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Singer has pitch issues — fire the drummer?
- Thread starter Bullitt5135
- Start date
devnulljp
Supporting Member
These things are not uncommon.
Here in Nashville, there are several very discrete vocal coaches to famous acts you've heard many times, for any number of reasons for pitch, breath, you name it. Some have checked into local hospitals to have nodes removed from incorrectly singing themselves out.
In my club days, a great surprise over time was that not everyone who can front a band has the physiology to do it 5 or 6 nights a week. It can take quite a while to exercise a voice to withstand five hours a night. Some of you may be like me in that ones that ARE in shape or are veterans I can spot a mile away.
It may very well be this guy isn't a vet or that experienced, could stand some vocal coaching from the control standpoint, find out if he can or can't hear himself over the roar, or maybe he's just going to have to pay his dues over time to strengthen his instrument and musicality.
I'd take it as a positive IF he doesn't get all flustered and offers to work on it seriously.
Here in Nashville, there are several very discrete vocal coaches to famous acts you've heard many times, for any number of reasons for pitch, breath, you name it. Some have checked into local hospitals to have nodes removed from incorrectly singing themselves out.
In my club days, a great surprise over time was that not everyone who can front a band has the physiology to do it 5 or 6 nights a week. It can take quite a while to exercise a voice to withstand five hours a night. Some of you may be like me in that ones that ARE in shape or are veterans I can spot a mile away.
It may very well be this guy isn't a vet or that experienced, could stand some vocal coaching from the control standpoint, find out if he can or can't hear himself over the roar, or maybe he's just going to have to pay his dues over time to strengthen his instrument and musicality.
I'd take it as a positive IF he doesn't get all flustered and offers to work on it seriously.
There's your opportunity... You say "Let's just do that now, while it's fresh in our minds" and bring up the track in YouTube.
Or maybe like makeup on a stage actor?
Whatever it takes to make the finished product sound good to the audience...
IME there are 2 kinds of vocal pitch processors. One uses a pitch reference like a guitar to derive the key. So you better have such a chordal device available to provide a pitch and key reference.
The other kind (I have one of these...) has its own pitch reference (A = 440 Hz) but requires that you preset the key for each song. And everybody better be tuned to the same pitch reference really darned close or your 'corrected' vocal will still be out of tune with the rest of the band. Hard to work with live...
Every singer I have floated the autotune vocal processor concept with has been offended by the very prospect because, as I said earlier, they think they sound perfect already. And I haven't found a way past that yet. When I did a series of video demos for a band I was in, I had -3- autotune plug-in instances running. The 2 guitars couldn't keep their instruments in tune, and the vocals, of course. The vocal channel plug-in was actually working less hard than the others...
Yes. Instruments detuned a half step, and song selection tailored to fit his highness' flatness.
Plenty of time to work on pitch issues... surrounded by his posse telling him how great he was simply meant...
... good enough.
He's no longer with the band.
Answer:
From years of working with singers who can't find a note, stay on pitch, lock into the tempo, count a measure, etc., ... Compared to working with singers who have none of those issues, it's been my experience that it's a waste of time trying to teach someone who has those deficiencies how to overcome them to a point that they can be integrated into a band and perform to any degree of acceptability by the other band members who are not equally challenged.
Give them the boot and find someone who can sing.
From years of working with singers who can't find a note, stay on pitch, lock into the tempo, count a measure, etc., ... Compared to working with singers who have none of those issues, it's been my experience that it's a waste of time trying to teach someone who has those deficiencies how to overcome them to a point that they can be integrated into a band and perform to any degree of acceptability by the other band members who are not equally challenged.
Give them the boot and find someone who can sing.
If he never had good pitch, then I'd lean towards, no chance of fixing. But since he is OK most of the time, this is very fixable. But he needs to be willing to work on it.
Echoing other thoughts in this thread:
Record every song he has these issues with and listen with him to point out where the issues are. He does need to be able to listen and recognize the issue to fix it. If he can't hear it, it'll be a very uphill battle.
Coach/lessons should help immensely. This could easily be fixed with some guided ear training and breath control lessons. If he's willing to go this route, I would expect that he could continue with self instruction after a few lessons if he is really paying attention to what the instructor is providing.
And of course, he needs to be doing his own work at home. Most amateur singers probably tend to focus on learning lyrics rather than really listening to pitch accuracy because singing the notes comes pretty naturally.
If none of this is workable for him, you can test the thickness of his skin by stopping a song in rehearsal every time this issue presents. It'll get old real fast and he'll either practice to make it better or quit.
Echoing other thoughts in this thread:
Record every song he has these issues with and listen with him to point out where the issues are. He does need to be able to listen and recognize the issue to fix it. If he can't hear it, it'll be a very uphill battle.
Coach/lessons should help immensely. This could easily be fixed with some guided ear training and breath control lessons. If he's willing to go this route, I would expect that he could continue with self instruction after a few lessons if he is really paying attention to what the instructor is providing.
And of course, he needs to be doing his own work at home. Most amateur singers probably tend to focus on learning lyrics rather than really listening to pitch accuracy because singing the notes comes pretty naturally.
If none of this is workable for him, you can test the thickness of his skin by stopping a song in rehearsal every time this issue presents. It'll get old real fast and he'll either practice to make it better or quit.
I second recording a practice and playing it back to see if the singer can hear where he's sharp/flat. If he can't hear it on a recording there isn't any hope that he'll be able to correct it.
Then the band has to decide if he's worth keeping despite the few times when he's off key.
Then the band has to decide if he's worth keeping despite the few times when he's off key.
If you can hear the singer be out of tune, it's partly because the drummer's cymbal playing is not washing out everything and covering up vocal pitch issues.
So ya, talk to your drummer about this. He needs to step up, and sonically mask the singer. If he can't.. fire the "drummer".
;-)
But seriously... you wrote, "We started as a post-covid "let's just get together and jam and have some fun" band"
repeat:
"let's just get together and jam and have some fun"
so... why the stress now?
==
You don't need to put all your musical eggs in one basket.
Have multiple projects going. A "for fun band", a more serious cover band, a improv jam band, an originals songwriting group etc. If your schedule allows for it..
If you feel one band fills your plate, add in a 2nd more accomplished, singer, preferable female, to give a band a wider range of repertoire. The male singer gets to lead the easy songs, and does backups on the other songs. He'll learn and get better. Bonus if he brings food for everyone to the rehearsals.
So ya, talk to your drummer about this. He needs to step up, and sonically mask the singer. If he can't.. fire the "drummer".
;-)
But seriously... you wrote, "We started as a post-covid "let's just get together and jam and have some fun" band"
repeat:
"let's just get together and jam and have some fun"
so... why the stress now?
==
You don't need to put all your musical eggs in one basket.
Have multiple projects going. A "for fun band", a more serious cover band, a improv jam band, an originals songwriting group etc. If your schedule allows for it..
If you feel one band fills your plate, add in a 2nd more accomplished, singer, preferable female, to give a band a wider range of repertoire. The male singer gets to lead the easy songs, and does backups on the other songs. He'll learn and get better. Bonus if he brings food for everyone to the rehearsals.
This is going to sound wild and probably make you wonder how in the world this could help. But here goes..
When I was trying to elbow my rhythm and lead to chime in with some backups, they were more than willing, but had neither the confidence nor the ability from the get go. So... I just started singing everything I would say to them. Basic conversation was sung. They quickly joined in because they thought I was being a clown but then - it took hold. We started singing everything. In not very long at all, both of these guys were doing it like it was nothing, and with a little instruction, were in pitch! Vocal harmonies are a huge part of what we do now, and I couldn't be happier.
Now I know that you said you're no singer, but that doesn't matter at all. It's good for you too. I guess that what I'm saying is making regular practice so casual, and yet so frequent, that he can't NOT find his feet? Well. It just might work.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Our BL/frontperson likes to wander into the crowd. But if she can't hear herself out of her own monitors, she's flat. It took me a few videos to figure this out. And it's all of us: We do a lot of three-part harmony (it impresses crowds); if we can't hear each other clearly, we're off. Perhaps the most important reason we pay to have our own sound person.
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If this is the case, then your singer is not aware. Sorry, replacement is likely the only viable option.
Thats happened in a couple of different bands. In the first one, a friend of the band kept bringing up the fact that the singer we were using was often off...We offered to bring in a vocal teacher and split the costs between us and the guy just quit and never came back. Can't say I blame too much as the other guys that confronted him didn't do approach him very well about it.
Second and most recent one involves a woman singer. She's not bad when she sings in key, but she often sings flat and once or twice sang one tune in an entirely different key. During the pandemic I reached to her via chat and I mentioned I was working on my DB Bowing technique and singing by just singing along to cello drones. I'd just make "doo-doo-dah-doo" sounds when doing that and I could tell it was helping me sing better. Her response was essentially " thats cool but I already know how to sing ". I didn't say anything more after that.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Live music is the only time you'll hear musicians making mistakes. And we all do it. There are a lot of bands out there with absolutely horrible singers that are still playing to huge crowds. Jam band scene anybody? Maybe having an instrument in their hands makes it more acceptable, IDK.
You talked about jamming in a small room, and that has me thinking more about how well the singer can hear themselves. Even with IEMs or noise isolating headphones, I want to hear the cans or the IEMS not bass and guitar amps around me and trust me, those amps can still bleed through if people aren't conscious about their volume levels.
There is such a thing as too loud, where everything starts to sound like
. Do you walk out of rehearsal with your ears ringing? Maybe feeling a little dizzy? If so tell the drummer to stop hitting so hard. There's no need to play at stadium levels in the basement.
Part of the technical aspect of musicianship as far as I'm concerned is being in control over your decibel levels. Loud enough to be heard, low enough to sound good. Low enough that the singer doesn't have to strain to hear themselves, or to be heard by others. Low enough to be able to make out each individual piece of the band by sound alone. IEMS are a good thing and all.. much easier to hear than floor monitors and offer hearing protection as long as you don't turn them up loud enough for hearing damage. But there might be more to consider.
Might not be the OP's issue but, that'd be the first thing I'd do. Play quieter, and see how the singer sounds. Y'all might be pushing him beyond his limits. And if not.. you know to start looking for a new singer.
You talked about jamming in a small room, and that has me thinking more about how well the singer can hear themselves. Even with IEMs or noise isolating headphones, I want to hear the cans or the IEMS not bass and guitar amps around me and trust me, those amps can still bleed through if people aren't conscious about their volume levels.
There is such a thing as too loud, where everything starts to sound like
. Do you walk out of rehearsal with your ears ringing? Maybe feeling a little dizzy? If so tell the drummer to stop hitting so hard. There's no need to play at stadium levels in the basement.Part of the technical aspect of musicianship as far as I'm concerned is being in control over your decibel levels. Loud enough to be heard, low enough to sound good. Low enough that the singer doesn't have to strain to hear themselves, or to be heard by others. Low enough to be able to make out each individual piece of the band by sound alone. IEMS are a good thing and all.. much easier to hear than floor monitors and offer hearing protection as long as you don't turn them up loud enough for hearing damage. But there might be more to consider.
Might not be the OP's issue but, that'd be the first thing I'd do. Play quieter, and see how the singer sounds. Y'all might be pushing him beyond his limits. And if not.. you know to start looking for a new singer.
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