Using pitch-correction software to train ear, etc

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

By the way, that is an alternate take of the vocal from the one that made it to the record and the record version is even better.

Bob

Wow.

[morfi]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

For example, how far off center is "normal"?

This is important because as I develop my voice, if I'm not on pitch exactly at C4 +-0, am I wrong?

How wrong compared to someone every one thinks is a good singer?

That classical singer singing the major scale on youtube, is she really right on pitch?

Can I hear the difference? Sure, I can hear a "bad" note, but how far off is it before I can hear it?

If I hear a perfect note, can I then sing it?

What if I correct my own note and then listen to the correct one in my own voice and sing it - is it better?
?

+ - 3Hz off is where the ear can hear a change.

yes and no. if you were on every pitch at +15 or at - 9 (as example) you 'll be heard "correct" because the relation of the pitches would be the same. Still nottuned but wont sound off either. When the relation changes is where things become more audible.

let "good" singer out of it because there are countless out of tune who make a living (for numerous reasons) and there are countless millions of untrained listeners who don't know and can't distinguish what they hear.
It's like the trick with the first and last letter of words where you can understand each word as long as the first and last letter is correct no matter the anagram in the middle letters. And it's difficult and needs lots of training and attention to listen to your voice when it leaves your mouth instead of listening to the voicesof your head (you- the general for everyone not You in personal).

maybe she is, probably she is. If she's trained enough she will be.

yes with training you can tell when it gets off super instant and it is unfortunately bothering most of times exept the singer is a really good one and it very rarely happening. the thing with most people is that they pay attention to the timbre, the nuance of the voices rather than the pitch. Too much attention and unfortunately a lot of singers care more about the "color", their "identity" and bypass tonality

you can sing it, no need to hear it.There are only twelve notes, just grab a good tuner and sing them to it till you hit zero center. Its the most fundamental exercise on voice training there is. The range of human voice is about 3 octaves and we use the 1,5 when singing.

can't understand the last question. you can tune your guitar and hit notes as a reference and sing over the same ones. but the tuner exercise i wrote, plain, is the best

last but not least, it's an exercise for "monks", you got to lock yourself in a cave and practice and be fully committed to it. it's a different thing than music business. Business is business and business is money and obeys in different rules especially in an ever-changing fast world we live.
I'm developing a simple app for pitch recognition (not relatives) with a friend who's a game developer and it's almost done. once it's ready I'll either upload it on Google play or make a sendspace upload of the apk file for everyone to have.

cheers

[AndrewG]

If it sounds right, it is right. Don't over-think this; Bob Dylan made a fortune singing flat-and a few good songs helped! If you can tune your guitar without the aid of a tuner (as everyone must be able to), then you're halfway there. Unless you're a trained classical singer, and they're a fairly scarce commodity, I would suggest that communicating the message effectively is often more important than the message itself. And you don't need 100% accuracy for that.

[morfi]

look my friend. the thing with society is this:
if it doesn't sound right, it is right.
that's the rule unfortunately.
and that's why we kill each other because we are lost in translation. because everyone has different reference to what right and wrong is.
i can say to stop tuning your instruments because it's a conspiracy
I'm just a skill collector in a forum of mostly product collectors so why do I bother.
at least don't try to convince others and drag them into mediocrity if you cannot escape by it.
I'm a poet no less than Bob.
thankfully he had a great teacher too. a grand master of lyricism and poetry, Dylan Thomas. he didnt made a fortune. what an idiot huh?

[stanron]

I'm surprised that so far no one has raised the subject of tuning temperament. Back when Pythagorus was examining notes on a single string he got his notes by dividing the string into whole fractions. One half is the octave, one third is fret 7 on a guitar and one quarter is fret 5 on a guitar. Pythagorus's system is called 'just' temperament. On vocal and unfretted string instruments it makes for very sweet sounding music.

Unfortunately when used on fretted and keyboard instruments this sweetness is limited to one string or one key. Outside that the music gets more amd more out of tune. Over the years various systems were tried to correct for this. Today we use a system called 'equal' temperament. All notes are slightly out of tune and none are very out of tune. It's a compromise that our ears have largely gotten used to. However we still can recognise just temperament when we hear it. It sounds 'sweet'. However I imagine that most machine based tuning will default to equal temperament and when it encounters just temperament it will register out of tune.

I am not a great singer. I have spent a lot of time singing into a digital tuner. I'd play a note on the guitar and watch the tuner, then sing the same note and watch the tuner. I was nearly always flat, and sometimes quite a lot flat, and occasionally sharp. When I introduced different vowel sounds into the equation I got different degrees of out of tuneness. With practice it all got better. Not perfect but I tell myself that perfect according to a tuner isn't actually perfect anyway. My voice to ear self correcting mechanism has improved.

Get as close to the correct pitch as you can without loosing the music.

[musicman1951]

Originally Posted by SunnyDee

I couldn't resist taking a look at Linda Rondstadt. I looked at studio recording of Tracks of my Tears. It is stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytjqo8WNkcw

Seriously, made me want to cry, it's so beautiful and since that song is in my range, it's interesting to me to look at it.

Notes from the beginning of the first verse (I'm sure I missed one or two) are +- these amounts from center.

+5,+16,-36,+46,-21,+1,-7,+26,+13,-3,-8,-22,+25,-9,-23,+14,-9,-3,-27,+5

so quite a bit more variation than +-4 cents for one thing AND it's gorgeous!

You must remember that you're measuring from equal and she is, no doubt, singing in just intonation.

Some of the problems of equal temperament: major thirds and minor sixths will be slightly too wide to get a third tone, minor thirds and major sixths slightly too narrow. Only the octaves will be pure, and you will most definitely match the piano.

Musicians who sing beautifully are using just intonation.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by morfi

+ - 3Hz off is where the ear can hear a change.

yes and no. if you were on every pitch at +15 or at - 9 (as example) you 'll be heard "correct" because the relation of the pitches would be the same. Still nottuned but wont sound off either. When the relation changes is where things become more audible.

let "good" singer out of it because there are countless out of tune who make a living (for numerous reasons) and there are countless millions of untrained listeners who don't know and can't distinguish what they hear.
It's like the trick with the first and last letter of words where you can understand each word as long as the first and last letter is correct no matter the anagram in the middle letters. And it's difficult and needs lots of training and attention to listen to your voice when it leaves your mouth instead of listening to the voicesof your head (you- the general for everyone not You in personal).

maybe she is, probably she is. If she's trained enough she will be.

yes with training you can tell when it gets off super instant and it is unfortunately bothering most of times exept the singer is a really good one and it very rarely happening. the thing with most people is that they pay attention to the timbre, the nuance of the voices rather than the pitch. Too much attention and unfortunately a lot of singers care more about the "color", their "identity" and bypass tonality

you can sing it, no need to hear it.There are only twelve notes, just grab a good tuner and sing them to it till you hit zero center. Its the most fundamental exercise on voice training there is. The range of human voice is about 3 octaves and we use the 1,5 when singing.

can't understand the last question. you can tune your guitar and hit notes as a reference and sing over the same ones. but the tuner exercise i wrote, plain, is the best

last but not least, it's an exercise for "monks", you got to lock yourself in a cave and practice and be fully committed to it. it's a different thing than music business. Business is business and business is money and obeys in different rules especially in an ever-changing fast world we live.
I'm developing a simple app for pitch recognition (not relatives) with a friend who's a game developer and it's almost done. once it's ready I'll either upload it on Google play or make a sendspace upload of the apk file for everyone to have.

cheers

Thanks. I intended these questions to show that I answered them using with the software. Thanks for showing other answers as well.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by musicman1951

You must remember that you're measuring from equal and she is, no doubt, singing in just intonation.

Some of the problems of equal temperament: major thirds and minor sixths will be slightly too wide to get a third tone, minor thirds and major sixths slightly too narrow. Only the octaves will be pure, and you will most definitely match the piano.

Musicians who sing beautifully are using just intonation.

Can you explain what you mean a bit more? I understand equal temperament vs just. But I would have assumed that Ronstadt is intending to sing along with her instruments, no matter how they are tuned, right? And let's assume they are tuned to equal temperament. If, hypothetically, the guitar is playing a C +-0, you would normally assume the singer would intend to sing that as well, but, because the singer is human, she will not be exactly on that pitch. The question was how much variation from center still sounds good to other humans. With Ronstadt, apparently, a fair bit. More than people expected because posters said that +-4 or 5 would sound off. I don't understand how just temperament is used relative to this, but I'd like to. Can you explain how?

Are you telling me that singers are actually not trying to sing with their instruments, in this context? If that's true, that's a huge important thing for me to know.

EDIT: I looked this up because that's the kind of learner I am. Still working on it. I've learned a lot about how unaccompanied choirs use it.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

If it sounds right, it is right. Don't over-think this; Bob Dylan made a fortune singing flat-and a few good songs helped! If you can tune your guitar without the aid of a tuner (as everyone must be able to), then you're halfway there. Unless you're a trained classical singer, and they're a fairly scarce commodity, I would suggest that communicating the message effectively is often more important than the message itself. And you don't need 100% accuracy for that.

The issue is in developing an ear for what sounds right if you don't have years of musical background in listening or a naturally sensitive ear. Doing that efficiently and effectively does take some thinking, I think.

[SunnyDee]

Related issue to the original post.

Here is a piano tuner using audacity to help his students learn to hear the beats of out of tune notes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBswRgLuHPQ

I love this, because as an adult training my ear, it's very important to know what the heck I'm supposed to be listening for. People who grew up with a good ear or trained early, like bilinguals, often can explain what they are hearing. To an untrained person it's just a mass of sound. I had the same issue listening to harmonic intervals in ear training. And still have it listening for independent notes in chords. Tuning by ear on the guitar is easy until the notes get close. Understanding what this guy says helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb-GD0g1ADA

And, he's obviously a good teacher. He doesn't say to his students who don't have a trained ear, "just use your ear". Good guy!

[muscmp]

i think that is a great idea! i don't own autotune nor melodyne yet as it seems i'm always having to pay to upgrade other software.

two recommendations i would make is that you get away from mp3 because that could be messing with the pitch already. use wav files instead. secondly, if you have a tuner with a mic in it, you can use that to sing into and see your notes. that will tell you how close you are.

play music!

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by muscmp

i think that is a great idea! i don't own autotune nor melodyne yet as it seems i'm always having to pay to upgrade other software.

two recommendations i would make is that you get away from mp3 because that could be messing with the pitch already. use wav files instead. secondly, if you have a tuner with a mic in it, you can use that to sing into and see your notes. that will tell you how close you are.

play music!

Thanks for the suggestions! I don't use that kind of tuner but there's on online through 8notes that does it and I have played this game as well https://trainer.thetamusic.com/en/content/singing-games. These sorts of things actually build confidence because if it tells me I can hit the note, I can start to relax, thinking I can, after all, stay in key.