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Do you know any singers...

Joe Nerve

Joe Nerve

Oct 7, 2000
18,619
38,939
New York City
www.joenerve.com
Disclosures
Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
#1
...who sang out of key, but learned to sing IN key?

I don't, but I'm curious if it's possible for someone to learn this skill. I don't like singing and I'm not very good at it, but I've never had a problem singing in key. I know some people who spend fortunes on lessons to learn to do this. I like to be encouraging, but a part of me wants to just tell them to persue something else.

Thoughts?
 
#3
I don't consider myself a singer, but I've learned how to sing in key over the past few years. What it came down to was me learning how to listen for tones, me learning how to sing properly, and me learning how to hear what I was singing and what was being played at the same time and matching it. I don't consider myself that good of a singer, but I went from not being able to sing at all to me being able to do backup and even a lead on a few select songs. Learning how to sing has also helped my bass playing out tremendously. I'm better at hearing something and playing it back, and I'm more creative with my basslines thanks to me paying closer attention to melodies and harmonies.
 
#5
I beleive it should be possible. It's about hearing pitch, and if people couldn't hear pitch at all then they wouldn't be able to speak with proper inflection. If you can speak normally, you have the physical ability to hear pitch, so I think / hope it should be possible to refine your awareness of it and learn to sing in tune.

With that said, I don't know anyone who has actually done it. The off-key singers I have known are still off key.
 
#6
Myself :)

I used to sing out of key (I was a youngun - middle school and such) because I refused to listen to myself. Took a rude awakening of watching my own performance, really for the first time when I was in the 10th grade to realize that I needed to listen to myself when I sing. Doesn't happen anymore; cept sometimes when I drink too much :D
 
#7
I think it's possible, even if you have a so-called "tin ear" or can't carry a tune, to learn and improve to the point of public performance.

Just look at how your ear has progressed over the years since childhood. It is a specific intelligence that some acquire naturally, some academically, most through a combination of the two.

It might take a good teacher and a conscious awareness of the precepts of good singing like intonation, pitch, projection, melody and intervals, timbre, breathing, ear training, etc., but I'm willing to bet most people could become decent singers if they wanted to.
 
#8
I don't know if it is possible to transform Florence Foster Jenkins into Joan Sutherland but as a mediocre singer I have found correct breathing helps pitch among other things. I also find my ear for pitch improving as I study upright.

So some degree of learning must be possible.
 
#9
I'm not great at it. But, I have learned to harmonize reasonably well.

The lead singer has to be right on key, though. If they are off, forget it.

I took a few voice lessons from a music teacher who was directing the music of a couple of plays I was in some years ago. That helped a lot between the exercises and working with a chorus. The plays were Oklahoma, Sound of Music and Brigadoon. All good exercises that paid off well.
 
#11
Joe Nerve said:
...who sang out of key, but learned to sing IN key?

I don't, but I'm curious if it's possible for someone to learn this skill. I don't like singing and I'm not very good at it, but I've never had a problem singing in key. I know some people who spend fortunes on lessons to learn to do this. I like to be encouraging, but a part of me wants to just tell them to persue something else.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken ****.
 
#13
I used to never sing, and I really still do not do much unless in specific occasions. However, I took a choral class in college and the professors taught excellent breathing exercises that really help open the diaphragm and managed to explain how to work your inside to really belt out some notes (sometimes I feel it hard to describe certain muscle movement and almost abstract ideas to another person - like how to make yourself yawn / meditate).

I went from really crappy, to really not crappy. I can hear the pitch and match it better, and just simple knowledge of a song allows me to follow along with lyrics, and then completely veer off track and make up my own lyrics as I drive down the road and sing about my hatred towards terrible drivers.

Also, singing solfege with my keyboard was a great help. It helps you know your range, and your limits. I have a narrow range in the bass and baritone section, but I make it work... or not work... depends on the objective... Ever try to sing Alanis Morissette - Thank Yo at the the climatic highs terribly for the attention/fun?
 
#16
FBS1996 said:
Sadly, I know a lot of people who think they can sing. :scowl:
Click to expand...

^THIS!

I sing well enough to be a backup. In my old band I ended up as our lead singer, not because I thought I was in any way good enough, but because I wrote the songs, so I had the best idea what they were supposed to sound like. I had a specific sound in my head when I wrote them that I didn't have the pipes to reproduce. But at least I knew what needed to happen and could try.

We probably auditioned close to fifty lead singers over almost three years before we gave up. Out of those fifty, TWO were legitimate lead material. One turned us down. We hired the other one. He showed up for the first rehearsal stoned and we fired him. Most of the rest were like me, really only good enough for backup. But a third or so were physically painful to hear and thought they were awesome. Whenever you see those awful clowns on American Idol and think "Don't they have friends who'll tell them they suck?" I'm here to tell you, they won't believe them.

It was only years after the band had faded away that I heard the voice I was picturing when I wrote. We couldn't have afforded him, anyway. It was Paul Carrack.
 
#19
I've witness to quite a few people who developed their ear correctly, over time, just like someone would when learning how to play bass and recognize "good" and "bad" notes / pitch in a line (playing in key), and certainly led to them singing better. I mean if you're just plain tone deaf, it is what it is, but the notion that someone cannot develop as a singer if they aren't Pavarotti straight out of the gate is just plain silly.

Vocal coaches exist for a reason. Not saying they're always successful, but if they were never successful, they wouldn't have much of a job for long, no?
 

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