.

[timothy42b]

Can anyone possibly match tones on all the notes of the piano?  Who would possibly have that kind of range.

I can't.  There's probably an eight year old on youtube who can though.

I just started doing an exercise singing to a cello drone (recommended by a noted trombone teacher). 

Pick a drone like this one:

set the volume to one jnd below your humming or singing volume.  You need to do this with speakers, ear buds don't work.  While the drone plays, you s.l.o.w.l.y. move your humming or singing voice up one half step, listening to the beats.  Your goal is to do a steady accelerando of beat speed up to the next half step then back down.  Repeat to the half step below.  Ten minutes a day. 

[lostinidlewonder]

The singing required of a vocalist, despite L-I-w's contempt for their craft, requires the same effort and dedication as learning piano, violin, or any other instrument. 

You're an imbecile timothy, you like to OVER EXAGGERATE things all the time golly gosh, you sure you don't wear a skirt?

[outin]

You're an imbecile timothy, you like to OVER EXAGGERATE things all the time golly gosh, you sure you don't wear a skirt?

A chauvinist as well 

[lostinidlewonder]

A chauvinist as well  

Yeah outin we all need your little kibitzes on the sideline, so helpful. Why be politically correct when someone accuses you of things irrationally? It's not only in this thread every time I disagree with him lol. If he don't wanna tip toe around it I wont either.

[outin]

Yeah outin we all need your little kibitzes on the sideline, so helpful. Why be politically correct when someone accuses you of things irrationally? It's not only in this thread every time I disagree with him lol. If he don't wanna tip toe around it I wont either.

Just learned a new word, thanks!

We disagree every time as well...need to dig out one of my skirts...I know I have them somewhere...

[iansinclair]

There's a nice rest home near me, timothy42b, where that cello exercise would fit right in...

[timothy42b]

There's a nice rest home near me, timothy42b, where that cello exercise would fit right in...

I'm close to needing it!

Here's why I do exercises like that.  I'm primarily a trombone player, and when we play any note we have basically three choices of pitch:  equal temperament, choral (just intonation), or melodic.  It depends on what we're playing and what other instruments are included.  The instrument will obey us, but it won't give us the right pitch on its own, unlike a piano. 

[lostinidlewonder]

Just learned a new word, thanks!

Goody, now maybe you can be wary of doing it.

[outin]

Goody, now maybe you can be wary of doing it.

But why should I, it sounds cool!

[lostinidlewonder]

But why should I, it sounds cool!

errr ok. Seppuku sounds cool too lol.

[Bob]

I'm close to needing it!

Here's why I do exercises like that.  I'm primarily a trombone player, and when we play any note we have basically three choices of pitch:  equal temperament, choral (just intonation), or melodic.  It depends on what we're playing and what other instruments are included.  The instrument will obey us, but it won't give us the right pitch on its own, unlike a piano. 

What are you doing?  Just tuning to a drone pitch?

[timothy42b]

What are you doing?  Just tuning to a drone pitch?

Yes, that's the first step, and some people don't go further, and that's fine.

I play quite often in amateur ensembles where tuning can be uncertain.  I want to be sure that I'm not the problem!  So I use this to train my ears to hear more and more precisely, and my technique to produce that in tune pitch consistently under different temperature conditions.

But sometimes I get to play with a better class of musician.  They are not only going to play very precisely in tune, they're sometimes going to have a different definition of what in tune means in a given condition.  An A might be 440 in equal temperament, and if we're playing with a piano we'll do it that way.  If that same A is the third in a major chord, and we're in a chorale setting, it's going to be considerably lower, by about 14 cents.  If it's the leading tone in a melody, it will be yet another pitch.  Those are the three most common conditions, and they are adapted to by listening hard. 

When I tune to a drone pitch, I listen for beats.  If I play a scale against a single drone pitch, it's a little different. 

[maplecleff1215]

Good to know that there still may be a chance. c: So to those who have a degree in music/piano pedagogy, was it just solfege? What singing did you have to do? I can work on solfege. I'm worried about any difficult stuff, but solfege can be improved on.

[keypeg]

I was writing fast, and if the original poster doesn't sing... It's not critical to me.  It dawned on me they not breathe with enough power for sining.  So a step below singing is breath.  Deep, relaxed breath in, leading with the abs.  Push the air out, leading with the abs.  The lips could buzz, lap, whatever, as a measurement for that air stream.  If the air support isn't there, singing is going to be a lot more difficult.  It's building on crappy support.  There's also posture below that, not squeezing with the chest....

Reading this, and trying to follow simply by through words, can go terribly wrong.  I'm a natural singer, as I've been told.  I was in a choir where the director did abs and diaphragm things and such - it almost destroyed my ability to sing.  I dropped the choir because of him and his dilettante "teaching".  In the next choir there was a professional singer at our disposal who had one of the solo roles.  She sometimes disappeared when she was appearing in Carnegie.  She told me of how her ability to sing had almost been ruined by wrong instruction at the university level.

Do NOT try singing technique from descriptions on the Internet!

[keypeg]

Good points, Bob -- to which I will add this: if one learns to breathe properly -- from the abdomen or diaphragm or abs or however you want to put it, and not use the chest muscles for all that work, it frees one's shoulders -- and voila!  Much less tension while you are playing piano!

And if you take this literally, and try not to use the chest muscles, or watch that you "don't lift the shoulders", you can really mess yourself up.   The ribs do move - the chest does move - and misunderstanding these things, being mistaught or misdirected, can make a mess.  AND create a lot of tension.  "Breathing from the abdomen / diaphragm" WAS one of the things that created havoc!

[keypeg]

I can't.  There's probably an eight year old on youtube who can though.

An eight year old who can sing the lowest note on piano before even the voice change that lowers a man's voice at puberty?  When I was responding to Bob's post, it was in terms of register.  The piano has a lot more octaves than any human being's voice can cover.  It is register which is my weakness right now in piano because I can sing readily and simply jump up or down an octave if the music goes past my range.  That has also led to desensitizing toward register, which I am currently rectifying.

[keypeg]

You're an imbecile timothy, you like to OVER EXAGGERATE things all the time golly gosh, you sure you don't wear a skirt?

You suspect Timothy of being Scottish?  They're called kilts, though, not skirts.

I don't know of any nationality that is known for exaggerating.  I know you don't mean gender, because you already know he is male from the name - and yes, SOME men do exaggerate - but then, many do not.

[iansinclair]

keypeg -- you are right on breathing.  The idea, of course, is to expand the volume of the lungs -- and whatever works is what one should do.  It doesn't seem to be natural to many people, and as I mentioned earlier, poor teaching all too common.

A comment on voice range.  I have found (and I have worked with many many choristers over the years!) that most amateur singers can, without too much difficulty, manage an octave and a fifth.  With some singing -- not necessarily training -- they can usually stretch that to two octaves with decent tone and support over that range.  A well trained, classical singer -- opera, lieder, that sort of thing -- will usually have a usable range of two octaves and a fifth, but almost always (there are exceptions!) part of that range will be somewhat uneven compared to the rest, and not always at the very top or very bottom.  However, it is very very easy to ruin one's voice completely by trying to sing outside of one's usable range, and it is a wise soprano who says no, no more Queen of the Night -- or bass who says no, no more Boris!

[imaginatorium]

But there is no genre that requires singing!  ...

Not quite! This set of five pieces for piano by Delius includes a "Lullaby for a modern baby", which has a line to be hummed: https://imslp.org/wiki/5_Pieces_%28Delius,_Frederick%29
(but he does give violin con sord. as a let out)...

[indianajo]

I'm close to needing it!

Here's why I do exercises like that.  I'm primarily a trombone player, and when we play any note we have basically three choices of pitch:  equal temperament, choral (just intonation), or melodic.  It depends on what we're playing and what other instruments are included.  The instrument will obey us, but it won't give us the right pitch on its own, unlike a piano. 

I wondered about that. I'm a bassoon player, and our ear is also our source of pitch. The holes on the wood body just deliver an approximation.  Every note needs some adjustment in mouth tension by ear.   I've in retrospec wondered what tuning the high school band I played in used? I mean the C was set to the Conn strobotune, but what were the other notes?  Probably equal temperment since cornets and clarinets dominated the sound, but I wonder. We were always wonderfully in tune with each other.  By contrast I was loaned out to the high school orchestra on Tuesdays, which was always painfully random in tuning. 

[iansinclair]

Sounds like my high school band and orchestra (I played french horn in both -- another treacherous beast).  The band?  Great tuning.  The orchestra?  Oh dear...

[timothy42b]

I wondered about that. I'm a bassoon player, and our ear is also our source of pitch. The holes on the wood body just deliver an approximation.  Every note needs some adjustment in mouth tension by ear.   I've in retrospec wondered what tuning the high school band I played in used? I mean the C was set to the Conn strobotune, but what were the other notes?  Probably equal temperment since cornets and clarinets dominated the sound, but I wonder. We were always wonderfully in tune with each other.  By contrast I was loaned out to the high school orchestra on Tuesdays, which was always painfully random in tuning. 

I'm old enough to remember when tuning varied widely between groups, and sometimes it was quite a struggle to adjust far enough.  That Conn stroboconn cost $2500, at a time when a decent car was $1000.  This is no longer true.  Every musician I know has a $20 tuner or a smart phone with a tuning app.  It hasn't made them play in tune any better, but it has stabilized the core pitch of every group to somewhere near 440. 

Yes, brass instruments need to have each pitch adjusted a bit.  I didn't know that about the bassoon.  A valved instrument like a cornet has some inherent limitations.  If you have a valve that gives you half step lower, and another that gives you whole step lower from the open horn, the two together can't give you a step and a half (because the horn is now longer.)  There are ways around this (kicker slides, etc.) but usually some adjustment with air flow and lip tension is needed, probably like on your bassoon.  The trombone has the advantage of being able to make small adjustments on the fly, which allows your embouchure to always work at the point of best resonance. 

Amateur orchestras are usually painfully out of tune.  I don't play any strings so I have no idea why but in my experience it's universal.  The only thing worse is a period instrument group.