I cannot sing, and I’m pretty tone-deaf. Couldn’t carry a tune if it hand handles on it AND was handcuffed to my wrist. Why is that? Am I missing something? Is it a part of my brain, my auditory system, my larynx? Can I learn? Can anyone learn?
There could be some specific pathologies that could prevent you from singing, but in all likelihood, you simply haven’t learned. Barring such things, yes, I believe anyone can learn. Find a voice teacher and have a lesson. I have yet to encounter a student that I haven’t at least been able to get to match pitch, usually in one lesson. There’s no guarantee that you’ll ever debut at La Scala, but with the proper direction, you can (almost certainly) learn to sing.
I don’t know if this is any help, but:
I’m a reasonably competent musician - piano and other keyboards in the realms of jazz, blues, soul, R&B, funk, what-have-you. I also had perfect pitch, although that was irreparably damaged from playing the trumpet a lot in my teens (a C on a trumpet is really a Bb; never did recover my pitch identification when I switched back to piano).
And yet, I can’t hold a note when I try to sing, unless it’s a falsetto pitch and I’ve got my finger in my ear. It’s not for want of trying either - I’ve played in bands and tried to sing harmony parts, only succeeding in the falsetto range.
I don’t know if formal training would help.
Now, IANA vocal teacher, but I do happen to know a number of individuals with extensive musical talent and an inability to sing. I’m sure for a number of people that it’s simply a lack of knowledge about pitch and can be easily remedied with some basic lessons. For others, I think there is a certain amount of innate propensity for more accute control of one’s vocal cords and that those without it will tend to require extensive training to overcome that lack of natural talent.
Another cause could be physical. For instance, one person that I work with, who is a talented singer, cannot sing in a certain range because of ear trauma from his youth (I think he said a shot gun was fired very near his ear without protection). According to him, there is a pitch (fortunately for him, right where crickets tend to chirp) where he just plain can’t here it. Similarly, my father is getting on in his years, has had some “more than typical” ear trauma, and is a horrific singer. He often cannot tell the difference between certain notes and chords… that’s, cannot hear a difference at all, even when he knows there is one, not just doesn’t know the difference. Fortunately for me, I inherited my mother’s ears. : )
Thank you, that is wonderful news. I have always been resentful of this: I can memorize entire songs upon hearing them 3 times and was not gifted with a good singing voice.
I know I will never be a GREAT singer but to be a good or even average one would be sufficient!
I have heard from singers that “perfect pitch” makes it hard to sing. I recall several interviews with the great “Jo Stafford” and she was always billed as having “perfect pitch,” and she says you can’t sing well with perfect pitch because a note is always sung the same and their are times when you have to “slur” notes to get an effect. She said she had excellent “relative pitch” and sung carefully.
The fact Stafford did comedy albums where she sings off key and consistently stays off key in that bad key makes her comments seem apt.
I can’t sing either people have said “you have to be faking to be that bad,” but in my case I try to sing what my mind hears but the note that comes out is all together different. To me it’s like trying to write with my feet. My mind tells the foot how to form the letter and hold the pencil but my toes won’t do it.
There are two reasons that it can be difficult to match pitch if you’ve never learned how:
- Muscle coordination. Singing is, ultimately, a muscular activity, and just like it takes a lot of practice to learn to hit a golf ball or shoot a basket, it takes time to learn to control the muscles that control pitch. Further complicating matters, you have no direct control over those muscles.
- You hear yourself differently from how you hear everything else. Most sounds are transmitted by pressure waves through the air. You hear your voice through your skull (bone conduction)–if you’ve ever heard a recording of yourself, you know how much different you sound to everyone else. It takes practice to learn to associate a pitch played by, say, a piano, and the pitch you’re singing.
Again, there can be unresolvable problems (hearing or laryngal problems) that may prevent you from learning to match pitch. They are, however, comparatively rare.