• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

singing out of key...

D

dan330

Extreme Android User
up front.. i will admit .. i can not sing.. always out of key.. have a semi-low voice.


has anyone know/seen a person that can play a musical instrument with some good skills... who sings out of key???

example: plays the piano well (dont have to be concert well).. but cant sing along.

i have never heard of suck a thing.

so.. i was thinking..
if I learned to play a guitar.. after 5 yrs of practice..
would I naturally sing better? more on key..
good enough to sing with friends at karaoke
 
dan330 said:
up front.. i will admit .. i can not sing.. always out of key.. have a semi-low voice.


has anyone know/seen a person that can play a musical instrument with some good skills... who sings out of key???
Click to expand...


Lots of people can play but they cannot sing. Two seperate instruments.
 
dan330 said:
up front.. i will admit .. i can not sing.. always out of key.. have a semi-low voice.


has anyone know/seen a person that can play a musical instrument with some good skills... who sings out of key???

example: plays the piano well (dont have to be concert well).. but cant sing along.

i have never heard of suck a thing.

so.. i was thinking..
if I learned to play a guitar.. after 5 yrs of practice..
would I naturally sing better? more on key..
good enough to sing with friends at karaoke
Click to expand...

Maybe in a karaoke contest, possibly. But here it's just one of those things that we do. Whether one can actually sing or not, you're pretty much expected to pick up the mic and have a go, and it maybe considered rude if you don't. Might just to be social with your friends and colleagues, or finalising a business deal. After you've finished at the restaurant, off to the KTV it is. If you already know the words and the songs, all the better. One can actually take professional karaoke lessons here.

Myself, I can't play any instruments at all, except tapping out Jingle Bells on a piano with one finger, and I could play a couple chords on a guitar at school. But I've had lot of karaoke experience, my pitch is not perfect by any means, but I now know many of the popular songs that people like to hear, in both English and Chinese.

BTW this is what I might often be singing...
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/Cbmh2As6GdQ/ Tian Mi Mi karaoke video(in Chinese)...as well as this one... http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/9NvC46b9izU/ Dida dida dida dida...one of my faves.
 
Bob Maxey said:
Lots of people can play but they cannot sing. Two seperate instruments.
Click to expand...
Exactly, that is why some bands are formed by the instrumentalist and bring in someone to be the lead singer. But as time passes on, you may find your pitch and sing some time.
 
My wife is an amazing singer but aside from a short stint at playing the viola in grade school, doesn't play an instrument.
Myself on the other hand, am terrible at singing but can play a handful of instruments ranging from clarinet to drums to guitar. Not sure there's a huge correlation.
 
I once thought like that, but I've played guitar for years and I'll confirm that just because you can play a musical instrument, you will not automagically be able to sing after a while.

There's a few songs I can sing well, (we're talking 2 or 3), but I'm generally rubbish.
 
I'm not musical - when I was trying to learn guitar, friends used to play guess-the-tune. No-one ever won.

My singing is worse but fortunately, I don't sing. Unlike my missus - if you want an really good idea of her singing, try stepping on a dog's delicate bits.

What's even worse than lousy singing was a friend who used to take clave (sticks you bang together to give the basic 3-2, syncopated salsa rhythm) to salsa socials and try to play along. Unfortunately, he was a total rhythmic blackhole, rhythm anti-matter, you'd get a better beat tossing a drum kit down the stairs. Where ever he took his clave around the dance floor, the dancers went to bits - you could track his progress by the dancing disolving around the floor. Strange thing: he never noticed.
 
One thing an instrument like the piano, since the notes are in a straight line from C to C, can help you with is singing individual notes. A note is an audible vibration and one can match the vibration heard to the vibration sung. I used to sing do, re, me, fa, so, la, te, do at a piano to help stay on key before singing. It can't change your ability if you are just plain tone deaf, but if you aren't that could be helpful.

Hope that made sense. :o
 
Like jmar said, a lot has to do with your pitch recognition. Sometimes you can improve that with practice, so playing an instrument may help you with that. Also a lot of times singers do better in certain keys, so you can find keys that are easier for you to find the pitch and play in that key.
 
just like playing an instrument, singing gets better with practice. Matching pitch could be improved by learning an instrument such as a guitar or piano because you would start to know where that pitch is in your head. But practicing on the singing itself will most likely yield the best results.

As far as "good enough to sing with friends at karaoke" I'm not sure where you listen to karaoke, but everywhere around here, 90% of the time people don't do well with the pitch at all. From what I have noticed, karaoke is more about getting into it and getting the crowd into it for everyone to have a good time, its not necessarily about the talent. :)
 
Thank goodness we have autotune. :tongue: This makes it possible for anyone to "sing."

What started out as a possibly good thing has been abused to such a point, we do not really know if a singer can indeed, sing.

Singers should sing and musicians should be able to play ther instruments.
 
Bob Maxey said:
Thank goodness we have autotune. :tongue: This makes it possible for anyone to "sing."
Click to expand...

Not sure if it's an autotune type thing, but in many KTV rooms here there seems to be some kind of smart pitch shifting thing in the professional, PC based karaoke systems that they use. Possibly to try and make the "singer" sound better than they really are. And there's usually lots of reverb as well on the mics.

Autotune in karaoke is probably beneficial, make it less painful to listen to and more enjoyable. Not like it's truly deceiving, in the same way the recording industry seems to use it, apart from Believe by Cher. Where I think the intention was to make autotune sound obvious. Cher always was a good singer IMO, long before the advent of autotune.
 
Anybody can learn to sing in key as long as there is not a physical reason to prevent it such as hearing problems or damaged vocal cords. It takes work and you have to stay with it but one of my best friends is an amazing singer and taught choir at a local high school, he was able to teach me to sing in key but I never stayed with it so I am back to being "tone deaf" as it were.
 
Definitive answer from an expert:

Anyone can be taught to sing. Anyone can be taught to match pitch with the following exceptions:

1) Medically diagnosed tone deafness: The auditory nerve is severed. This can happen in an auto accident or some other kind of event. It's rare, but possible.

2) Severe vocal damage or any other physical handicaps that make it impossible to sustain vocal phonation.

Full disclosure: I'm a Juilliard Graduate with a BM and MM in vocal performance, a former opera singer and am currently a successful and in-demand voice teacher in NJ. I have had a great deal of experience with this.

The ear can be trained to recognize pitch. It takes a long time and a lot of work. I've done it. One person went on to sing professionally and others have gone on to win scholarships in major conservatories for classical music, pop and musical theater.

True story. If you are diligent and have a good voice teacher, you can learn, except in the above cases.

I hope this helps.

Steven
 
My sole musical ability is "audience". Can't read music, never learned to play an instrument, and I do not sing in the presence of other people (except when around small children, since they're not music critics :D ). As I keep explaining to church choir directors, they'd do better with my Siamese than with me.
 
Here's a tip for you, try singing with a hand over one of your ears, a la Robin Gibb, it'll help you to know when you are singing in key.
 
dan330 said:
up front.. i will admit .. i can not sing.. always out of key.. have a semi-low voice.


has anyone know/seen a person that can play a musical instrument with some good skills... who sings out of key???

example: plays the piano well (dont have to be concert well).. but cant sing along.

i have never heard of suck a thing.

so.. i was thinking..
if I learned to play a guitar.. after 5 yrs of practice..
would I naturally sing better? more on key..
good enough to sing with friends at karaoke
Click to expand...

Thing is practice makes perfect. I can sing to the pitch of the instrument, but I can't sustain it well (very wavy pitch). I can only sing "perfect pitch" if a song is on.

If you REALLY want to learn how to sing, take lessons. They can be expensive but they pay off. There are programs out there that allow you to learn from home, however I never tried them. You can also try singing a song and doing your best to match the pitch. Not recommended though.

The trick to singing is to be confident in your voice. If you're anything like me, not confident, your voice will be uneasy. You'll notice the nervousness in your voice. Go out there and sing like you mean it. The hardest part for most would be singing Harmonies. That requires quite a bit of musical theory. (3rds, 5ths, etc)

Just go out there and sing Karaoke. Chances are, there's someone out there that's worse of a singer than you are. Also, just remember it's not a singing competition. In my opinion, if you're brave enough to get up to the mic and sing, you've already done more than half the people judging you.

To answer your question, there are people out there that can play an instrument very well, but can't sing to save their life. My friend is a Music major in Clarinet, but he can't sing.


TL;DR: practice practice practice, also JUST GO SING :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom