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Do, Ri, Mi, Fa, So, La, TI

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Those are the notes of a major scale. If you re arranged the notes you can improvise. This is called solfege. It's also good for ear training, especially when you re arrange the notes and keep positional awareness of the notes.

A good portion of western music can be found within those 7 notes (not all) and if you start on la you can get a minor scale which is the second most common scale. It's basically 7 scales (modes) in one by using each note as a central note. If you play the white keys on a piano, from C to C will be the same thing. 

You can read about solfege here. It can be used to sight read music as well as an alternative to musical notation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge

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Hi 2 cats, I wasn't able to comment on your other thread. The idea here is to get you to hear the note and match the note with your voice. Just as if you were to play the same note on a guitar, a piano, a banjo or a flute. They may all sound a little different because the character or Timber is different but the PITCH is the same. PITCH is a term that means the same Frequency or same note. Unfortunately the only way I can really describe it is the terms of High and Low.

Do, Re, Mi is a scale or group of notes in a specific sequence.  Once you get to the end of Do, Re Mi you are presented with another Do which is the same note an octave higher and the sequence starts over again from that note.

Defining PITCH is a little hard to explain in written words to someone who has never heard of it before.

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Pitch is pretty much vibration frequency scientifically speaking. Higher pitches are oscillating at higher frequencies. Lower pitches at lower frequencies. It's not that useful though as we don't interpret the sound mathematically but subjectively.

If you go up and down this piano you can listen to the pitch ascending and descending. If you start on C it will be Do.

http://www.apronus.com/music/flashpiano.htm

You can also try to recreate the intervals (spaces) between the notes on a different note on the piano and recreate do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti, do. You'd have to use the black keys. But you can learn to sing along to this piano, and also play what you sing.

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7 minutes ago, Draven Grey said:

I use solfeggi in interval and relative pitch training. 

Solfege%204.png

I haven't done much chromatic solfege yet. Seems like a good thing to work on. Chromatically accurate ear training is tough. Vagueness in tonal center and a lot more unpredictable intervals. But a good portion of music I listen to features non diatonic passage.

Playing other fret-less instruments helps too. Anything without buttons. I've been noticing improvement since using a fretless guitar.

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33 minutes ago, YouCanSingAnything said:

I hear music in solfege. Lots of ear training. I don't have perfect pitch but my relative pitch is really good.

I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you have pitch issues or want to get deep into music theory.

I can tell ya what chord is being played... But it doesn't really translate to singing ability.

 

This thread was started by 2 Cats because his main issue was being off pitch. When it was mentioned to him, he did not know what the word PITCH meant. If we can hone in on that instead of further confusing the issue with scales it would be more of a benefit to him.

 Perhaps mentioning how to recognize when a note is matched and how to recognize when we are "Off Pitch".

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I have all of my students, who are working on pitch, purchase a combo pitch wheel. It's the only pitch wheel I've found so far that you barely have to put any air pressure into to get it to ring out the note. It's also the method I've seen have the most effect on matching pitch. If you blow into it to hear the note, then hum into it, trying to match the pitch/note, it gives you immediate feedback for adjusting to the right pitch. Much like tuning a guitar using harmonics, when you're off pitch, the sound wobbles and buzzes horribly; but when you match the pitch, it locks in with you. 

I've found the pitch wheel helps people learn to not just listen and hear pitch, but also feel it. After they get comfortable hitting single pitches, then we move onto interval training. I start with more harmonic intervals (e.g. 3rd, 5th), then minor, then extended. After they do well with a 2-pitch interval, I move to 3 random ones. I've found that solfeggi and song association with intervals helps greatly with interval and relative pitch training. I'm not going to take credit for that method either. I took it from how many of my friends have trained in various colleges.

I've come across the most curious thing with at least 80% of the students I've had that needed help with pitch training, at least at first. When asked to match a pitch, they usually sing a perfect 4th beneath what I play.

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What am I supposed to do hear please? Am I supposed to remember those 7 notes or am I supposed to remember and sing the whole song?

You're supposed to sing the song every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to sleep.

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Well I am kind of getting the understanding now by what you are saying is that the  Do Ri Mi Fa So La Ti, is a messure of pitch from high to low and that link you provided Draven kind of gives the game away.

If I could see the same diagram but with sound playing of someone singing to it as well then it would give me a better understanding 

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19 hours ago, Draven Grey said:

I have all of my students, who are working on pitch, purchase a combo pitch wheel. It's the only pitch wheel I've found so far that you barely have to put any air pressure into to get it to ring out the note. It's also the method I've seen have the most effect on matching pitch. If you blow into it to hear the note, then hum into it, trying to match the pitch/note, it gives you immediate feedback for adjusting to the right pitch. Much like tuning a guitar using harmonics, when you're off pitch, the sound wobbles and buzzes horribly; but when you match the pitch, it locks in with you. 

That sounds like a tool that might work for me

Do you have a link or reference to where I can buy one from please

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3 hours ago, 2 cats in a dust bin said:

Not sure if it was you or someone ells, but was that link not for testing ones vocal range?

It's a virtual piano. It allows you to play any note or interval with your keyboard or mouse and sing or match with your voice. For people who don't have access to real life instruments having reference instruments is very helpful for learning pitch, ear training, and so forth. You can test range with an instrument with only one octave. There are only 12 notes that repeat in octaves (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, etc).

Go to the next or lower octave depending on whether you're descending or ascending. But more so than range, it's more productive to be concerned with pitch accuracy atm. Like if you're singing a C, it sounds like a C and not a different note, etc. Pianos are probably the most self explanatory pitch instrument in the world (white keys are natural, black keys are sharp/flat) so they are great to learn with.

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If you have problems matching pitch you need to work on matching pitch not on remembering the sound of intervals or solfeggio. Those things are nice if you are playing an instrument especially jazz or want to be able to sight sing music... not if you have problems with pitch. Lots of people sing with good pitch yet they have no idea what notes they are singing. They just picked it up intuitively. Intellectualizing things will not make it easier for you.

If someone sings a note can you sing it back? It's that simple. If you're answer is "no" or you don't know, then you need to work on just that and work your way up to short simple melodies.

Darren's pitch pipe idea seems interesting. Some people have had success with guitar tuners as well. The best would be to get a teacher or musician friend to help you so you don't waste time trying to figure it all out by yourself.

Depending on where you're at you might also get some benefit from singing simple scales and patterns transposed across your range. Start with 1-2-3 or do-re-mi or C-D-E. Once you got that down you can do 1-2-3-4-5, etc... If you have no idea what I'm talking about either don't worry about it or get a teacher/friend who plays music.

Get into the habit of singing along to or imitating everything you hear, radio, police siren etc... Use your voice and use your ears.

I make all my students learn songs by copying the original singer phrase per phrase. Just try and sing the melody exactly as the original singer sings it. This will improve your ear, phrasing and sense of style. Most of my students think this is easy yet most of the time they only get it 80-90% right. Record yourself.

Sing with people, join a choir etc...

Hand gestures might also help you like raise your hand when the pitch goes up etc...

Good vocal technique will also improve your pitch but if you can't even match a single note you should work on that first.

 

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When asked to match a pitch, they usually sing a perfect 4th beneath what I play.

Some singers are uncomfortable in certain parts of their voice and they will somewhat "transpose" what you sing. A girl came for a lesson once at first I thought she was tone deaf but quickly found out she could only match pitch around C5 and got increasingly sharp as we got down to C4 because she didn't know how to sing in chest voice...

Usually they will have the most success matching pitch around where they speak. But for that girl I'm talking about it wasn't the case. She could speak in chest voice just fine...

But yeah it's very common for singers who haven't developed their ear -> voice coordination enough to "transpose" stuff. They hear the basic shape of a phrase (ups and downs) and just sing it where it's comfortable for them.

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Just curious... so say you have a lesson with someone with no sense of pitch. Do you spend an hour playing C3 and working to get them to match it? What do you do with the lesson? =)

Well there are many things you can try:

1. Instead of him matching your pitch have him sing a note and you match it. Have him sing a diffrent one, higher, lower etc... If it's working well, try and sing something like a semitone below or above his note and see if he can recognize when you 2 are in tune or not.

2. Make him slide up and down on any sound that's comfortable for him using hand gestures to symbolize pitch. Like: I'm gonna start here then I'm a sing up a little bit, go back down then way up, a little down etc... you got the idea. You could also draw a curve on a piece of paper and have him sing it. Start simple!

3. Don't work on one note only. Make him match C3 then F3, Bb2, G3, etc... Maybe try some notes in his upper range in falsetto.

....

Keep the lesson short: 15-20min and make sure he knows how to practice at home the rest of the week. If he plays an instrument that would help especially if it's a visual one like a piano or a one string guitar lol

 

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@Sexy Beastgreat stuff.

I would add also, practice listening and paying attention.

Set a song to play and help the person pay attention to both individual parts as well as the whole, if possible using a instrument to help the process.

The way that people that are more involved with music and casual listeners perceive music material is different, and the memory of it is also very different.

We register the information we need to in order to go on with our lives, to recognize a song for example you don't really need the details, you just need a blurry profile of the song and the most notable aspects that make it unique, kinda the same as knowing the shape that allows you to identify a human being figure does not mean you have enough information to draw one with details (not even close).

So if you help the person have a closer look into the details, giving a helping hand so that they can focus on it, you can speed up the process. Just as Beast said never intelectualize it, keep it playful and keep it intuitive.

For example, lets say that you have a vocal harmony on a given point, 2 voices. This can be challenging even for people with more experience singing. You could first find out the lead melody, play it on a piano, play around with it a bit and try to make the person perceive it (and not just spoon feed it), then start to find the notes of the second voice and see if they can follow, or if not, at least understand what is going on and pay attention to it.

The mindset you want is that "happy mumbling" thing children ( if not restricted/repressed by parents) often do when there is a song they like going on in the background. Your job will be to just steer the happy mumbling to various details on the song. Dancing along, air drumming, anything that enforces the rhythm and help it becoming fun is valid.

Its also helpful with those cases where prior music education, of dubious quality, made the person go into a excessively mechanical/quantized notion of music content and want to develop a more intutive approach to it. There are many pianists around here that are plain useless without sheet music to read. Not so common with singers, but it happens too.

Think of the mumbling as the mind registering the patterns that are in the song. The more things you get to mumble, the more patterns you will be acknowledging and registering, and the more details you will have in your mind about that particular song, as well as it will build a greater "general library" that will allow you to find the same on other songs you hear.

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21 hours ago, KillerKu said:

It's a virtual piano. It allows you to play any note or interval with your keyboard or mouse and sing or match with your voice. For people who don't have access to real life instruments having reference instruments is very helpful for learning pitch, ear training, and so forth. You can test range with an instrument with only one octave. There are only 12 notes that repeat in octaves (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, etc).

Go to the next or lower octave depending on whether you're descending or ascending. But more so than range, it's more productive to be concerned with pitch accuracy atm. Like if you're singing a C, it sounds like a C and not a different note, etc. Pianos are probably the most self explanatory pitch instrument in the world (white keys are natural, black keys are sharp/flat) so they are great to learn with.

I have no idea on Pianos and what a b c means

But do you think me practiceing with that link is going to improve my pitch?

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11 hours ago, Sexy Beast said:

Depending on where you're at you might also get some benefit from singing simple scales and patterns transposed across your range. Start with 1-2-3 or do-re-mi or C-D-E. Once you got that down you can do 1-2-3-4-5, etc... If you have no idea what I'm talking about either don't worry about it or get a teacher/friend who plays music.

So are you saying like the song instructs you to do is just sing do re mi so la te, in different orders and practace with that?

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11 hours ago, Sexy Beast said:

Some singers are uncomfortable in certain parts of their voice and they will somewhat "transpose" what you sing. A girl came for a lesson once at first I thought she was tone deaf but quickly found out she could only match pitch around C5 and got increasingly sharp as we got down to C4 because she didn't know how to sing in chest voice...

How do I work out where I am singing at

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The song is just a song 2 cats. You could use it as a reference if you want to memorize these notes, but you are not "supposed" to know it (thank God haha).

What is it that you are trying to do exactly? If you want to improve pitch the best thing you can do is find a friend that knows music well enough to help you. If possible, a singing teacher.

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10 hours ago, YouCanSingAnything said:


Just curious... so say you have a lesson with someone with no sense of pitch. Do you spend an hour playing C3 and working to get them to match it? What do you do with the lesson? =)

So if I could not sing C3. what would you do to get me to learn how to sing it?

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3 hours ago, 2 cats in a dust bin said:

I have no idea on Pianos and what a b c means

But do you think me practiceing with that link is going to improve my pitch?

They are names of notes and they are listed. If you practice playing a C note on the piano and then trying to match it with your voice it can help, but it sounds like you need more help with understanding what pitch is and how to match it.

If you can't hear the pitch. You've basically got two options. Have someone who can hear the pitch tell you when it's right. It can be a teacher or a musician friend. Or you can try using an objective pitch analysis software. If you record your voice into this program:

http://miracle.otago.ac.nz/tartini/

And watch the squiggly line go up and down to the sound of your voice, that is your voice's pitch moving in real time. Next to the squiggly line it lists names of notes, A,B,C. Those are the notes your voice would be closest to. Try to get your voice line closer to the note and most importantly try to listen to to how the sound correlates. That would be pitch.

For most people when we move left across the piano, it sounds lower, when we right across the piano the notes sounds higher. There are rare brain deviations where people have difficulty processing pitch, but most of the time people just lack exposure to music. If somehow that was the case, I'm not sure if giving people objective pitch analysis tools has been done in studies if that is the case and it still could likely be helpful.

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3 hours ago, 2 cats in a dust bin said:

So if I could not sing C3. what would you do to get me to learn how to sing it?

I would have you lower or raise the note you are making until it matches.

Now, humans, like any creature, learn by operant conditioning. We repeat what is rewarding and avoid what is punishing. So, every time you go the note right, I would applaud. If you got the note wrong, I would make you listen to political speaches.

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