You can't sing! Or can you?

bikemech

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 18, 2017
Messages
405
Reaction score
1
I posted this link in a "welcome" thread but I thought I'd start a new thread in order to reach more of the folks.

My wife can't sing, or at least that's what I told her years ago. I have come to realize recently that she has great difficulty hearing differences in pitch and therefore, when she sings...it doesn't sound quite right. Anyway, she took my previous declaration as Gospel truth and so never saw fit to sing in public or even in the privacy of our own home. I'm such a bad husband. :deadhorse: (That's not a horse, it's an ass.)

A couple of months ago my wife decided to take up playing the ukulele and so I am in the process of teaching her the basics. We have also recently begun attending a weekly ukulele jam at the local music store. A sing-along is a major part of the jam and major part of the fun! I am trying to encourage her to sing along but it is difficult to heal the damage I have done and she is hesitant to sing. I am trying to rectify my past mistake and help her to train her ear and practice her singing voice during our lessons at home.

Wait. Did I just say I am teaching her to sing?
Yes.
But, she's tone deaf, isn't she? It's a lost cause.
I'm not so sure of that now.

My eyes have been opened, in particular, by a post by Guido Heistek on his Ukulele in the Dark blog. Please follow the link to read the article. It may be of use to you or someone you know.

http://ukuleleinthedark.com/ud65-singing-in-tune/

Thank you, Guido!

David
 
Interestingly enough, I was one of those people who was always saying, I can't sing, I can't sing. Before I took up the ukulele I wouldn't even sing in church. So I decided to take singing lessons. May I give you a bit of advise David, giving a spouse lessons in anything is just a recipe for disaster. My wife sent me to her voice coach instead of trying to teach me herself. It was money well spent. Anyway, I found out that I could sing, and I've been singing ever since. I think that a lot of people say that they can't sing just because they are afraid to sing.
 
May I give you a bit of advise David, giving a spouse lessons in anything is just a recipe for disaster. My wife sent me to her voice coach instead of trying to teach me herself. It was money well spent.

I hear you, believe me, and I would likely give someone the same advice but it has been going very well for us thus far. I think there has been a great benefit for her, and an inspiration, in just listening to me practice and sing almost every night while we sit in our easy chairs for the past couple of years. Now we get to listen to each other. It's nice.
 
As a choir director, I feel very strongly about this subject. One of the challenges with your voice is that it is YOUR voice. If you play an instrument, you can blame the instrument or say that you didn't "gel" with it, or that you just didn't "get" it. But you can't walk away from your voice. We might see vocal cord transplants someday (sooner than later), which could be awesome for people with damaged voices. But that is another story.

Teachers, parents, and friends can do great psychological damage to others by criticizing their singing voices. It takes a certain fortitude to speak in front of crowds and maybe more to sing in front of others. I'm one of those people that is comfortable in both roles, but I know plenty of people who would rather do just about anything else. My advice is to choose not to be afraid--and stop caring what others think. That is an easier thing to say than to do.

As a teacher, I have never, EVER told a student that they couldn't sing--and if there are problems (there are), I try to be clinical about a problem and make sure to offer the singer solutions for the problems.

In all my years of teaching (21), I have met only two students that were incapable of carrying a tune--both were special education students who spoke in monotone voices and had other issues at hand. I have many students that do not sing on pitch or sing out (that is another story), but that is an issue of effort versus ability. Incidentally, I have also only met one student with perfect pitch.

No, not every singer will sing with an opera company, as I have. I don't expect that. But every person should be able to sing with others in a group, sing a lullaby to a baby, or sing along with children.

So...yes, you CAN sing. You may not like to sing, and I have to accept that as being reasonable--but chances are that if you don't like singing there is something else in your past that causes you to feel that way. My encouragement to those that feel that way is to do a bit of self-analysis and ask, "WHY do I feel that way?" When you identify the WHY, you can reconsider if you actually don't like singing.

No matter how you look at it, the human voice is an amazing thing. The real function of the vocal folds is to act as a protective device for our lungs--it is a miracle (or something at incalculable odds) that we can use those vocal folds (combined with the resonation chambers of our head) to communicate and express ourselves through spoken and sung words and sound).

So..go ahead and sing, will you?
 
Choirguy,

Well and thoughtfully said. Thank you.
 
Have you ever considered a hearing test? It's possible she has problems hearing certain frequencies. Without my hearing aids everything sounds dull and bass.
 
Have you ever considered a hearing test? It's possible she has problems hearing certain frequencies. Without my hearing aids everything sounds dull and bass.

I'm pretty sure her hearing is fine. She has never shown indication otherwise. I believe it's just going to take some practice. We will persist.
 
To sing on pitch, you have to be able to hear the pitch first in your head. Some people have real trouble with this. The Wikipedia article on Amusia (linked within the article linked in the first post in this thread) says that congenital amusia (tone deafness) affects about 4% of the population. That's a significant amount. I believe I am married to one of this 4%. This paragraph really nailed it:

"The hallmark of congenital amusia is a deficit in fine-grained pitch discrimination, and this deficit is most apparent when congenital amusics are asked to pick out a wrong note in a given melody. If the distance between two successive pitches is small, congenital amusics are not able to detect a pitch change. As a result of this defect in pitch perception, a lifelong musical impairment may emerge due to a failure to internalize musical scales. A lack of fine-grained pitch discrimination makes it extremely difficult for amusics to enjoy and appreciate music, which consists largely of small pitch changes."

Early on in our relationship, I noticed my husband sang really out of tune in church. (My voice is certainly nothing to write home about, but I'm a lifelong instrumental musician.) Later I was curious, and played pitches for him, asking him if he could identify which one of a pair was higher or lower. I started with examples that were too subtle, so he couldn't distinguish them at all. When I did something exaggerated (two notes that were an octave or more apart), he could tell that one of them was higher. The threshold was somewhere around a 3rd or a 4th. Pairs of notes less than that far apart were all the same to him.

He has a pretty good sense of rhythm, though, and I think he relies largely on that and lyrical cues to identify songs, more than the melodies themselves.

bratsche
 
My wife can't sing, or at least that's what I told her years ago. I have come to realize recently that she has great difficulty hearing differences in pitch and therefore, when she sings...it doesn't sound quite right. Anyway, she took my previous declaration as Gospel truth and so never saw fit to sing in public or even in the privacy of our own home. I'm such a bad husband. :deadhorse: (That's not a horse, it's an ass.)

David

I hear you, believe me, and I would likely give someone the same advice but it has been going very well for us thus far. I think there has been a great benefit for her, and an inspiration, in just listening to me practice and sing almost every night while we sit in our easy chairs for the past couple of years. Now we get to listen to each other. It's nice.
Okay, David, good for you. I hope it all works out. But remember, you started it by telling her that she couldn't sing.;)
 
To sing on pitch, you have to be able to hear the pitch first in your head. Some people have real trouble with this. The Wikipedia article on Amusia (linked within the article linked in the first post in this thread) says that congenital amusia (tone deafness) affects about 4% of the population. That's a significant amount. I believe I am married to one of this 4%. This paragraph really nailed it:

Early on in our relationship, I noticed my husband sang really out of tune in church. (My voice is certainly nothing to write home about, but I'm a lifelong instrumental musician.) Later I was curious, and played pitches for him, asking him if he could identify which one of a pair was higher or lower. I started with examples that were too subtle, so he couldn't distinguish them at all. When I did something exaggerated (two notes that were an octave or more apart), he could tell that one of them was higher. The threshold was somewhere around a 3rd or a 4th. Pairs of notes less than that far apart were all the same to him.

bratsche
We may pursue the same sort of test on a piano later but right now I don't want to focus on any limitations.

I do ok, but would be much better if I could just find a good capo for my voice :)
That is funny. :rofl:

Okay, David, good for you. I hope it all works out. But remember, you started it by telling her that she couldn't sing.;)
Indeed.
 
Thanks for the article link! Will check it out.

Here's an interesting podcast about how to get better at anything. The woman in the example wanted to sing like Whitney Houston. Now she has an album!

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/peak/
It's based research for this book:
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise Hardcover – April 5, 2016
by Anders Ericsson (Author), Robert Pool (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Cheers.
 
I do ok, but would be much better if I could just find a good capo for my voice :)

John, you've actually made a good and valid point, namely: find your own comfortable vocal range and adjust the key to fit (but please, put the capo on your uke, not on your windpipe).

I'm currently in the process of learning a new chord progression for a song. I was doing it in C, but realized I was having to strain too much to get the high notes. Tried it in G; gasping for breath at the lowest notes. Tried again in A--perfectly comfortable at both high and low ends, but now I have to learn to play an E chord :uhoh: .

You may find that most songs work fine for you in some particular key (mine was D for a while), but don't expect that to always be the case. Learn to transpose, and don't feel obligated to do a song in its original key.

Posture makes a difference. When I was making recordings of a couple original songs, I'd position the mic a few inches above my mouth so I'd have to sing up at it.

Also, I'd say that vocal quality isn't as important as sincerity, the ability to put emotive power into the song. We know this is true from examples such as Bob Dylan and Richie P. Havens.
 
I still feel like I will never be able to sing. I was told for years to not sing, and thus even at home, people do not hear my voice. I sing alone in the car.
I am looking forward to reading this post. I would love more than anything to be able to sing.

Thank you for sharing.
 
I still feel like I will never be able to sing. I was told for years to not sing, and thus even at home, people do not hear my voice. I sing alone in the car.
I am looking forward to reading this post. I would love more than anything to be able to sing.

Thank you for sharing.

Follow the links that other have shared. There is a lot of good info. And keep singing!
 
I say ignore the naysayers! Let it rip! I've played music since my teens, no support at home for it, but now kids all grown and gone, and am now in a band gigging 2x/mo., guitar and vocal harmony, after playing/singing in the basement for decades for my own enjoyment. Life is too short to not do something you really enjoy like singing!

Here, here! Sometimes those that are close to you can be your harshest critics. Explore warm, accepting environments, like uke jams, and free your inner voice.
 
Top Bottom