I am the biggest melon ever, this whole time...

Johnman33

Hey guys, so maybe you would have seen my questions regarding pitch and after going insane for a very long time trying to figure it out I cannot believe how I did not realise this.
I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS SIMPLY LISTENING TO A SONG AND JUST ABSORBING IT AND THEN JUST REPLICATING THE PITCH THE ARTIST WAS SINGING AT. I legitimately thought this whole time you had to listen to a song and then word by word go to a piano or guitar and find the exact note of each word and memorise every single name of the key that goes with the word! This whole time I thought that! Now it makes so much sense as to why you train by playing a key on a piano and just repeating it, so that you can get used to MATCHING a pitch like when you hear a pitch in a song and you have to MATCH it by ear. This might seem like the most pointless post but it just shows that sometimes we make silly mistakes and we need to ask questions etc.
God bless all of you, I hope you are all happy and you all deserve good.

Wigs

Hey mate! What is simple for one is complex for another and if you don't know then you don't know. I'm genuinely happy you have made this breakthrough and you should be able to now learn your songs with much less stress. Thanks for sharing this, any breakthrough isn't pointless, you never know you could have helped someone else going through the same thing 🙂

d1g2w3

@Johnman33 The thing I take from this is your dedication and to not go "screw that". The fact that you would go to that complex and painfully difficult process is impressive in itself.

You're going to do great.

Unknown

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BBeck

Some of us (myself) have been doing music longer than we would like to admit, and it can be difficult to remember what it was like when we first started out. We often forget the most basic things and just assume everyone knows them already. But no one does until learn them.

But the important thing is to remember that we all started out that way. None of us were born with this knowledge. We all had to learn it.

Even now I have break throughs where I suddenly understand something that made no sense to me before. Just keep after it. It's awesome that you were able to identify the problem and solve it just by keeping after it! That's a big part of what it's all about.

Also, when you sign up for the course, there is a thread in the forum for the basic course where Ken has videos that teach basic pitch, which is what you are talking about there.

Krystal

Hi there, just thought I would step in and say that I heartily agree with everyone who realizes what a blessing Ken is to those of who’ve been frustrated for years about things like chest/head voice, diaphragmatic support, all kinds of things that would have made us better and happier singers ages ago... I’ve known how to sing since I was 2 years old. But only in more recent years have I come to understand that there are mechanics that we all need to learn to improve our singing. Personally I need to know them in order to expand my range both up AND down, also to increase stamina so that I don’t blow out my vocal folds within 10 minutes. Often times I’ve been flattered by praise such as “angel soprano,” “beautiful voice,” “pure natural sound,” and one of our local pastors—a well known musician himself so I won’t give his name—has said more than once “She sings notes only the dogs can hear.” 😄 But these accolades come from the perspective of others, not mine. I have an artistic background and, as any artistic person knows, we can be our own worst critics. I don’t ever expect to be a Céline Dion or Sandy Patti, even though Ken says with the right training and know-how we should be able to sing anything... I’m nearly 65 and thankful to be singing at all! And I know there is time to make improvements.

I could spend hours scrolling thru the topics and comments here on the forum, fascinating! I only subbed on a few days ago, but already I have seen & heard some very beautiful music by those who don’t appear to need any improvements at all! 😍

Krystal

Johnman33 said:

I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS SIMPLY LISTENING TO A SONG AND JUST ABSORBING IT AND THEN JUST REPLICATING THE PITCH THE ARTIST WAS SINGING AT. I legitimately thought this whole time you had to listen to a song and then word by word go to a piano or guitar and find the exact note of each word and memorise every single name of the key that goes with the word! This whole time I thought that! Now it makes so much sense as to why you train by playing a key on a piano and just repeating it, so that you can get used to MATCHING a pitch like when you hear a pitch in a song and you have to MATCH it by ear.

My 2 cents worth, again! 😊 I cannot sight read sheet music. However....play the piece for me while I follow what is written, and within minutes it begins to make sense. I don’t play an instrument, unless we consider our voice our instrument! But, much of what I sing is learned entirely by ear, I just keep listening over and over till it has sunk in. By that time, the written music is just a guideline. Often times I have no sheet music at all: I choose a song I can sing and either do it a cappella—with the words and some markings on a piece of paper—or have someone backing me on piano or guitar, again either by ear or from written music they have. I can transpose without accompaniment, people think that’s amazing, but you just have to have the song more or less memorized in your head until you can mentally “hear” the chords and the harmonies and match them, as Johnman said. I learned to sing “acapulco” because I knew that I would not always have an accompanyist (is that even a word?) to back me up. It is helpful to have someone just strike a key or a chord before I begin, when there is a particular key I need to start off in.

johnam

This is not silly at all. I have found something amongst highly trained classical musicians that is sort of sad and definitely to be avoided. Many are not able to play music without it written in front of them while many of the best are not able, or have never tried, to improvise on their instrument.. Other musicians who are not formally trained but who learn to play only by ear by repeating the works of others tend to sound exactly like the people they copy and are similarly unable to play (or sing) beyond a single style.

Learning by rote, i.e. repeating something as accurately as possible over and over again, is absolutely invaluable because it gives you insight into the nuance of the original record. It is best if you can both use your ear and find the exact notes on another instrument, the latter helping more with clarification. Imho it is also important to also find your own voice, singing freely beyond the original character and melody, to embellish, or to write original songs yourself with your own melodies.

JanEarl

Hi,
Hey, listen: I've been playing guitar and singing in front of audiences longer than most of these students have been alive. That said; while watching Ken's video on pitch control, I picked up on his idea to use a tuning device on my vocal mic. I had never considered doing that!

Man; what a humbling exercise that was! But it confirmed something that I suspected for a long time: my poor breath control and posture during rehearsals led me to sing flat at the end of phrases. On top of that; what I heard as being on pitch often was actually flat. But I didn't go looking for a rope and a tree. Over the years I've learned that if you can't handle constructive criticism, then don't do anything. And if we can't entertain a new idea...a new way of doing something for the better; then we are mentally dead. Learning something new and discovering that someone else has slain that beast before, takes such a load off the soul because it proves that you haven't stagnated and you're still on the road to betterment.

HumanRobot

Hi

I just hear the notes and I just know what the notes should be. But its fascinating reading all your posts.

Human Robot