Twice in the past week or so I have seen recent TV shows use this term. The first was a “Modern Family” episode, in which Cam & Mitchell sing a duet, and a woman remarked that Cam sounded “pitchy” - which crushed him. The second instance was on that “Friends” knock-off show that’s between “Modern Family” and “Revenge.” The token gay eunuch guy was reunited with his old harmony singing group and accused one of the members of being really, really pitchy.
I have never heard anyone use this term before. Obviously being “pitchy” is a bad thing. I think it’s just incidental that the two instances I noticed happened to involve gay guys - I think it’s more something like a person singing off-key? Can anybody describe how a person can be “pitchy”? Or is this just a nebulous, vague buzzword like “head voice” that people bandy about in order to make them sound like their total pro’s?
And on a side note, is there a TV Trope for a main character being reunited with his old four-part harmony singing group to play a reunion gig only to be excluded in some way? Because I notice it happens an awful lot on sitcoms.
Off-key, yes. Specifically, fails to hit or maintain an acceptable pitch on some notes (“off key” implies more “consistently flat or sharp throughout the whole song”).
I’d never heard it until American Idol came out, and people started using it in the context of talking about that show. Apparently one of the judges, Randy Jackson, says it a lot; I suspect he coined it.
First of all, head voice isn’t nebulous. It refers to singing with your head as the resonator instead of your chest. I know this because I got into a bad habit in high school of always singing in it which drove my college voice teacher nuts. It’s high and sweet and has almost no depth.
When I say someone is pitchy, I usually mean that on a sustained note, they’re warbling.
I’m pretty sure the idea of pitchy existed before American Idol. It’s natural modification from saying someone is has pitch problems to shortening that to say it is pitchy. And it specifically refers singing slightly higher or lower than the note–not enough higher to call it a different note, but enough to sound bad.
And head voice is a little more complicated than Inner Stickler gives credit, but I’m not sure it’s really relevant to clarify. All I’ll say is that, contrary to his experience, head voice is not a bad thing when used correctly, and anyone you know who sings high uses it. And that not everyone agrees that the voice he described is even a form of head voice.
My choir director has always used the term pitchy. Defined well above.
Also chest voice/head voice is indeed a real physical thing. There is a place on the scale (at least for women) where you have to switch from chest voice (close to your speaking voice) to head voice (higher). That is a very imprecise way of putting it. It can be beautiful or really awful.
It is either “warbling” = wide tremolo
Real tremolo is often ok, different amplitude but the same note, however most modern pop singers just go all over the place (up/down) hoping to hit the same note as the instrumentals. This is now deemed acceptable, now that Autotune is in place for correction.
or
flat/sharp–and if its beyond Autotune correction (which AI uses, BTW) that means they REALLY SUCK.
It means you sing a little out of tune at times or with certain notes or phrases.
And, yeah, I guess Randy Jackson kind of popularized it some, but, when he said it I knew exactly what he was talking about. When I hear someone who sings like that I usually say that “they have problems with their intonation.” . . . “pitchy” is much more catchy.
The “twang” you hear in yodeling is the transition between chest and head voice. Another example is in Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” - every time he sings “No I don’t wanna fall in love” (starting at about :50), he starts in chest voice on “No”, and flips to head voice on “I”. You usually hear the switch in a transition from a low note to a high one, but it doesn’t have to be. I can stay on the same note and flip back and forth, and the difference in sound is obvious.
Some singers call it falsetto only if it’s breathy and soft, and head voice if it is fuller and has more volume. Either way, it vibrates only the edges of the vocal folds, rather than the full folds used in chest singing.