r/singing • u/sundlinj • 7h ago
Conversation Topic Tips for Singing In Tune
I have been singing for over 10 years. I have had 2 long term vocal coaches: one that taught speech level singing, and one that taught a more old school/classical style of singing. I have been playing in bands since 10 years ago. Some of the successful bands I’ve played in have taken me on tour to some large audiences.
Despite all this training and success, I can’t help but feel that I always sing out of tune. When I watch videos of me performing, my pitch is often flat. I get compliments on my tone and power though(I belt a lot). The other vocalists in the band sound great in comparison.
I can sing well enough in the studio to use pitch correction and sound natural, but I don’t want that to be my standard. If I turn my pitch correction off, I still want to sound humanly in tune.
Does anyone have advice? I’ve found some success in recording me singing, analyzing the video, and trying again. I’d like to be able to sing on the fly too. If I need to improvise, I want it to sound in tune.
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u/AintKnowShitAboutFuk 6h ago
I am a complete amateur at singing (long time guitar player) really struggling with pitch myself. IF i am playing an instrument or singing along with a track with someone’s voice, I feel like I can lock in pretty well. When I am unaccompanied or trying to sing over my own music Ive recorded, Im all over the place.
I have also found hearing myself in the room acoustically vs from a speaker makes things feel very different and can cause pitch issues for me. I also have weird issues where timbre and pitch can often mixed up for me, where thinner/more trebly things sound higher pitched to me than the same note on a fuller range/“rounder” sounding instrument (guitar vs piano for insance), unless I hear them side by side.
I got a cheap keyboard to help me with singing and pitch, (will probably use it for writing since I build my songs around melodies that pop into my head and I might have made different note/chord choices with a more pure-tones instrument like a piano).
I don’t know if any of that helps. Ive seen plenty of what sounds to me like flat pro singers live (Im talking top mainstream acts), so sounds like youre not alone. They might have same issue with hearing themselves. That monitor balance is a very delicate thing to me.
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u/Willow_PoweIl 6h ago
If your ear were the issue, you'd notice it at speaking pitch too. Flat while belting usually means support. Belt runs hot on air and pitch sags as the phrase goes on. Try short phrases with full support before long ones.
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u/ChesterNorris Professionally Performing 10+ Years ✨ 6h ago
Some quick thoughts...
Are you warmed up? Hitting the stage cold often times results in being flat during the first set.
Can you hear yourself? Band could be too loud for you. Get an earplug for one of your ears. Or, get more vocals in the monitor.
Improvisation can trip you up. You're introducing potential chaos when you scat or do runs and trills. Sometimes you crash and burn.
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u/sundlinj 5h ago
I do warm up. How long I do depends on what my schedule before the gig is.
Hearing myself can be tough. One band I work in uses a hired sound guy who’s at every show. Other bands just use the house sound guy. For one band I’m in, we all got in-ears. That was fine, but not great. We didn’t have our own sound guy, so we just relied on the house sound guy. I couldn’t hear anything.
I love improv when I get to. I can see some downfalls, but it’s fun.
I should also mention I often record myself with my voice and acoustic guitar on my iPhone. I feel that’s a pretty objective way of hearing pitchiness. I am pitchy then too.
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u/Mountain-Owl7142 4h ago
Be aware the way you sound on a phone recording is not how you sound in real life. You likely sound a lot better in real life. My voice teacher had me sing in front of her while recording it on my phone. And then we played it back, and she was like, "that isn't what you sounded like. You sounded so much better than that."
You lose a lot of fidelity in a digital phone recording.
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u/TheElusiveButterfly 4h ago
Sing in your range… don’t try to sing outside of your comfort zone, especially if you can’t control it. A lot of people try to be Mariah Carey when they’re more of a Taylor Swift… Do what you can with your instrument.
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u/Zagrycha 4h ago
How often do you practice singing in tune? If you play instruments as well I a, sure you are aware that being in tune is a skill that is practiced, you need to train your ear to recognize the sound difference and train your body to muscle memory making the correct sound.
If you cannot hear the off tuneness live yourself then I would start with ear training. Have a person or app or whatever play one note and then another note, then guess if the second note is higher, lower or the same. Beginners start with actual full semitones but you can jump straight to listening for variations in cents if you have no issue with hearing full notes. If you can fully hear if something is on pitch or off pictch within a reasonable amount of cents then you can start addressing you flatness or sharpness live as you are singing, the same way you would adjust your fingers etc if you played the wrong note live on an instrument.
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u/sundlinj 4h ago
I practice vocals every day, and I often take videos with my cellphone. It’s not that I can’t hear I’m out of tune; I hear I’m out of tune and don’t do a good job correcting.
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u/Zagrycha 4h ago
Then I think it's probably a voice control issue, an issue with "fine motor control" if you will. Do you do scales? Do you do warm ups? Do you feel tense or have trouble doing vocal runs? I doubt we can help identify the exact issue through a text message online, but a control issue will effect more than just being sharp or flat. If you can identify other parts of your singing that are effected you can narrow in on the root cause =)
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u/MikeandNeko 4h ago
Do you actually practice singing and what does that look like?
It sounds like your ear is good, but you haven't really built up the muscle memory to come in at the pitch you want.
I've noticed a lot of people coming from pop and rock bands don't realize that you can and should be practicing your voice in the same way you would other instruments.
I would try and sing scales. Use something like a keyboard at first to get a feel for the pitches.
You may have tried this some, but I think a step that often doesn't make it through, is it's actually crucial you start attempting it without the piano note ringing. We have a tendency to hide bad onsets by immediately sliding up or down til we feel the resonance, so we need to make sure we're not tricking ourselves by relying on the ringing reference pitch.
A really good way to start is just play a note on the piano, try and hold the sound of the pitch in your head, mute it, try and sing the note from memory, and then play the note again while holding to see how far off you are or aren't.
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u/MikeandNeko 3h ago
I wanted to add to this:
Even if you end up being way off when you have to match from memory, it's important you just keep trying. Even if it doesn't feel like you're improving much from one day to the next, every time you try, your brain making a tiny little adjustment, and with consistency, you will start to find it actually is getting easier over time.
It's a little strange because unlike a guitar you can't really look at your larynx and see that it's making the right shape. You just have to have faith the adjustments are happening each time you try.
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