Let’s get one thing straight before we begin the discussion. WHAT is ToneDeafness?!

To be accurate, tone-deafness is an issue where the sound that a person hears is not correctly processed in the sensory system.

I asked the famous #ChatGPT for the ease of further explanation:

Most of the students who believe that they are tone deaf - are the ones who CAN hear the sound but UNABLE to match their voice to the pitch they hear.

If you are Trying to overcome the tone-deafness, Here are some Simple facts I suggest you Learn first:

1. What is a pitch? How is it created and recognized in human ears?

Simply put, a pitch is a ‘highness or lowness of the sound’. In western music, people use the musical notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) to describe the pitch.

But, it doesn’t mean that higher pitch is made in higher position and low pitch in low position of our body. Pitch is determined by the speed of the vibration.

You have probably seen the sound waves images below that shows the speed and volume (amplitude) of the vibration 😊 If the wave cycle is narrow it means faster vibration.

Interestingly, when we listen to music we no longer recognize the sound as speed of vibration. Rather, we hear the High and Low of the sound in our brain. The melody is combination of musical sounds that are moving up or down or keeping same position in a complex way.

2. What does it mean to sing in tune?

Singing in tune means creating the same pitch of the music with our voice. And when we sing, the vocal cords inside our throat vibrates at various rate to produce different pitch.

If vocal cords vibrate fast (1000 times/ sec) it creates a high note.

If vocal cords vibrate slow (100 times/ sec) it creates a low note.

Does it mean that you able to feel and count the number of vibrations of your vocal cords? NO WAY. Instead, you will hear the pitch of your own voice going up and down as well as sense physical changes or some tensions of throat etc.

Singing in tune means,
1) Managing your vocal vibrations to be at specific speed (frequency)

equals 2) Hitting / sustaining specific height of the sound with your voice

Therefore, in order for you to sing in tune, you need to first identify how high and low are the sounds of music or singer’s voice, also understand how your voice moves (up, down, flat etc).

This musical or pitch perception can be somewhat genetical, but large part of it can be developed through the training.

In the world of music, there are specific pitches (musical notes) that people have agreed to use – for creating a good harmonious music. One example is the western musical notes shown on piano

Now, It is time to train your ears to understand the movement of the sound pitch.

As a singer, we do not need to identify every single pitch from the music we hear. The people who can locate the pitch perfectly – are rare and we call skillset or ability ‘perfect pitch’.

More importantly, we need to understand the direction of the sound movement, whether it’s staying, descending, or ascending.

To develop this hearing (aural) skills, you can do some ear trainings first 😊

Listen and Draw

As you listen to the music, draw the melody by moving the line up or down or straight.

The simplest exercise that you can do is drawing the melodic line on a paper while you are listening to a song. It’s the best to listen to a ‘solo’ singer without much background vocals or harmony.

Try it with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and draw each note by placing dots and connecting them with a line. Basically, melody is created by continuously combining various pitches.

The example answer to the melodic line of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and more details about the pitch and melodic line can be found here (phamox blog).

Try the exercise with other songs too and see whether you can identify the direction of the pitch in more complex melodies.

It is the opposite process from the sightreading practice (reading the music score). Instead of trying to read the musical notes that are already given to you, you are listening to music to create your own musical score. And I believe this is a much more effective way of developing your musical skills.

Once you gained some confidence in understanding the basic ideas on ‘what is a pitch and movement of the pitch’ – you can move onto actual singing exercises.

Tips for Vocal Exercises

1) Sing in your comfortable Range
2) Practice Scales (Major Scale)
3) Use a Pitch monitoring App
4) Practice both with/without vocal guide
5) Have some Patience and Creativity

Tip 1. Figure out what you CAN do. Practice within your Vocal Range.

We should never underestimate or ignore the existing abilities of ourselves. As long as the person can speak, the person can produce a pitch. We need to start from here.

Test your vocal range (chest voice recommended) – it doesn’t have to be in the musical singing. Just creating ‘Ah’ sound and moving your voice up and down to feel the voice going high and low is good enough.

Tip 2. Practice Stepwise scales and Intervals!

There are so many pitch monitoring applications available for you to practice singing.

Tuner T1 is a very useful app to check whether you are singing each pitch and sustain the same pitch over time.
Using this app - you can start with practicing singing of single pitch correctly first.

Tip 3. Practice Stepwise scales and Intervals!

Once you are confident in singing separate notes one at a time, you can move on to singing 2 pitch that are close to each other (For example: Do-Re-Do-Re-Do).

Then add one more note to make it as 3 pitch exercise and so on.

You can find the resources for exercises on our blog!

Click for TVS BLOG: Vocal Exercises

Tip 4. Practice with the singer’s guide voice / without the singer.

If you really have a huge difficulty singing in tune, one song I suggest for you to learn is ‘Do-Re-Mi Song’ from sound of music.

Once you master that song – you will be able to understand the most used musical scales (major scales: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do) .

Don’t be afraid or embarrassed of singing children’s song (I still love it personally). The whole focus is for you to feel confident and make the first connection with the music.

If you don’t have difficulty catching the tune when you sing on top of the singer’s voice, then you can start training your pitching skills by removing or reducing the singers voice.

Now Apple Music has the function for you to sing Karaoke while controlling the volume of the original singer 😊 This will surely come handy to you!

Step 4. Patience and Creativity

Some students get on the right track quite quickly, and for some students it takes several months to gain the musical ears and ability to sing basic songs in tune.

And it’s okay for you to take some time to develop a skill that you haven’t had before.

So, be patient and do not feel discouraged in the wrong belief of ‘I cannot be fixed’. Also, singing is connected to your emotion, your breathing, your physical energy, plus so many other things.

There can be multiple creative ways to help you sing better while taking some break from working on the pitch accuracy.

When you feel like there’s only little visible progress – have a faith in yourself and believe that your inner voice is preparing to bring up its first sprout in your practices.

If you want to do the 15 practice with me now - here’s the link of the mini online lesson :) It was a 15min warm up session we did at TVS back in 2020 during Covid Time on the topic of ‘singing in tune’!

If you’d like to gain some more help, Vocal coaches at TVS are here to help you go through the process of overcoming the tone-deafness and re-discover your singing voice.

Once you complete your first song in tune, you will really feel so much thrill we guarantee!

How to overcome 'Tone Deafness'