Acceptable Margin of Error on Vocal Pitch

[lefthanddoes]

One time I was working with a really good singer and she complained about her pitch so I said "Hey! The *only* measure of a vocal should be the aesthetic impact. In your complaint, you are presuming that perfect pitch is the goal. It shouldn't be. While mathematically/theoretically "440" may be optimal, aesthetically it is indifferent. The proof of this is that there are bad singers with great pitch, and great singers with poor pitch. So I would say your complaint is misguided." But she didn't give a shit, so I just put a light, slow auto tuner on her, that just touched a few long notes, and then she was happy.

Other singers don't want to be tuned, but they want to pick each syllable from a different take, until there are 200 different regions in the comp. But hey, we didn't use Autotune, right?

Facetiousness aside, it's really difficult to get someone to sing better than they can. I usually try different things like one headphone off, maybe a little echo, sitting down/standing up, the OP's technique, sequencing a simple keyboard of the melody line to sing along with, trying to get the person to focus on the right priorities ("Explain the meaning of the lyrics to me with your performance").
I read somewhere, possibly here, about someone doing a technique involving having the singer do like 8 takes, and having them all playing at the same time at a low volume as a guide while doing another take on top, the idea being that the piles of vocal all average out to the right pitch.

Practicing is the best thing. It helps to have a driving commute where you can sing badly and no one cares.

[LimpyLoo]

One time I was working with a really good singer and she complained about her pitch so I said "Hey! The *only* measure of a vocal should be the aesthetic impact. In your complaint, you are presuming that perfect pitch is the goal. It shouldn't be. While mathematically/theoretically "440" may be optimal, aesthetically it is indifferent. The proof of this is that there are bad singers with great pitch, and great singers with poor pitch. So I would say your complaint is misguided." But she didn't give a shit, so I just put a light, slow auto tuner on her, that just touched a few long notes, and then she was happy.

hahahahaha

[The Scum]

I find that my vocals are less pitchy if I'm playing the pitches I'm trying to hit on bass (not plugged in or amplified, just strapped on), and I can feel the note through my solar plexus. Training wheels.

Not that my singing or bass playing are especially notable.

And my range starts around low F#, so bass works for that. It might be a different story if I were an alto or soprano.

[vvv]

It might be a different story if I were an alto or soprano.

Grabs sack for the high notes ...

[JamesHE]

I can do another take where I think of my voice as coming out of my face instead of my throat (sounds weird I know) and get a "higher" (which is really to say less lower harmonics and at most extreme slightly more nasal) sound while singing the same notes, and more in tune.

It doesn't sound weird at all. I have heard opera singers talking about a similar phenomenon where you feel the voice outside of your body. I guess it's sort of like a phantom middle speaker. And once you find that spot, it is easier to hit the notes.

I can't ever feel that with headphones on, but with an acoustic guitar on my belly, I most definitely do. I guess with headphones on it's more cerebral than physical.

Please, let's not say pitch. Can we just call them notes?

I used to need autotune a lot more than I do now. I'm just not trying as hard. I used to always sing like I was trying to sing over a noisy bar or a cappuccino machine - bad habit.

[LimpyLoo]

Please, let's not say pitch. Can we just call them notes?

We're talking about variance within a note. Microtones and all that.

So no, no we can't.

[jgimbel]

Please, let's not say pitch. Can we just call them notes?

We're talking about variance within a note. Microtones and all that.

So no, no we can't.

How about using the term "pitchy"? I'm of course being facetious but that's one term that always jumps out as being so silly to me. Most often I find when people say "pitchy" they actually mean the note/pitch is sharp, every once in a while flat, or more often that they're just one or the other, just not perfectly on pitch. But saying something is pitchy is kind of like saying something is "soundy".

[LimpyLoo]

Please, let's not say pitch. Can we just call them notes?

We're talking about variance within a note. Microtones and all that.

So no, no we can't.

How about using the term "pitchy"? I'm of course being facetious but that's one term that always jumps out as being so silly to me. Most often I find when people say "pitchy" they actually mean the note/pitch is sharp, every once in a while flat, or more often that they're just one or the other, just not perfectly on pitch. But saying something is pitchy is kind of like saying something is "soundy".

The word "pitchy" is indeed silly, but it's a one-syllable word that means "out of tune" that most people are familiar with. So if you don't mind, I'm gonna keep using it.

[Tim A]

in the past ive just selected the flat/sharp section of wave form ie just one word or sylable at a time. then ive gone into pitch shift and just guess at how much its off till i get it in the ball park of it not seeming out of tune. this way i have no way of making it perfect but it really is good practise for your hearing and nudging in the tunning. then just crossfade from the previous note and then take 5 points for editing

[fossiltooth]

I agree wholeheartedly with all this talk about how pitch is fluid and exact frequencies are meaningless. That's exactly why I like having a piano. You only use it when someone is so far off, that the intent of the line doesn't come through and the vocal lacks confidence and impact.

This way, you can say "you keep falling a little flat when you go from D to E. Let's sing that a few times along with the piano. OK, better. Now do another take."

That way there's no arbitrary frequency to which the the singer is forced to conform. Instead, they just get a clearer understanding of the pure melodic line into their body, and they can do what they will from there. Much more human if you ask me. I can't remember the last time I auto-tuned anything.

[GooberNumber9]

There's a link between this discussion and the use of the word "pitch". In a lot of the literature, pitch is the sensation of the frequencies detected by the ears of the listener and is therefore subjective and is part of the realm of psychoacoustics, as opposed to the actual frequencies which are measurable, auto-tunable, and fall in the realm of acoustics.

An analogous situation exists with the words "loudness" and "intensity" (sometimes "volume" but that's poorly defined in many cases). Loudness is the subjective sensation of sound intensity, which is measurable.

While measuring and adjusting frequencies are valuable tools to objectively help us understand and generate the pitches we want to hear, our ears will always be the final arbiter. This is why piano tuners do not use electronic tuners to put every string at the correct frequency, they know that what is important is that the pitches that we hear sound correct, and therefore they actually tune the strings slightly "off" in terms of frequency at the top and bottom of the piano becuase when we subjectively interpret those strings pitches, it sounds right. That's also one reason why auto-tune can sound so crappy.

And finally, an idea that I picked up somewhere that probably is not news to anyone reading this: If a singer is having trouble with getting the right pitches, try taking a decent take and auto-tuning it, and then have the singer sing along with the auto-tuned take. It's a lot easier to hit notes when you're singing along with someone.

In terms of harmonies, I find it works best to not care which exact frequencies are sung, instead to focus on having all the parts sound good together. It doesn't matter who is "off", technically there's no way either person can be singing the exact, "correct" frequency. Better for those harmonizing to work on singing well together, regardless of whether they are also in perfect tune with the other instruments. That being said, it's best to have a vocal lead that all the other parts are trying to sound good with. As leader, it doesn't matter if they "right", it's about singing along with them. I've had that approach prevent many arguments about harmonies.

[fossiltooth]

That's good advice, Goober.

[dfuruta]

You can sing or play the "correct" frequencies (at least, to a reasonable degree of accuracy), but what the correct frequency is depends on the temperament and, possibly, the harmonic context. This doesn't have to be "oh, just go with the feeling," but if you want to do it intellectually you need to choose a stance on those points.

This is a bit of a tangent, but maybe related. The other day, I heard a Mozart string quartet on the radio in the car. For whatever reason, the group had chosen to play in strict equal temperament instead of tuning their harmonies to each other, and so all of the intervals were just a little bit impure. Drove me crazy?everything was "correct," but all of the chords sounded sour.

I've found that I've become much more conscious of this sort of thing since I started playing Javanese gamelan. Gamelan tuning is completely different from western, and the intervals are really subtle. It's been very difficult for me (an ex-classical musician) to learn to hear that intonation, but a side effect has been sharpened awareness of tuning in general. If one were looking to develop one's ear, something like that might be helpful.

[dfuruta]

I thought I'd give an example. In tonal western music, one might play the 3rd in a dominant 7th a teensy bit sharper than normal, to point clearly to its resolution. 3rds and 7ths in particular might shift about a little bit, depending on what they're doing.

[Nick Sevilla]

Frank Sinatra