You want to sing in pitch, perhaps more consistently than before or you’re just struggling with it in general. You’re at the right place, I am going to give you exactly how to start practicing in pitch.
Start with matching your pitch to the note. This is going to be a gateway into training our ears to differentiate between what is on the pitch and what isn’t. Once you understand the relationship, from then on it’s a matter of practice.
That’s the dry way of putting it. I am going to make you understand how to actually do it and how it works. So let’s begin.
Match That Pitch!
We have to start somewhere and this is something that eventually will help you get better with your ear training and also with your musical journey in general. I speak about this in my other articles as well.
The reason is simple, this is the most basic skill you start to possess as a singer, and build other skills on top of this.
We are going to start by matching pitches. You can download an app on your phone that plays the sounds of a piano or a guitar. You are free to tune up your guitar or sit with an instrument. Make sure you are all tuned up.
It Starts with Your Ear
That’s the truth of it. Really. It’s not sustainable to keep on going without training your ear. It’s your ear that is going to be the compass in your musical journey, your sword in a fight, and your shield in doubt.
The more you sharpen it and are able to tell the distinction will preciseness and accuracy, the better you are. It’s not a wizard’s tool either. It can be worked upon and it’s not a natural gift.
If you’re one of those few who are born with naturally good ears then good for you. I wasn’t one of them and I was so bad with ear training in my college that I actually failed Ear Training 2.
Now? I worked on, 100 exercises a day and now I can definitely hear more minutely. I don’t believe in developing a perfect pitch and you will find that to be true all throughout the blogs and you shouldn’t either. If you have it, you’d still have to work on your relative pitch.
Relative pitch is where it’s at. Being able to accurately tell the relationship between the two notes regardless of being able to tell which notes are exactly being played is far more important.
If You Can’t Match Pitch
Download a tuner on your phone or if you have a laptop (any) download Reaper.
If you’re on a phone then first, find the note C on your instrument, keep the tuner of your phone open and try to match the pitch. The needle ought to move and show you what you are singing. It should be fairly accurate but you need a decently quiet place too.
If you want to perform the same function on a laptop, download Reaper. Click on FX (you have to make sure your in-built mic is the input source) and then ReaTune and try to match your pitch. It should tell you what note you’re singing.
The point of using these aids is to tell you how close or far you are from the actual note you are trying to sing.
Don’t Become Reliant!
In no way possible you are supposed to rely on these tuning devices to sing in pitch. These are just aids that you are using to get better as a beginner and nothing more.
Once you start developing a sense of how it works, move on. That’s always the goal. Never become reliant!
A Better Way to Practice
A better way to practice your ear is to have some basic understanding of a DAW (digital audio workstation). It’s the software that people use to record and edit audio.
Reaper is one such DAW that you can have on your computer and experience a proper DAW. Audacity is also there but it is not as feature-rich as Reaper.
What this essentially allows you to do is make practice tracks (through MIDI or recording your instrument) and make them loop as many times as you want as you are practicing along with it.
As you get better you can make the exercises either complex or omit notes to see if you’re singing better or not.
Which Is What You Ought to Do – Harder Things
Most of your practice life will be spent getting better at harder and more technical things than before. There is a limit to it and I have written an article on practice as well.
The thing is, it’s not just jumping from one note to another. It’s also about singing with words and the technique you employ to get a certain way of singing.
A stark example would be between genres of pop versus metal.
Your ability to sing on pitch is going to determine how well you can perform in all aspects of music. This will shine even more when you are in a music school and most of the time you cannot stick to one genre.
A singer who works on this at the beginning of their practice regime will benefit greatly from this both in their own endeavors and being with a band.
Sing Better
One of the things I highly recommend to my reader is to read this article here in which I talk about how getting an online course is almost necessary even if they’re in a music college. You can read it here.
If you’re far more interested in knowing which online courses are the best then you ought to go here. I have written in detail about the courses and what price they go for so that you are able to make a decision based on your own needs!
Whatever you do, keep on practicing and singing better and better!