a new experiment

[kareina]

As some of you know, I have always loved singing, but, according to others, I haven't been very good at it. The fact that I still can't tell with my conscious brain if two notes are the same or not (unless they are played by the exact same instrument, and so quickly back to back that I can compare them) doesn't help. Even so, several years singing the student choir here has helped my singing a lot. While I don't know if I am singing the song correctly or not, others tell me that, often, I do.

This week one of the guys in our choir (in fact the chairman of our board) came over to give me some help with the tools he used to learn to sing the correct notes, assuring me that he was starting from a worse place when he began than I am now starting from. His secret is to use one of the electronic tuners one uses to tune a musical instrument and sing notes at it and see what it says. First he had me start with a random comfortable note and then go higher till I felt the change in how it feels to produce the sound, watching to see what letter that change corresponds to, and then doing it again going lower till I reach the place where it would actually be effort to go lower, and see where that is--he says having those reference points to help me find a specific needed note will be useful later. He also pointed out that with practice the letters for those high and low boundary marks will change, so I am not so certain how useful it will be.

The "homework" he assigned me was to try to do small scale practice, wherein I start on one note, sing the next note above, and the one above that, then go back to the first, using the tuner to give me the feedback of if I am doing it or not. I tried this, but I have the same problem with this as I do all of the songs we sing that have no words--I can't learn the pattern without words to attach it to. Therefore I have chosen instead to start with one of the songs we sing and see if I can get the tuner to show the correct letter for the note I am meant to be singing, even if I can't get it yet get it to switch from the orange of "not really there yet" to the green of "yup, that is actually the correct frequency for that note". The song I am starting with is Stilla natt(Silent Night), because for the altos there are not so many notes per measure, so there is actually time for the computer (in this case an app on my phone, since the phone is always with me) to register which note I am singing before I have to move on to the next syllable, which may or may not be a different note.

Today is day two of trying this--yesterday I spent 19 minutes working on only the first half of the song (after some experimenting with the scales he had suggested, and decided they weren't working for me), and today I spent 17 minutes working my way through the whole first verse twice, never moving on to the next note till I got the right letter on screen for the last. Much to my surprise, when the computer says I have the right note it actually sounds right to my ear, even though I have no idea why or how it is different from the other frequencies in the vicinity of that one. I was also surprised to discover that for the phrase "En-samt va-kar det" I had real problems keeping all five syllables on the same note (the F)--my throat kept wanting to go up a bit for "va". I wasn't certain why, until I glanced at the sheet music the line above, and I see that the sopranos jump from an A to a C for that word (the bass also jump up two notes for that word, but the tenors, like us alts, are meant to keep the same tone). No wonder my brain expected a lift there--half the choir does it. Not that I had ever noticed it with my conscious brain--I have always focused only on the words, not the notes before.

It will be interesting if I can keep this as a daily thing or not, and how much (and how soon) it helps.

Comments

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I know we talked about ear-training for you ages ago. Once you get consistent at pitch-matching with the tuner, you can start learning to do it with recordings or other singers.

Good luck! I hope this works for you.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I still can't see from here how it will be possible to tell if the note I am singing is the same as someone sings or plays, but if others can, perhaps it can be learned. Unless they are all making that part up. However, it is still fun, anyway.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

It can't possibly hurt to try.

I hate when people are told "You can't sing," because singing makes you feel good. I sat in the dentist's chair getting my teeth cleaned yesterday and the hygienist would frequently break into song along with the 80's station that was playing on the sound system. She wasn't a "great" singer, but she was happy and if that kept her touch light while she was poking around my gums, more power to her.

[fjorlief.livejournal.com]

I will say, that as someone who never learned to sing until I was an adult, that practice does make progress. I started as someone who folks would ask/tell to please stop doing that thing because it sounded so awful to them. I worked with Elizabeth Piper for several years, and my ability to hear sounds and to match them improved quite a bit, enough that I could sing with other people in a group as well as alone. I miss being able to do that, since I moved away, but it was definitely life changing... didn't come fast but it was possible.

Also I find that having a way of marking where my progress is over time is Very Helpful. I am loving having a pedometer. I suspect that using the little machine will be helpful to you, in whatever way you can set it up.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

I bet there are people local to you who would enjoy doing a similar sort of music training with you as you used to do with Elizabeth, if you ask.