singing other peoples songs

sloman

Hi My name is Andy and i am a musician and sound engineer I used to sing in a band many years ago, I actually had 5 singing lessons to concentrate on my breathing and am just looking maybe an open mic night at my local venue, pub.. I have not sang live for around 10 years ..

I am getting together a short live set. I play guitar and sing.

I have recently found a song I love singing along with, without accompaniment, with accompaniment IE my guitar and when sing along with can hit the notes and sing it well, I can also play along and sing it well.

My problem. If i havent listened to the song for a day or 2, or haven't played along with I simply can not sing it, its extremely flat and out of tune. I then need to put the song on play along before i can get the tune again..

Does anyone else relate to this issue and if so how does one get round it.. thank you for your time..

highmtn

Hi, @sloman.

This is actually a place to say hi. So, Hi, Sloman, and welcome.

Questions about singing would be better in the General Singing area, or if you're a student, in the area that is dedicated to each portion of the KTVA course.

Most singers, unless they have perfect pitch, need a reference chord or note so that they can find the first note of a song. There's no real problems with that, just play the chord and then start singing.

If you play the chord and start singing the wrong notes, then you haven't really learned the song, or at least the beginning of if. You should be able to reference the first chord or note, and memorize whatever melodic intervals start out the melody from that chord or note.

Write out the notes, if you need to, so that you get them exactly right, and learn the intervallic pattern. Memorize it, so that your brain won't vary it when you start out cold on it.

If you haven't done that yet, then you need to start doing that. Learn how to start the song, based on the reference note. Your first note may be a step or two or three up from the reference note or down from it, but it won't move. So you have to memorize the melody, relative to a reference note. Until you know that, you don't really know the song, and you may start out on a perfect melody in the wrong key, or a wrong melody in the right key, or worse yet, on a wrong melody in a wrong key.

Reference notes help us to "hear" the right notes in our head before we start to sing. We know the right note because we have learned the beginning of the song, relative to our reference note.

That won't change. Our recollection of that might be inconsistent, but the melody relative to a reference note, will always be the same.

So study the melody, and get it right. Learn the relationship of that melody to a reference note, and you'll never start out in a random manner again.

All the Best!

Bob