Is your pitch really perfect? ISTR somebody had a choir sing something in a Bohlen–Pierce scale, or with octaves divided into 13, or some such.
Guess I’m in the same boat as the OP. I enjoy singing songs I like, but people usually ask me to stop.
As far as finding a pitch goes, if someone sings and holds a note, I could probably match it eventually by sliding my voice up and down until … I don’t know the term … it sounds vibrate-y? … I hear harmonics?
Here’s the thing, though: If someone sings a note and then stops, odds are I won’t be able to match the note. And if someone plays a sustained note on a piano or guitar or something, I’ll never be able to match it. Pianos and guitars sound nothing like voices, so that’s that.
Sure, if someone plays a C and then a D on a piano, I can tell you the second one is higher. But if they pay a larger interval, I probably won’t be able to tell if it’s C-B, C-C, C-D, or whatever. A seventh higher, an octave higher, an octave and an extra step higher … they’re all just “higher.”
He sounds like a robot because there’s no connection between one note and the next. They were created by pressing keys, so it’s an unnatural jump. Got nothing to do with the pitch.
Just did.
[quote] If you go to LSLGuy’s piano link upthread, you can play it yourself. C → F → F → F
[/quote]
Now see, I thought the third note was lower than the second. I sang something like C — F — F flat — F.
I know you’re addressing the OP and not me. But FTR, on several occasions when I’ve sung “Happy Birthday,” someone or another has told me that I was singing in several different keys. I know that’s bad, but damned if I can fix it.
You, sir, are (were?) a genius. And pretty ballsy.
I did a lot of theater in high school and college. I tried to avoid musicals, but wasn’t always successful. Inevitably, at some point in the first chorus rehearsal, the musical director would stop playing and say, “Hold on. Wait. Who is that? Is that you, Cayuga? How about if you just mouth the words?”
I’ve always had a pretty good ear and it’s hard for me to related directly to someone who can’t hear pitches and intervals. To me it’s like watching someone scowl and try to figure out which dot is red and which one is blue.
On the other hand, I’m aware of the existence of color blindness. Knowing it doesn’t teach me what it would be like to not be able to tell which one is red and which one is blue, but it’s at least informative. I guess it’s the same with pitch-blindness.
Some years ago I read a column by the late Andy Rooney. In it, he said that he could not recognize music at all. He could hear no melodies. Never could. It all sounded like discordant noise. I was utterly flabbergasted to learn that, while rare, there are many people so afflicted. I just can’t imagine what that would be like.
In choir in college we had a girl who I believe was genuinely tone deaf. It was community college so you didn’t have to try out.
Our director was about ready to tear his hair out because she was just awful and pretty loud.* His solution was to pick a friend of mine and me to sing behind her. We were all singing Alto and my friend and I both had a lot of power (on key). He had us sing behind her and kept telling her to sing more quietly so she could “hear” what we were doing better. *At first we all did spend a lot of time trying to get her on key, but it was fruitless. Then he’d tell us to sing louder so she could “hear” us. Yeah, we drowned her out which, I guess, was the point.
A little off topic: We sang barbershop in women’s ensemble with that director. I hate listening to barbershop, and it’s difficult to just harmonize in that style, at least for me. It’s a totally different type of harmony. However, I loved singing it. It was challenging and different.
The next director we got after the first one retired wouldn’t let us do barbershop in WE because in her opinion it didn’t sound good with women’s voices. Pfft.
I’m not sure, but my sense is, people mostly-jokingly told him he was a good musical artist (which in certain ways he is), and his popularity grew as a novelty (rather like Tiny Tim). He may be slightly learning disabled, so to what degree he knows he’s mostly a “joke,” I don’t know. Certainly, his vocal style is memorable and utterly unique; in me, it induces a kind of lysergic trance.
“Why can’t they just play the right notes?”
But that “unnatural jump” IS in the pitch.
In this case, I think you are just misremembering how the song goes, not because of any pitch problems. The song sounds good in your alternative – so normal, it might even be an “official” option. (That lowered note is absolutely the correct third one in the NEXT four-note sequence, so it’s understandable one would try to match them when singing.)
(BTW, “F-flat” is more commonly called “E-natural” – it’s one of the two places in an octave where there’s no black key between the white keys).
I realize that. What I was trying to say is that I could tell it was Autotuned because the transition between pitches is unnatural, not because of anything to do with the pitches themselves.
But it helps explain why I couldn’t carry a tune if you bolted handles onto it. The tune I’m hearing in my head has different notes from the ones that actually exist in the song.
Crap! I knew I had a 5-in-7 chance of being correct, so I couldn’t be arsed to go into the living room and look at the piano keyboard. Figures.
I’ve gotten a little obsessed with barbershop over the last week. It’s kind of amazing how four voices can just ring like that.
I expect that for barbarshop-style you doi need a sense of pitch, because of harmonies like seventh chords and having to sing in just intonation, not the notes on a piano
I can see that the blue dot is higher than the red dot.
Does that mean i’ve got relative color ?
Got it! Makes sense.
Barbershop is fun to sing because the harmonies are not umm, intuitive? They’re much more complex and layered. I can’t tell you where they are on the scale or the technical aspects as I sing strictly by ear. It is so thrilling to sing the notes and hear your voice blend in a chord that can give you goose pimples. I admit though that lots of harmonic singing does that to me anyway. I love singing in a group like that.
I seem to have a sense of pitch, but that doesn’t mean I can sing in tune. I have problems to recreate what I hear, especially if it’s something more complex. I’m okay for Happy Birthday, Christmas songs and most hymns, more or less. I can sometimes sing better if I can read the words, I guess it helps me stay connected with the tune.
My dad and his friend decided to rebuild a player piano and they attended a course about how to do it. They were the only ones in the course who were identified as being tone deaf. My dad listens to music, mainly because my mother does, but he does enjoy it. When he was commuting, he always listened to the news.
He’s okay singing church hymns with a crowd and an organ. But he doesn’t sing along with Neil Diamond, or even whistle while he works.
If you want to give singing a shot, there’s an app called Sing! by Smule where you can try singing along with thousands of karaoke-style tracks, or sing with others in duets or groups. You can record, edit, re-do sections, etc. And add all kinds of vocal effects to blend your voice into the track (chorus, reverb, etc.)
A lot of people might be shocked at how well they can sing along with a song when they are wearing headphones and getting the right mix including their voice pumped back into the audio. It’s actually a lot of fun, and nobody there cares if you can sing well or not. (well, some do, but you can avoid them). But if you don’t want others to hear you, you can record completely privately if you want, and then play it back.