Music Performance Skills

News Flash! -- Now you too can learn to sing on pitch!

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If you have watched the auditions for TV shows like American Idol or America's Got Talent, you may have heard the judges say that a singer is "pitchy". That means that the singer is not singing on pitch or "in tune". The singer is generally not aware that he/she lacks vocal control and is singing off key. They think they are singing very well, but the audience knows the difference. Even though most members of the audience can't sing any better, they know when a singer is "pitchy".

People who have learned to match pitch can't tell you when or how they learned do it.  And those who can't match pitch usually don't realize they are not singing on pitch until someone embarrasses them by telling them that they can't sing.

Are you a non-singer?

Singing requires that you first learn to match pitch. Many people struggle to sing on pitch so they are often called "tone-deaf" or "non-singers". Very few people are truly "tone-deaf". That is a condition similar to being color blind, and no amount of practice will help. However, almost everyone can hear the difference between pitches and enjoy listening to music. So why can't they match pitch with their voice?

Singing on pitch is like learning to catch a ball.  The first time someone threw a ball to you, it probably hit you in the chest.  Some people get embarrassed or are fearful they will get hit again so they refuse to catch the ball.  Others keep trying and soon learn to watch the ball and move their hands to catch it.  With practice they develop hand to eye coordination and muscle memory which is the skill of catching a ball.

Its like learning to ride a bicycle.  At first you fall off the bike.  After falling several times, some people refuse to try again and never learn to keep their balance on a bicycle.  Others need training wheels to keep them from falling but eventually they learn how it feels to ride a bike. They learn to sense whey they are starting to tip and to turn the wheel in the direction of the fall and bring the bike back into balance.   Riding a bicycle requires practice, and learning mental control over your muscles will eventually develop this skill.

Is your muscle memory accurate?

The fact is that non-singers have just not yet learned the skill of matching pitch.  Developing vocal skills is a matter of developing muscle memory.  Much like a cache of programmed tasks, muscle memory is a skill you store in your brain.  It is a form of performance memory that can help you become very good at something through repetition.
If you are a non-singer, it could be said that you have developed muscle memory that causes intonation problems.  The brain hears a target pitch and sends wrong commands to the vocal muscles resulting in wrong pitches being sung.  Non-singers, through no fault of their own, have developed erroneous muscle memory.  This happens because they have never been quite sure when they were singing on pitch so their muscle memory stores these errors and repeats them over and over.

The problem is that learning to match pitch just by listening is an abstract experience.  There are no buttons to push or keys to press so the singer goes through life guessing  pitches.  If your parents are non-singers or they just didn't take time to sing to you as a preschooler, you will likely grow up as a non-singer.  Traditional education requires the eternal patience of a dedicated teacher to repeatedly indicate when the student's pitch is wrong.  Most teachers simply don't have that kind of time so the student eventually concludes that it is best to just not sing.

For the non-singer, it is like trying to learn to shoot hoops in the dark.  All you can do is listen for the swish which may never happen.  Most physical skills are learned through visual biofeedback.  You see the ball coming toward you so you move your hand to catch the ball.  You shoot the basketball and watch where it goes, then change your shot to compensate for the miss.  You see and feel your bicycle tipping so you turn the wheel to balance the bike.

Have you been conditioned to sing off key?

It could be said that a non-singer has learned to sing out of tune.  To correct that you must retrain your muscle memory. To do that you must have a way to know when you are on pitch and be able to repeatedly get on pitch. With practice you will retrain your muscle memory.

I have spent years developing computer aided audio/visual biofeedback to train singers to sing on pitch, in tune, in rhythm, and to be able to read music notation. The result is MusAPP, a web application that allows singers to see and hear their pitch in comparison to a target pitch. As you sing a melody or harmony part, you must move your voice to push a visual pitch pointer onto the target. If you are accurate, you earn a point and can progress to the next note. If you miss the pitch, you must continue to adjust your voice to match the pitch, then progress to the next note. If you take too long to match, you loose a point.

The pitch pointer works like magic!

Watch a demo video.

The objective is to retrain your muscle memory to correctly move your vocal muscles resulting in correct pitches. With practice, the position of the note on a music staff becomes a memory hook. When you see a note on a line or space, your voice remembers how it feels to sing that pitch. Soon you will be able to match the pitch just by hearing a tone.

You can experience the MusAPP pitch pointer system by visiting www.musapp.club. Create a FREE member account and you will be enrolled in the Matching Pitch course. When you feel comfortable matching pitch, you can continue with lessons in note reading, sight reading, and 14 other courses to teach you the fundamentals of music and basic music theory.

Remember, you only fail when you stop trying!