To clarify… Why can some people “carry a tune” and some people can’t???
I’m not referring to “perfect pitch” or anything like that…just plain old singing…
Does it involve the hearing? The vocal chord setup?
The diaphram? The tongue layout/thickness? All of the above???
Whine…cry…sob… It’s just not fair that I cant sing and I want to know why…
Thanks
My friend Marty is a really good singer, mostly of country music, and he insists that singing, even operatic singing, is “a parlor trick” and that he could teach me to sing in a day. He drinks a lot.
Barring mutes, every person I have met has had the ability to sing.
Singing well, on the other hand…
J.E.T.
Hearing loss, neurological problems, vocal cord disfunction/injury, etc., etc. In order to know why you can’t carry a tune (or think you can’t) I’d have to know more.
Can you tell if two pitches are the same or different? Can you tell if a pitch is higher or lower than another pitch? Can you hear and remember intervals between pitches?
Can you match pitches with your voice? That is, when you hear a note either sung or played on an instrument, can you sing the same pitch (either at the same frequency or at an octave lower or higher)?
Can you match a pitch with a certain instrument or sound quality (timbre) and not others?
If you can hear a pitch, how long can you retain that in your memory? A couple of seconds, until the next note or phrase? (Does another voice or instrument interfere and cause you to lose your pitch?)
Can you match pitches with your voice within different areas of your vocal range? For example, can you sing the right notes if you’re singing a low note, but not a high note?) How wide or narrow is your vocal range?
Do you have problems with hoarseness, your voice cracking or other symptoms that would indicate damage to the vocal cords?
Some people just can’t tell where the notes are. That’s tone deafness or “amusia”. This is a perceptual problem and is very hard to correct. It can be taught (especially if you can tell where some pitches are but just not those at extremes of your range or within the range of most music to be sung). But it is often extremely painstaking and requires a lot more dedication than most people want to put into it.
However, I did have one student who thought he was tone deaf until we figured out that his optimum range was just very, very low. Once I had him singing an octave lower than the music was written he was right on pitch. His was a vocal problem, not a perceptual one. Many people sing off pitch if the notes are too high or too low. Most often they’re just a bit flat or sharp because of the strain of singing in an uncomfortable range, but for some it’s more extreme. If you have a very narrow range, you may be missing most of the notes because your vocal mechanism (involving the vocal cords and other larygeal muscles, as well as control of breath and resonators) is having trouble making the adjustments that come with singing higher or lower. This, however, is relatively easy to fix with a decent teacher and little practice.
A roommate of mine had a perceptual problem having to do with memory, for the most part. She could sing a note I played without any problem, and even sing a short phrase and remember where the notes were in relation to each other. However, when she stopped to take a breath she would forget where the previous notes were and what key she was in. She also had trouble “tuning in” to what other voices or instruments were doing, so she had trouble picking up notes from the piano accompanying her or from other singers in a choir. I’m not exactly sure what the problem was, but after reminding her many, many times to listen to the other sounds she was able to concentrate on them and stay in tune with them or distinguish what key they were playing.
Other people have difficulty hearing a pitch played by certain instruments or at different octaves. This probably has something to do with being able to distinguish the fundamental frequency from the overtones, but that’s just a WAG.
This article will give you more technical information:
http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~levitin/TD_casys.html
rivulus
Sing, schming … what really counts is – can ya dance?
I can answer some of those questions positively. The one I have trouble with is “range” I can sing a note in one octave, but if I were to need to go an octave lower or higher, I would lose it.
I also have the added problem of not being on key with the music when it is played at the same time I am singing. (I once played drums in a rock group, and the rest of the band turned my microphone off surreptitiously while I thought I was singing my little heart out. They told me later I was really sounding bad, really bad). So now I don’t even try anymore, except when I play my guitar in the privacy of my own home. I have a little mini-studio set up but I am afraid to listen back to myself in fear that I will stop altogether.
I once sang the part of an old Ronnie Milsap tune which began acapella before I played it on the stereo, and damn if I wasn’t dead on key.
Go figure, huh?
So maybe the answer is many of us can sing but are afraid to try.
Quasi
My experience has been that many people who say they can’t sing actually can – they’re just too embarrassed to. While rivulus has covered all the technical stuff, there is also the issue of people comparing themselves to either recorded music (which, due to production and editing, rarely reflects actual singing ability) or to professional singers who have had years of training.
Sometimes when people say they can’t sing they mean they can’t sing like [famous singer they admire]. To which I say, “Of course not – you can only sing like you.” I once picked up a number of bad habits trying to sound like recordings of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Sure, we’re both baritones but that’s where the resemblance ends, and no amount of wishing or training is going to make me sound like that.
Thanks to all of your sympathetic and technical answers.
At least I know now it’s not hopeless.
It’s weird, I can always tell when someone hits the wrong note or whatever, but for it to come out of my mouth is a whole different ballgame…
But isnt singing, a glorious pastime anyway?!!!
Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t. In the latter case, it feels like my voice is changing again, and notes just crack to the wrong pitch.
[maybe-slightly-racist-view]
Years ago, I used to visit karaoke bars (just to listen). Whenever a black female got up to sing, I expected and usually heard a wonderful rendition of whatever song they chose. Oftentimes, I thought they should do this professionally.
Usually.
There was one woman who got onstage. She was dressed and made up like a Supreme. I was expecting magic. What I heard was just a step above cats fighting. Oh, God, she was awful. And then, she kept coming back week after week, not getting any better.
[/maybe-slightly-racist-view]
Why can some people play guitar and some can’t? Because some people know how and some don’t. The voice is an instrument, just like any other. It must be learned and practiced in order to be “played” properly. Natural ability certainly plays a role, but nothing can supplant good teaching.
Here’s a good place to start, if you really want to sing:
http://www.voicelesson.com/free.htm
The author is a professional singer/musician. The articles are good and in plain english. And the site is free. Can’t beat that!
To know that someone can or can’t sing you would have to have an ear for that sort of thing. Most peoples ears & what they hear is not the same.
I have heard that what you hear when you sing and what actually comes out when you sing are two different sounds, due to distortion of the sound waves as they travel through the bones in the skull.
Because of this, you would need to learn to sing so that it sounds a little wrong to you, but right to everybody else.
Any truth to that?
I’m just guessing here, but I wonder if the sound of the other instruments in the band were preventing you from hearing yourself singing. Unless you have a good muscle memory allowing you to feel where pitches are supposed to be in your voice (or have perfect pitch) you may have to rely on your ear to tell you what you’re singing. You can get lost in a wash of sound and end up in the wrong key or all over the place.
Fear definitely plays a role. I think part of the problem is that being nervous interferes with concentration, and if you are an inexperienced singer and aren’t sure how to handle your voice, this can cause you to forget what note you want to sing or interfere with the coordination required to produce the right pitch (or a beautiful sound).
rivulus
No it’s not hopeless. Since you apparently can hear pitches just fine, and assuming that there isn’t any damage to the vocal cords (like nerve damage, nodes, etc.), you can learn how to match pitches with your voice if you want to spend the time on it.
Singing is glorious, IMHO. In the larger scheme of things, who cares if you’re hitting the right notes or producing a lovely sound, as long as you are expressing what you feel? I should add that sometimes deliberately allowing yourself to sing off key or make an ugly sound can be very helpful. Once you stop worrying what you sound like – trying to constantly censor, control or correct the sound – and just let the voice work on its own, the quality can improve dramatically. This particular trick and various others taken from sports psychology are used quite a bit these days by student and professional singers/performers. Books by Wesley Balk or The Performer Prepares by Robert Caldwell are a good start if anyone’s interested.
rivulus
Absolutely. The resonators, whether air-filled cavities of the vocal tract or bones in your head, play a big part in determining the quality of sound (timbre) depending on what overtones they resonate to, cancelling out some, augmenting others. The overtones you hear can be quite different from those others hear, and it’s the selection of overtones that creates the vocal ‘color’ as well as the vowel sounds, etc. Overtones can also affect the perceived sharpness or flatness of pitch, so you may think you’re singing in tune, while the audience hears it as slightly out of tune. Not a good thing.
Trying to match your timbre with that of a singer on a recording or some ideal sound in your mind can be difficult because it won’t sound the same inside your head. Most people need a teacher to tell them if they’re on the right track or not. (So, teaching yourself with books or audio courses isn’t always a good idea. I’m not saying it’s pointless, just use caution.) A lot depends on the type of room you sing in, too. If the sound is being bounced back at you fairly faithfully, then you have a better chance at hearing what is going on outside your head. (I suppose if you have access to a good recording studio and can hear your sound through earphones, that might work too.)
In my experience, the biggest most beautiful sound to outside listeners seems weak and thin to me. When it sounds great to me, it usually sounds muffled and a bit flat to others. Most of the time I don’t bother listening to my own sound as much as relying on the sensations I had when my teacher told me it was right. This is also very helpful under circumstances when you can’t hear yourself very well, like when singing with an orchestra or in an acoustically dead room. You have to rely on muscle memory.
rivulus
I am a case in point.
When I was young, I was told I could not sing. I sang less and less as I got older. Each time I did, I was told to stop. More and more time passed between attempts.
When I got my first car, I sang loud and proud along with the songs I’d play on my cassette deck. My voice became strong and clear, but only when I was alone. As described above, I rarely sang for other people.
Finally, my senior year in high school, I decided I would audition for a musical play, taking advantage of my newfound confidence. I sang the first couple of lines very, very well, and I noticed the people watching were surprised, as I wasn’t supposed to be a singer. Then my subconscious caught up with me, reminded me I couldn’t sing, and the rest of the song went very, very badly.
I did not sing at all for the two years following high school.
Then I went to an arts college to pursue an acting degree. Everybody was required to take extensive vocal training, in tone, technique, and so on. And after a couple of weeks of instruction, I discovered that, by God, I really could sing after all – not just adequately, but very, very well.
Now, I consider myself an excellent singer. My range stretches from high baritone all the way up to almost the top of a classical tenor. I have excellent control not just of pitch but also of timbre and other qualities, including a vibrato that can be as aggressive as classical opera and as nonexistent as barbershop.
I achieved this because I (1) got over my insecurity and (2) learned and practiced the mechanics.
And, most likely, you can too. I’ve met maybe four or five people in my life who were legitimately tone-deaf. Everybody else has simply been anxious and untrained, and therefore self-destructs when asked to sing.
Just my own personal anecdotal evidence…
Once again rivulus has beaten me to the punch with the technical details. The trick, of course, is to learn what sound you are hearing (the subjective sound, as it were) corresponds to a good objective sound (i.e. what everyone else hears). Singers often also go on what it feels like to make a good sound.
And the way you achieve this is either:
The advantage of a good singing coach is that they can keep you from developing bad singing habits. The downside is the expenditure of time and money (especially if you need to pay an accompanist as well).
In either case, there’s no substitute for practice. Sing in your bathroom – bathrooms are usually resonant (what with all the tiling and ceramics). I don’t know if there has been any scientific research on this, but I have a theory that people sing better in the bathtub in part because they can hear themselves better and thus make small pitch corrections as needed.
One possible reason is that the music was too loud for you to hear yourself sing. Most rock bands have monitors (either earpieces or speakers at the front of the stage pointing towards the band) so that they can hear themselves. I’ve had experiences both as a singer and instrumentalist where the surrounding music was so loud I couldn’t hear what I was doing; it’s very disconcerting, and often you end up singing/playing out of tune just because you can’t tell.
It’s only racist if you assume that it’s genetic. Odds are more likely that it is cultural, however; the African-American community has maintained a tradition of singing, primarily through church choirs, to a degree that other American subcultures have not. When you grow up singing and listening to other people sing in an environment where you’re encouraged to “sing out” – none of this [Izzard]“We will now sing O God Our Help in Ages Past, and please sing in your ‘dreary’ voice…”[/Izzard] C of E hymn singing – you’re more likely to develop the skills and confidence to sing well later in life.
I don’t mean to imply that all African-Americans are brought up in that environment, can sing well, wouldn’t be able to sing well if they weren’t brought up in that environment, etc [insert usual caveats here], but it does make a difference. Even here in England, where childrens’ and community choirs are prevalent, many more people sing than in the US (relatively speaking). The more you do it, the better you’re likely to be.
I completely agree, jr8, and just want to add, for anyone else that is reading this, that if you are a beginning singer starting to get serious about practicing and developing your voice a good teacher is important. It does cost a lot but, trust me, it will cost a whole lot more if you develop bad habits and have to pay someone later to try to fix them. The same goes for learning music, by the way. Try to get the notes and technique right the first time or you’ll end up wasting more time later.[/the voice of experience]
I found a similar situation at Brigham Young University where I was teaching singing. There are lots of church activities every week that my Mormon (LDS) students had to attend, and at many of them a hymn or two was sung. It wasn’t at all uncommon for the group to break out in four-part harmony on familiar hymns, by memory. I had some of the best beginning students ever! It was just a part of the everyday culture. Their ears were already well trained and they weren’t so shy about singing out. I loved that part about teaching there.
rivulus
Singing is something you can learn naturally, the same way kids learn to play sports from the time they are very young. It is also possible to “study” singing later, although, depending on what kind of singing you want to do, this may be good or bad. I can sing because when all the other kids were playing basketball and talking about Michael Jordan, I was at home copying Billy Joel. I had a natural interest, so it was no chore for me to “teach” myself to sing.
But I CANNOT play basketball to this day.
If you want to be a professional singer of opera or advertising jingles, look for some lessons. If you want to be a kick-ass rock singer, though, you’ve got no voice but your own. If you have a bad voice, you might be able to make up for it by being expressive. Mick Jagger can not sing. But man, can he PERFORM. Beck is a terrible terrible terrible singer, but he performs and entertains and no one notices most of the time. ANd if you start talking about Indy Rock, there is a whole genre full of people who are considered good because they “can’t” sing, at least not in any traditional sense.
Uh-oh.
We had a guy from NIH come through one of my classes a while back looking for people to take part in a study on tonedeafness. His research shows that there is definitely a genetic component - some people can inherit it. It’s a low percentage - something less than 5%, IIRC. But he has identified a gene for it.
He had a test for volunteers to take that involved listening to a few snippets of familiar music and deciding if they sounded right or wrong, with which he could quantify your tonedeafness. Try searching the National Institutes of Health’s website if you’re interested.