Ear training and tone deafness

[m1469]

I have a student who would be considered, for all intents and purposes, tone deaf (though I do not fully buy into this as a permanent condition).  S/he has a very difficult time matching pitches when singing (we have worked together with singing too, once upon a time), although there have been glimmers of break throughs.  I think this also affects the ability to know when one is playing the correct notes for a piece on the piano, so it would seem.

As I am deciding to teach solfege right along with everything else in the lessons, I know from some experience with this individual that this aspect of the training may not come easily at all.  However, I feel it is quite necessary and beneficial for each student to persist with training the ear, and I would like to treat this person as no exception. 

I don't know very much about so called "tone deafness", and I will do some research, but I wonder if others have experience along these lines and may have suggestions ?

Everybody has a need for a sharper ear, so I suppose it is no different in this case, perhaps only amplified a bit.

I appreciate your thoughts,

m1469

[abell88]

I have done a bit of work with a friend who is "tone deaf". First we just worked on making high and low sounds (puppy dogs and kittens vs.  big barking dogs), then on sliding up and down. She was able to slide (with great effort and concentration) but her range was quite limited -- maybe only a 5th at the beginning.

Then we worked on tone matching -- I had her sing "lah" on any note, then I matched it, so that she could hear/experience a unison. Then I deliberately went a bit flat or sharp so she could hear the beats when it's close but not quite a unison.

We worked on soh-mi as the most primal interval. I would sing it, have her echo, sliding my hands up or down as needed when she was not quite there. (She has a good theoretical concept of what "up" and "down" are in music.)

After we had done quite a bit of soh-mi, I added lah (s l s, then s l s m) , then doh (s m d),  then re (s m r d). (I think this is pretty much the standard solfege progression.) We also worked on a song -- Jesus Loves Me -- using both the solfege and the words. We would just work on a little bit at a time, sometimes just a single interval. 

We had very few lessons, but she made some progress...I think consistency would help a great deal.

There is also this, which my friend has actually ordered, with the promise to tell me how it works:
https://www.carryatune.com/?online

I have followed much the same process with children, with quicker results -- the younger you can get them, the better.

[whynot]

True tone deafness is extremely rare.  What is much more common is difficulty in vocally matching pitch, and this difficulty tends to stem from two causes (either or both):

1.  Lack of (very) basic vocal technique (sorry m1469, I have to use that word).  The skill of just moving the voice up and down, as abell88 had to do with her student, is ideally learned very young.  When they don't, they tend to speak in monotone-- not only lacking pitch inflection (agogic accent), but also lacking other natural speech emphases, like tonic accents, in which certain sounds are held longer, and they also tend not to vary the timbre.  This can happen for many reasons, ranging from fairly benign to very sad, so helping someone with this is sometimes about more than singing.  When a person sings just a little off all the time--say a quarter step flat-- that's also much more likely about vocal technique than about the person's ear. 

2.  Believe it or not, sometimes the problem with "tone-deaf" people is that their tone perception is too keen-- they hear too much, not too little.  You can spot this when the person varies pitch more or less appropriately-- up and down, and at the right time, etc-- but is always off, and often a solid interval off, like a fifth.  This comes from hearing so well, hearing the partials better than the average person, that they just don't know which pitch they're supposed to match.  They have to learn to distinguish the fundamental.  It helps to take away the partials as much as possible in the beginning:  first of all, don't ask them to sing notes that match the piano, because the overtones are too easy to hear.  Just use your own voice and make it breathy and plain, don't use a developed, full tone with a nice vibrato and "ping" or "ring" (I hate the lingo of "the mask"  but if you know what that is, don't use it as this point).  And also, they need to hear it in their own octave, because what they have to learn is to mimic the precise fundamental.  They could learn to match you an octave off, but then they'll be confused later when they're not supposed to do that.  So a female teacher will have difficulty working on this with a male student after his voice has changed, but a male teacher can work with a female student on this if he sings in her octave using a light falsetto-- no full voice tenor.       

I believe this is all life-enhancing work, no matter what the student does musically later in life.  So I'm all for it.  But in addition to the singing approach, I think it's important to work on ear-to-piano very directly.  We use the singing because music schools do it this way.  And music schools do it this way because, for people who don't have the above challenges, hearing what comes out of their mouths is a very accurate guage of what's in their heads.  Not complete, but accurate.  It's how they "prove" that they know what's happening in the music.  But there are other aspects and uses of hearing at the piano that can be explored to huge benefit, and if a student is struggling to learn something that he knows many young children just do automatically, then it seems like a good time to also be making those explorations that are more natural for him.     

[Bob]

Some quick thoughts...

Get them to do sirens with their voice, going up and down.

Teach them a song by rote.  Or something they already have in their ear.  Work phrase by phrase matching pitches -- only the more important pitches of the line, not every single note.

Once they've learned a song, have them "glissando" between notes instead of "slotting" them.  A song like Somewhere Over the Rainbow is great because it's got an entire octave to gliss.  This gives them the skill of glissanding and can help to match pitch.

With the sirens or with the gliss, they can move their voice around.  Then you can play a note and they can attempt to match it with their voice.  Having a similar timbre helps a lot -- voice to voice instead of voice trying to match hammered string.

Most of my students are high or low by a M2, an M3 above, a m3 below, or a P5 above.

Have them learn a simple 3-5 note song.  Then (I guess you would have to do this) have them sing it transposed moving down by steps, or up by steps.  That will stretch their voice range out.

You can help them.  You play a note.  They attempt to match.  You sing on the pitch they hit (and sometimes it's hard to tell when they sing in the cracks).  Then you gliss your voice toward the correct pitch.  Physically point up or down to help them while you move your voice.  If they move in the right direction at all, that's good.  Sometimes you can completely guide them back to pitch.  And yes, this can sound pretty odd so you have to do it for only a short amount of time.

Have them hold one ear closed so they can hear the voice inside their head better.

Make sure they take a big breath so they have plenty of air to sing with.


I think most people can match pitch.  I imagine some people have problems with the wiring in their brains and those people would have problems.  For many, I don't think they have developed and the skill.  I think it takes time to "prime" their minds to listen for pitch -- creating habits just like anything else.  They focus on listening for awhile and have to concentrate.  Then after awhile, those listening skills are automatic and they don't have to try anymore.  I think pitch matching is one of those things that really "clicks" at some point when they more from being totally clueless to being able to discern and match pitch.

I do know adult professional pianists who cannot do this though.  It's not a skill they developed.  Very surprising to find out.

You can also play two pitches on the piano and have them say whether the note goes up, down, or stays the same.  That's working the same listening skills.

I think establishing tonality really helps them to sing better.  A V-I will set anyone's ears up for a tonal center.  Otherwise, random pitches can sound atonal or like the tonality keeps shifting.

For fine tuning, take a string instrument and tune two strings together.

Another idea -- Just have them sing whatever pitch they want.  You match them on the piano.  That will help get the sound/feeling of what it is to match their voice with the piano.

[Bob]

Use a tuner.  It will show the pitch and whether they are high or low. 

Many kids love playing with those. 

But it can really be a good way to get them to hear that their voice is moving up or down.