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Can you sing ?
Can you sing ?
Simple question ! I can sing but As hard as I try I just can't sing in tune. I'm not tone deaf. I know it's subjective as to what is considered as being able to sing but here I'm talking about "in tune"
Theres tons of vocalist out there who wouldn't be described as a singer in the traditional/conventional sense of the word but buy and large most recorded vocalist sing in key. There are Obvious exceptions of course. Fortunately, because I can't play an instrument in the conventional sense , sequencers and drum machines don't inhibit me from making music ...
Do you believe a person can be taught to sing in tune ?
Comments
I started learning to sing aged 43, back in 2013, and I've gone from strangled cat to more-or-less in tune most of the time. I have had to practice a lot to get there, almost every day for 3 and some years, but I've definitely improved.
I have to go but I'll come back later with more advice.
Yep, I’m lucky enough to be able to sing. Even with what seems to be an innate ability, my voice is improved markedly if I do regular singing exercises. I expect that everyone can learn to carry a tune, even if solo performances may not necessarily be on the table.
I’m the frontman of a new indie pop/alt/rock band in Bristol UK, and I’m noticing more and more how much even slight illness in terms of colds and flu can bugger up my voice!
Very jealous of you guys
My partners daughter is 14 and has more musical talent in her little finger than I do in my whole body. She has a natural ability to sing and natural vibrato in her singing voice ..it's great
she loves singing but lacks the confidense to sing solo in front of people.
never mind - pitch correction has become probably the most applied effect in commercial (vocal) recordings today and voice impact/strength is generally controlled by compression and makeup gain.
Yet people seem to be more interested in some 'character' of a voice than in pitch pure performance. So go ahead and give it a try.
As Richard mentioned: it takes some practice, but you'll improve rather quickly (the younger, the better).
Pitch is a bourgeois concept.
I can sing solo and freely harmonise and have been doing it for years.
If you have desire to sing in tune (or love singing in general) then you are in a very good place to get there.
I think most of the time people who struggle with melody have issues hearing the correct pitch and they slip into harmonics. Also inability to sustain a steady flow of air will hinder your ability to hold a note to pitch.
I think the best thing you can do to practice you should play or play back melodic sequences and try to sing them back. Record them and listen for pitch problems. If you can find those out of tune spots you should be able to correct them. If you can tell when somebody else is out of tune then you’re likely just need a lot of practice. YT for vocal techiniques etc.
Yes, breathing is key, harmonies takes practice for most people, certainly in a live situation. It's good fun especially in group situations, very therapeutic.
I don’t believe you lack talent, the right genes or some qualia
It’s about getting the right training, and it’s an inner voice training you need, not singing.
You need to train on recognising intervals on a piano. You have probably been told some time in your life that you are unmusical, and therefore blocked out and starved yourself on musical thinking. Before the ability to record music, most people had a piano or a fiddle near by... we’re now living in a world without natural musical training.
I’ve thought many men to sing in tune, even if they were totally “tone deaf”
It’s in the head, not in your larynx
When I was young and played in various bands every time I tried to sing I was told to stop
But anyway, now I'm older I'm more of the mindset that anyone can learn anything, as long as they put the work in. Having said that I can see that for me learning to sing has been much more effort than it seems to have been for other people. A fair few contributors to SOTMC can sing really well, and apparently with little effort. This wasn't the case for me, I've had to work pretty hard to just achieve OK results.
To start with, back in 2014, I used an app called Erol Singer's Studio and the really cool thing about that is that it can track your pitch in real time as you sing. So the app plays a note and you sing it back and you can see exactly how in or out of tune you are. Because when I was starting out I personally was all at sea, I just couldn't tell exactly what being in tune sounded like, but with a few weeks work with this app I learnt to hear what being in tune sounded like - that was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.
After that I have spent many many nights just practicing a bunch of songs with an acoustic guitar and recording myself and then listening back to the recordings the following day. If you don't play an instrument there are lots of karaoke videos on YouTube where you could do something similar - I like to indulge in this when the wife and kids are out...
I've found that over time the hardest thing for me to really get right is micro-tuning. At the very beginning if I tracked my pitch in something like Melodyne the notes could be off by a long way - a few semitones easily. As I've got better over time they are much closer to where they should be, half a semitone or less, but the difference between being perfectly in tune and being 20 cents out is still noticeable and quite jarring - and this is what has really taken time and work for me to improve on, it's a slow process. I've also found that I tend to sing slightly sharp (probably down to trying too hard, it's better when I'm more relaxed) but every year I do sing slightly better than the last.
Aside from pitch, I've also discovered that style is important, but that's much more subjective and personal. All the singers I really like tend to not sing with correct technique, but with their own idiosyncratic style, and that's much more appealing to me, but it also means that 90% of the advice from proper singing trainers is not applicable. For example a "proper" singing instructor will discourage you from singing from the throat, but many pop/rock singers do actually sing from the throat and not the head or chest. Most of the great soul singers mixed throat singing (with a little vocal fry) with falsetto and head or chest voice, and singing tuition on YouTube and the like doesn't really reflect the great range of styles that's out there IMO.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I would say that almost anyone can learn to sing, but for some people it's going to be harder than for others. However even if you don't have much natural aptitude for it you can still do it, it's just a bit more effort. There's a wealth of information out there on YouTube etc and lots of ways to practice now that weren't available ten or twenty years ago.
It's just like everything else in terms of art: once you know the rules and how to apply them, you can and should break them. But not having the fundamentals down is a bad thing.
Snobs again? Don't diss them, just kiss them, but you've got to work out, which end their mouthpiece is at.
I'm not suggesting taking shortcuts, I think my point was quite the opposite, but rather I'm just pointing out that many of the more interesting and idiosyncratic singers don't use orthodox singing techniques - which means that if you're more interested in those kinds of styles it's worth at least bearing in mind.
I'll give a couple of specific examples. If you listen to Marvin Gaye singing I Heard It Through The Grapevine, all the best bits are the stylistic flourishes, the slight vocal fry on a phrase, the falsetto added for emotion etc... Not orthodox singing technique at all and all the more interesting for it, and the parts where he sings from the throat are among the very best most emotional parts of the song. Just IMO, but it might not be obvious to people who haven't really listened out for this kind of thing:
Another example is Sam Beam from Iron & Wine, in his early albums he is whispering more than singing, it's all from the throat and I really love the tone it creates, it's full of atmosphere and a pretty original singing style. Nowadays he sings more conventionally and I actually like his singing a lot less!
Also Tracy Thorn wrote a book about singing, Naked At The Albert Hall, and she talks about this stuff quite a bit (I found it really interesting), she doesn't have what is considered good singing technique - she can't project her voice and is a throat singer, but her voice is nonetheless very beautiful and idiosyncratic. It wouldn't suit someone like Adele, but for her it's perfect.
This is the reference (as any street photographer standing out in the rain holding a rangefinder loaded with Tri-X Pan would be familiar with) https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/henri-cartier-bresson-quote.154504/
One thing I’ve leaned is that it’s almost as much about delivery and confidence as it is technique. I’m not a great singer but I sing in a band and if i play a gig and am feeling up for it and get up there and give it everything with loads of attitude like I don’t give a fuck it goes down much better than if I get up there all serious and focus too much on my pitch/technique and forget to let loose and enjoy myself. Even though I probably sing better when I focus the audience prefer it when I’m singing not so well but singing from the heart and with real passion
This is a great quote, and fits right in with the discussion about style. In the early 20th century photography was divided between pictorialists and modernists, the former being more conventional and orthodox and the latter being more interested in the moment and less concerned with technical issues. A pictorialist would set up a tripod, and take a sharp photograph of a beautiful subject, whereas a modernist would shoot hand-held, often resulting in a blurry image, and capture a specific moment in time. Different approaches for different aesthetics.
You mean there was a longer story? LOL
It was an interesting read, thank you.
Actually this is a very good point - when you're practicing it's essential to be able to properly hear yourself. Sticking a finger in your hear is one way, but it's also worth investing in a microphone and/or interface setup that allows you to monitor yourself properly so that you can actually hear your voice and the music clearly.
Originally I was using a zoom IQ5 to do this, but last year I bought a Shure MV51 to record my practices with, and it's been a really good investment. I can record while monitoring myself with headphones.
Yeah - sorry
Don't mean to make it all about me me me, but maybe if the OP wants to learn how to sing some of it may be helpful. When I was starting out it was really hard to find any useful information at all.
I don't know bro, I have heard and seen you enough to know you are really good!
me me me me
Being married this long I get this language no worries Rich.....LOL
It's cool
I need all the help I can get 
thanks for the tips so far chaps. I'll have a detailed read through tonight
Even Autotune can‘t help me
Save up for Melodyn
I make it crash !
That too !
Thanks @RUST( i )K you should here me when I run through TC Helicon's voice rack voice changer. Barry White re imagined.
I sing in a band and I have been using an app called Vanido to do warm ups and increase my vocal strength. Its a cheap way to improve your pitch as well. Like the aforementioned app it listens and shows you if you are on pitch or not in real time during the exercises.Unlike the aforementioned app it doesnt cost a lot of money