fix my sense of pitch? I feel like I've been so off for so much of my life that everything is out of whack and I kind of need to reset everything and rebuild the foundation, which is impossible, I know.

I'm just really confused too. I can transcribe Happy Birthday because I can hum it to myself, and then reproduce that on the bass. But, then I sing it in the same pitch and it's clearly out of tune from what everyone else is singing. So does that mean it's just my singing or am I actually transcribing it wrong as well?

I don't know, I'm just kind of rambling at this point. It's hard for me to describe where I think the issue is, which makes it hard for me know how to fix it. I just know there are a lot of smart people on this site who always give me great advice, and thought maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks again,

Matt

**Rune Bivrin** · #2 05-07-2011, 12:14 PM

It's a bit tricky to diagnose without hearing. One thing I have found to pretty universally true is that those who don't think they can carry a tune will be unable to carry a tune. Or in other words: self confidence plays a big part. The moment you doubt that you'll hit the correct note you'll start "searching" for it. And that doesn't sound very pleasant.

Much of the problem is usually voice control. Picture if you will a fretless bass. When you first start playing such a beast (particularly if that's your introduction to bass playing), you'll routinely put fingers in the wrong place and hunt for the correct pitch. Sometimes it will even be the wrong string, and then it gets real hard. The thing is you do get better with time, don't you?

Very likely you have reasonable voice control when humming. You do that a lot. But the voice has a number of different modes, and they share very little in how you control the pitch, so you have to work on all of them Or at least the ones you will use. Mark Knopfler doesn't use quite the same set of modes as James Hetfield or Barry Gibb.

Here's how I learned to sing: I just started. Noone ever told me it was supposed to be hard, and so I felt no constraints. It helped to become interested in music during the punk era

However, you're not in that position, so I'd advise going to the second step in my training. Practice! It requires a well sound proofed room, and a decent stereo. Put on some music that you're quite familiar with and which doesn't feature an impossible singer. Better John Hiatt than Axl Rose, so to speak. Then just sing along with the music up so loud that you have to put some power in the voice. Not too much, you don't want to blow your vocal cords. Gradually you'll work up the voice control, I assure you!

Now, not everyone can be Pavarotti or Johnny Cash. We all have physical constraints in how well our vocal apparatus works, but just as not everyone can be Usain Bolt and yet pretty much everyone can run 100 meters, anyone can learn to sing in tune.

Downunderwonder · #3 05-07-2011, 12:36 PM

Dr Suzuki of the play by ear violin school "Suzuki Method" said children learn off pitch from their mother singing off pitch to them. His Japanese take on it was any student with duff intervals had to hear each on properly pitched the same, or maybe 2x, the number of times they had heard the duff one.

He was working with kids. I don't know if there is a window in whih you can retrain the brain or not.

My own pitch is very good. However I am a long way from hitting every note I'd like to hit on bass. That's more about more practice.

Jazz Ad · #4 05-07-2011, 12:39 PM

If you can hear you're not in tune, then it's only a matter of practice.
If you don't hear when you're out of tune, you're screwed.

Downunderwonder · #5 05-07-2011, 12:40 PM

When I was at primary school I got a dud grade on music because I couldn't be arsed singing with kids who were off. I still can't sing very well either.

mikerophone · #6 05-07-2011, 01:32 PM

when you sing, you can tell that you aren't singing the right notes, right? if you can hear the difference, then it's just a matter of learning to control your voice to match notes. if you can't hear the difference, that's a bad sense of pitch.

**Matthew_84** · #7 05-07-2011, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jazz Ad

If you don't hear when you're out of tune, you're screwed.

I laugh out loud, but inside I cry... I don't think that I necessarily know I'm off. I will sing a song I've listened to for years, and will think I'm right on until someone points it out. That's actually what has led me to write this thread.

and +1 to the guy who wrote about getting it from their mother. My mom has the WORST sense of pitch, maybe worse than me, and for my first couple of years, she sung to me every night before she put me to sleep.

In a way, I'm looking for a way to reset my pitch, start from scratch, but I know I can't.

There are times when I'm reciting to the notes on the bass and I think I'm on, and other times I think I'm completely off. Now I'm kind of even at the spot where I'm wondering when I think I'm right, if I'm actually right, or is my ear so bad that I'm in that spot where I think I'm right, but am off.

And to clarify, I have no intention of singing, but I understand that it's related to my understanding of tuning and pitch, and to transcribe songs and succeed well at bass, I need a decent ear. I really don't think I have one.

Maybe I will get signing lessons or something, they're just so bloody expensive and they're completely out of my means right now.

But to the first poster, you could very well be on to something. I do believe that I hum far greater than I sing, and that I may hum in-tune, but just sing off. It's just hard to for me to differentiate, you know.

Maybe I can do my own tests like play a simple melody on a keyboard, hum along to it, and then try to sing along to it, and train through listening to recordings of myself... That's actually a pretty good idea, I think.

Sometimes I have to write stuff out to make sense of it all, which unfortunately for you guys, has led to some very long posts...

**Matthew_84** · #8 05-07-2011, 05:07 PM

One thing I don't understand is that when I listen to somebody else sing I can tell whether they're on or off, but when it comes to myself, I get completely lost. Rune, you have a great point suggesting that I may try too hard to find the note. But that may not be all of it, I struggle as a vocalist in Rockband to get over 90% on easy

mikerophone · #9 05-07-2011, 07:54 PM

A friend of mine was a pretty terrible singer without a good sense for pitch when I met him, but he worked really hard and improved. He would try and match notes he played on a guitar and sing into a tuner. I think he took one vocal lesson, or maybe just asked for tips from a teacher, just to get pointed in the right direction.

I also noticed that he would often accidentally search for a harmonic pitch instead of the actual note.

**Matthew_84** · #10 05-07-2011, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikerophone

He would try and match notes he played on a guitar and sing into a tuner.

That's a really good idea, rather than hearing my recordings, and determining if I was on or not, I can sing along to a steady note, have the tuner nearby and when I think that I got it, I can check to see if I am right. I will come up with some different methods to help me get better. Thanks a lot for that.

**Matthew_84** · #11 05-08-2011, 10:04 AM

Wow... I have to recommend that everyone should try playing a note and vocally matching it and seeing where their voice stands soloed over a tuner. That was quite an experience.

I started off on an electric piano playing the low A, and then I begun to sing along, and when I was certain I had it, I took my finger off the keyboard and sung gloriously into the tuner, but instead of seeing an A, I saw an E flat... I was six intervals too flat. I simply thought that wasn't "my register", so I moved up and played a D, matched it, and then sung into the tuner. Now it was an A flat, another 6 intervals to low. Ouch.

So I sat there and varied my pitch until I was around the D, and when I was finally in the area, I played the key again, and it sounded a lot better, although my note did sound a tad higher than I thought it should have (but I was also singing 6 intervals too low before). Once I seemed to get the D right, I went back to the A, and using the the D as a reference to how I should sound with the keyboard, I was relatively close to the A, maybe A flat or something.

I spent another half an hour or so going up and down the keyboard, doing whatever notes my tuner could pick up (not a chromatic tuner). I would ascend and descend and then jump from note to another, and I found myself to be in the ballpark, maybe a semitone or less away.

Now I just have to work on getting my voice there, my voice seems to do this weird crack right before the note. I was a tad too low in almost every case, and then as I sharpened my pitch it would fly past the note and go into deep sharp territory. And my voice was really irritating, even to me (it sounded like Peter Griffin when he sings). So I tried to sing from my gut, and I found that I had better control and it sounded a lot warmer.

I'm going to work on this for a little bit every day. The first thing I'm going to do tomorrow is try to duplicate an A again and see if I'm singing an E flat. But it was a huge difference and it really opened my eyes. Thanks a lot everyone for all of your help.

Cheers,

Matt

JohnMCA72 · #12 05-08-2011, 10:15 AM

To be fair, there may be a lot of harmonics in your voice that the tuner is registering more than the fundamental. You might not be as far off as you think. You should be able to tell without a tuner if you're that far off.

One should be able to learn just about anything, with enough practice. That said, I'll probably never be able to dunk a basketball, no matter how much I practice!

**Matthew_84** · #13 05-08-2011, 09:07 PM

That's a good point, I may not want to strictly rely on the tuner, but when I told my girlfriend this, she laughed and told me that I'm always very flat. I do have a very deep voice which may play a part. I'll still record myself when I think I'm on and hear it out. I'll even try being half an octave flat again and comparing. Thanks