I can whistle in tune, but...

[kambuckta]

…I can’t hold a note to save 'me life.

What’s up with that?

[Beckdawrek]

Vocal chords be crazy.
I come from a musical family. And I can’t carry a tune. I missed that gene. I think the right tune in my head but it comes out my mouth all wrong.
I can whistle like a boss. I can even do some trick whistles. Endlessly entertaining to the Grandwrex.

[Treppenwitz]

I, too can whistle in tune, but…

@kambuckta

…I can’t hold a note to save 'me life.

I have no idea what’s up with that.

But at least you’re not alone.

j

[Hilarity_N.Suze]

I have (or used to have anyway) perfect pitch, and I can sing when I practice. That is to say, I can get better. It’s still not very good. My problem is that I know where that note is but I can’t make my voice get there. It doesn’t even have to be a high note, it can be a note in my range. I can hear my failure, but I can’t fix it.

Now, when I had a 45-minute commute that I did via automobile, I could sing a lot better because I sang along with the radio at least one way. Now, after years of not doing this because I’m rarely alone in a car anymore, I probably couldn’t sing “Happy Birthday.”

[Kimstu]

Speaking as somebody who used not to be able to carry a tune in a bucket, and now after decades of voice lessons and choral singing experience can more or less carry a tune in a bucket, I’m here to tell you that you are simply doing something wrong physiologically without realizing it, which you probably had already figured out for yourself.

(Almost) everybody can sing reasonably well, and can learn to do so if they don’t do so “naturally”. But yeah, if you’re one of the people whose natural approach to vocal technique is wrong, the re-learning process can be very frustrating.

Almost certainly, what you’ve got is some form of “sensorimotor translation problem”. Like people trying to learn to knit or juggle, you understand the basics of what’s supposed to happen, you can accurately perceive that you’re not getting it right when you try, but you don’t have the familiarity with the right muscle movements that would allow you to correct your errors.

Singing involves low-level perception issues, such as pitch, duration, timbre and intensity. There is also a motor plan of action involving respiration, phonation and articulation. [Psychology researcher Peter Q.] Pfordresher concentrates his research on the area between perception and action: what’s called sensorimotor translation, or the ability to translate sound into action.

And it is, in fact, a form of translation.

“What goes on in our peripheral nervous system during listening is incredibly different than what has to go on when making sounds,” says Pfordresher. “Production involves an entire network of muscles that all interact. So moving from listening to singing is like taking one language and translating it into another.” […]

There is suggestive evidence that visual feedback would be helpful. Poor-pitch singing might be, in part, an inability to imagine the right pitch. That failure of imagination is due to the inaccessibility. Singing requires an ensemble of muscles, but it is nearly impossible to observe those muscle movements. We can watch a tennis serve and subsequently model the movements, but such visualization in singing is not so easy.

“Evidence from research I conducted with Andrea Halpern concerning auditory imagery and singing shows that when we imagine a melody there is activity in various motor areas of the brain that are designed for motor planning,” says Pfordresher. “People who are poor singers report significantly less imagery.”

Pfordresher says we can also enhance the associations between pitch and voice. Poor singers tend to use a restrictive pitch range when imitating melodies – something they don’t do when speaking – so poor singers may not have explored the full range of their singing voice.

From my own experience, which of course is individually unique and may be no use whatever as a guide to yours, the first thing I’d guess would be that you muscularly “freeze” when you try to sing. That is, you’re uncomfortable and unconfident, so you tense up: a whole bunch of muscles in your shoulders, diaphragm, neck, jaw, mouth etc. are stiffening that need to be relaxed and supple for pitch-accurate singing to occur “naturally”.

In addition to that, you probably have habitual technique errors in your vocal placement, breath support, etc. And as Hilary notes, even if you put in the effort to learn good singing technique, all your problems get worse due to lack of practice.

[LH75]

I love to sing. I have about the same vocal range as Johnny Cash. The down side is that I have probably the worst singing voice in the world. Imagine if you will Dennis Hopper doing an impression of Stevie Nicks…

[don_t_ask]

Just like the white winged dove…