Question on pitch

Johnman33

Hey guys! I was wondering if any of you could answer this question as it’s been driving me insane recently. So basically it is regarding pitch and being in tune. When it comes to pitch I can most of the time have a note played on a piano and then replicate it, however my problem is not knowing how to use it. What I mean by this is when it comes to singing a song I don’t know what notes to sing when, like how am I supposed to know when to change note? It may seem like a stupid question but it is driving me insane haha.

Lindor101

Hey there,
have you ever tried to record yourself and practice a song line by line? seems like a lo of work to put into a song but i think that will help you and you will notice how you will improve over time and be able to know what to sing a lot faster.

hope i could help you a little. it really is about training your ear and noticing all the differences. but that takes some practive

Klaus_T

hey, I think there are several aspects to your question:

-if you learn a song, you have to memorize the melody lines; this can be done by ear, or aided by reading music (see your other question about sheet music); you will have to identify which pitches to sing, and memorize them, in order to reproduce them accurately (slowing down the recording might be helpful if done by ear); some people are naturally better than others, but it is a skill you can learn

-agility in your voice to actually reproduce what you memorized; it might be easy to sing a single note, but try it with a sequence of fast notes, it might fall apart quickly, because you cannot negotiate between the pitches and vowels quick enough

I agree with @Lindor101 , break the song into smaller chunks, maybe only 1-2 bars at a time, and learn those snippets, then string them together. At first, this might seem like a lot of work, but actually, most songs will re-use the same melody several times, saving you work. It will train your ear, and also help you understand songwriting much better. Any device/app that helps you loop small parts from the song will be helpful, especially if there is a feature where you can slow down without changing the pitch. If you need tips there, let me know.

Do you know Ken's video on "How to sing any song" on YT? you might want to watch it.

It might sound daunting now to get a grip on this, but most (pop) melodies use the notes of the underlying chord in the melody. So over a C major chord, the melody will most likely be made up of C, E and G, which are the intervals of root, third and fifth.

If you do Ken's exercises, you will learn to "lock" yourself to the underlying chord, note how you always hear the chord first from his guitar, and then sing over it.

Johnman33

Hey guys, thank you very much for answering this I appreciate you taking the time to. I will be very honest the thought of having to identify the correct notes and then memorise them, and then string them together etc. Is extremely daunting to me like you said, it’s how I am wired because I have a very hard time understanding it and using it, but I will try my hardest to try and get it and I’m pretty near to buying this course. Thanks again

Klaus_T

no worries, glad we can help you! you won't actually have to identify the notes as in "naming" them, if that makes you feel any better. you surely will be able to memorize the melody of some simple song like "happy birthday" or something, and then sing it from memory. the process is the same for more complex songs. if you think about it, even the most complex melody is just a string of individual notes, so you can always break it down into really short patterns, like a few notes at a time, repeat until you got it, then proceed. to be honest, sometimes after singing a song for quite a long time, i sometimes realize i missed some bits and sung the wrong notes for months, but that's not the end of the world, and people you sing for might not even realize. with time, you will get better at it. i am still in my first year of KTVA, and i am at a point were i start getting better with all of the pitch stuff, and sometimes cringe when i hear my mistakes now (which i didn't hear before). i am also quite lazy when it comes to using the "one phrase at a time" technique, but i still have fun with it and also slowly get better. you don't need to become a pro singer, so there isn't any pressure, you can learn all of this stuff at your own pace. and strangely enough, the course itself with just the exercises is actually quite fun, who would've thought singing scales daily is so rewarding?! but it is, because you feel yourself slowly but surely getting better and better.

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Elicap

What app/gadget do you use to record yourself properly? Recording with the cell phone is terrible. I´m new here. It sound to me that I can replicate the pitch of the singer, but when I record myself it feels flat and nosely (nasal sound)...

Klaus_T

@Elicap i use a field recorder for some things (like recording the LAH scales to post here) and ProTools and Ableton Live on a laptop for others (songs). the field recorder is a tascam dr-40 which i can highly recommend but there are even simpler/cheaper ones around that might do the job just as well (i use it for other things too so i am happy with some extra options). the thing with recording on a computer is, there is a lot of stuff to buy: microphone, external soundcard, software (if not using free software) and you need to spend time setting things up and maintaining them (software updates, compatibility issues). if you're not into that stuff, i recommend the field recorder

BBeck

When I want to learn to sing a song, I listen to the song about 100 times. If I'm planning on performing a song I don't know in front of people, I'm probably going to listen to it like 20 times before I even BEGIN to try singing it. This takes a long time. If it's a 4 minute song that's about an hour and a half of just listening to the song over and over before even THINKING about singing a single note. When I was trying to learn cover songs for bands I would listen to one song over and over for like 8 hours straight.

If you start singing it too early, you will start singing it wrong and then start practicing it wrong. So, it's really important to learn what it sounds like before you start trying to imitate it.

When I was a teenager, I would listen to my favorite songs to the point I could hum the guitar solos. It's just a matter of listening to the song enough times. If you listen to it enough, you'll know where things go even if you can't reproduce it yourself. (I couldn't actually sing like a lead guitar, but I had memorized the sound of it.)

For me I was singing popular songs where you can go buy it. But when I learned La donna e mobile, I was handed sheet music. Needless to say, the first thing I did was go buy a Pavarotti album with the song on it. And I listened to it over and over and now I not only can sing it in Italian but can translate the individual words into English. It's just about time, repetition, and practice (and in that case getting an English translation so that you can learn what the words mean).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCFEk6Y8TmM

If you're having trouble singing scales and having trouble knowing when to sing the notes and how long to hold them, go buy a metronome. Try and sing a note on each "click" of the metronome. You can set it to any tempo, but start in the middle. I have a metronome that actually counts to 4 and subdivides the notes (subdivision is not really something you do singing scales as far as I know). The more you sing with a metronome, the more your rhythm will develop. I know because I started with no rhythm. At first just start your notes on every click and getting that to perfectly match up in time is what you need to be doing. Although, they might not want you to even really worry about rhythm until you've started getting the singing technique correct.