Mastering Listening & Pitching

Co-authored series by Hilary Canto & Dena Murray ( VIDLA PATRON) for singers

First of all let us clear up that pitching problems don’t mean you can’t sing. Unless you have hearing loss, there is no such thing as tone deafness.Banging up and down the piano scales with a student who cannot match pitch will do nothing for their voice training and only further deflate their self-esteem.It also will make them feel like they are stupid. Pitching is an EAR skill and is also controlled by the stretch of the vocal cord. The higher you go,the shorter the stretch, and the smaller the opening between the cords. If you take in too much air, the cords may have to open too wide to accommodate that air. The end result? You will be flat because if the cords open too wide, have too long of a stretch, the pitch will land on a different note.

In addition, there is a difference between the act of hearing, and listening. True listening requires emotional, psychological, and social barriers removed/ healed from the way we’ve been trained to listen (or not listen) to our own sound by outside influences. Created by this training, or conditioning, is what is known as sound memory. Hearing is the structural mechanism of the ear. Listening opens you to the frequencies in the ear, nerve,organ, and bone structure. It is like the difference between casual looking and active seeing.

From the moment the foetal ear starts developing, we are bombarded with sound. Our whole cellular makeup is sound vibration. If we have heard sounds that we dislike, are painful to the ear, and/or have learned to block a sound(s) out for any reason…we will no longer be able to hear the frequency of these sounds properly.

Since our cells have developed sound memory, this is where our memory decides whether or not to hear the sound coming into vibration. This damping is manifested physiologically by a relaxation of the tiny muscles of the middle ear. The net result is a diminuation of our ability to hear specific frequency ranges corresponding to the sounds we essentially lock out. This is a survival mechanism that we tend to use unconsciously.

Pitch and tone is also inhibited by the conscious thought that you have to take in heaps of air and blow it out just to hit higher notes -- or to have it sound powerful. Going after pitch this way, and repetitively, will only create problems, and not just with pitch, but possible injury to the mechanism.You might also find this method physically exhausting. Getting too tired will also have you trying to force out the sound.

So why should we concentrate on listening when trying to learn how to sing better? Answer: You cannot reproduce a vocal sound accurately unless you can hear it properly. This is why we need to learn, or even re-learn, how to listen. We often think we hear something right but it’s actually clouded by our old sound memory. That memory will affect the learning process of listening to sound and pitch accurately.

In addition, the music/video/marketing industry is so wrapped up with sound and visual imagery together that looking and listening at the same time can confuse our senses. Looking becomes a distraction. If you want to concentrate on good singing we suggest you cut out visual stimulus whilst you really take in the sounds and try to reproduce them. One suggestion would be to try to match the pitch by literally trying to merge with that pitch so as to become one tone, one voice. You should literally try to merge with the pitch until you and that pitch become one tone, one voice.

Something that often helps many is to strike the string of an instrument like a guitar or bass and see if you can match it in resonant vibrations. Tape it and see if you can hear that you have matched or if you hear two different tones. If you hear two different tones, the next step would be to try and pluck out the tone you are actually singing on versus the one you are playing. Once you have identified the pitch you are actually singing on versus the one you need to be singing, you can literally see with your own eyes whether that pitch is higher or lower than the one you were trying to capture.

If you still can’t match it, you might try humming it.Tape this again. Listen using your own ears to discern if there is a difference in tones. Keep this up until you can open your mouth with an AH sound and match the pitch. Recording yourself as you practice is key to this learning process.

Our bodies and voices are our instrument. Your voice needs care and learning how to tune it just like any other instrument. We hope you’ll understand that going into silence every so often can work wonders. It will allow you to open your mind and re-open your capacity to receive.Sometimes you just need to take a break and stop what you are doing, especially if you are getting frustrated. At that point, you will no longer be able to concentrate. We suggest walking away and having a seat somewhere else. Take a rest, a deep breath, and listen to the silence. During this time, things have away of bypassing the brain to the voice. The silence allows you to hear your own body’s sounds.

After taking some silent time for yourself, you may find that you are now hearing the sounds of your own voice and hitting the pitches dead-on, or at least close. Once you get used to doing things this way,your awareness and sensitivity to pitch and frequency will increase and change.You will begin learning how to reproduce pitches accurately because you will have been practising changing from old sound memory to new.

Part 2continues