Teaching a student to match pitch

Question

I'm a piano teacher and I currently have a student that is taking voice lessons from another teacher. Our lessons involve me accompanying her and discussing interpretation and style. She has some interesting problems with pitch matching.

Once she knows a piece pretty well, she will sing the correct notes but be significantly out of tune on many of them. Sometimes I'll try to work on these pitch issues with her. Often, if I give her a starting pitch with the piano or with my voice, it takes her 5-10 tries to find it with her voice. These attempts sound like they are complete guesses, with pitches being higher and lower (sometimes a lot higher or lower) than the correct pitch.

I've attempted visualization exercises as well as pure repetition where once she has the correct pitch, I'll have her sing that note a bunch of times and then a bunch of times in context to help her memorize what the note sounds and feels like.

None of these things seem to be helping short or long term. It's clearly a listening problem. She's not listening to the starting pitch, not listening to her voice, or both. What's baffling is that she can sing at all with such difficulty in matching pitch.

What other things can I try that may help her start to really listening to the pitch instead of guessing?

Answer 1

Ear training is an unfortunate problem here in America. For children during their earliest formative years, precedence is given to visual and tactile learning. While this learning is undoubtedly important, too often are ears left under-developed. If hearing were trained the same way as sight, everyone would have perfect pitch.

If I were teaching this student, I would go to the most rudimentary concepts possible and begin "calibrating" their ears. I agree that the problem partly stems from listening. I believe it is also an awareness problem in addition to lack of personal aural development.

I would begin by simply having her identify sounds: cars, birds, telephone, people talking, etc. Identifying everyday sounds should be within her capabilities and should begin to boost her confidence and attitude. Having a positive attitude is crucial to learning new information.

After identifying basic, everyday sounds, I would then work on having her differentiate between "high" and "low" sounds, starting with the piano's extreme registers. I would do this both with chords and individual notes. Next, I would gradually work my way inward toward middle C with the resulting goal of her identifying higher or lower minor-seconds.

It would also be wise to have her demonstrate high and low sounds - not necessarily musical sounds, but so that she shows and awareness in registral difference.

Once she has shown an ability to differentiate between high and low sounds, I would then play a single pitch from the center of her vocal range and ask her to match that pitch. If she is incorrect, I would ask her if she sang higher or lower than the pitch I played.

Part of the problem here is that given your explanation, I believe that she has an underdeveloped awareness of her own phonating resonance. To aid in this awareness, I would have her plug her ears and attempt to match pitch while humming, using an "mmmm" vocalization. Doing this greatly amplifies perceived phonating resonance and should diminished awareness as a variable.

Once she is able to match a given pitch, I would then work to put it in context of a two note chord, working through matching each pitch of the chord. I would use a perfect-fifth as this two note chord because the perfect-fifth is the 3rd easiest interval to hear after a unison and octave respectively.

Once she is confident in matching two-note chords, I would add the corresponding 3rd to create a major triad. I would then play matching games asking her to sing different parts of the chord; obviously varying the chord each time.

This is by no means comprehensive, and should be realistically accomplished over the course of several lessons. If she is only meeting with you once a week, you, her, and her parents will see little improvement unless she is a very conscientious student.

At the least, I hope this gets the ball rolling.

Good luck, and keep us updated.

Answer 2

You could try severals things:

• Intervals training (you can check my answer to this question)
• Then have her sing the root of each chords of different chords changes. Then the third, and the five.
• Eventually, have her sing intervals that are not in the chords (play root and fifth and let her sing the thirds)

Plus the regular singing exercices:

• five notes scales (from root to fifth)
• octave scales
• octave and a half scale

Preferably, humming rather than singing, to have her focus better on the note she hears.

I'll complete my answer if I think of other ideas to this.

Answer 3

As a piano teacher, you'll be aware of the aural part of ABRSM,et al exams.These could be a basis for starting her pitching.When she practises at home, does she sing along to tracks, backing tracks or what. She needs to bring along whatever , to give you a better idea of how she performs with them.If she's singing acapella, it won't help pitching at all. Would be worth getting an old cheap keyboard, and you marking several notes for her to play and sing at home (although, if she's your student, she probably has a piano.......).There's no way of checking this, except by recording, but with no datum or reference point, she's never going to be able to pitch. Given that you've established her vocal range,maybe the key she's singing in doesn't suit.Try using different keys. I don't think one can get the 'feel' of a particular note easily, especially as a beginner, merely by singing it.A C will 'feel' rather like a D, etc.
My first move would be to discuss with the vox tutor.

Answer 4

I am a voice teacher and I would add that many pitch issues are actually registration issues, i.e. coordinating the different registers of the voice, or other issues of vocal production. The singing technique of the student is almost certainly an issue. It is a mistake to think that all or even most pitch issues related to hearing. If I were you I would definitely want to talk with this student's voice teacher as well, to create an approach that is not contradictory for the student. There is no way to diagnose a student without hearing her, however.

Answer 5

Don't give her random pitches without any context. Instead give her pitches that are intervals against a tonal center. Develop her sense of relative pitch, first.

Answer 6

Listening to myself through a microphone and headphones solved most of my problems with pitch. I spent a very long time dealing with this issue.

Answer 7

I think that this kind of hit-and-miss thing is not doing anything much for her. I'd start by ditching your piano and using some continuous-tone instrument (accordion, violin, flute, cheap electronic keyboard in organ/harmonium setting, tunable vacuum cleaner) then have her slide onto pitch. That way, you actually get some audible feedback in terms of beatings and resonance: the percussive tone quality of a piano makes that feedback more fleeting and more suited to experienced singers.

Then singing to drones (bagpipe, vacuum cleaner, fiddle) can work for building some sense of pitch relative to harmonic frameworks.

You can return to trying your luck with piano once easier instruments to match work reasonably with her.

Answer 8

I stumbled on this today while researching the answer as to when children start acquiring pitch. I am a musical/operatic soprano. Not a professional, but good enough to get many leading solo parts and have been encouraged to pursue opera career by my voice teachers (one of them a Pavarotti award first place winner). But due to financial and family issues, I didn't pursue that path. Now I have two boys and I want to invest in them. They are just learning piano and violin. Yesterday I took my 6 yo to his first private violin lesson. The teacher tested his ability on pitch. To my surprise, my child was rather flat. I was quite alarmed but the violin teacher said he already sounds better than most 6yo he has taught and that pitch will eventually come. I am self taught in piano but I love the violin (I now own one) so much is that it is so fluid, and I love having to locate that perfect note on a string, instead of mechanically playing a piano.

I have come across many adults that are tone deaf in my life time ( I am 44 now). Some of them realize that they cannot sing, and some of them have no clue that they cannot sing in tune. I don't know if there is scientific truth in being tone deaf. I am not sure if there is enough study done in this area.

The truth is (according to my own experience), you cannot teach a person to sing if a person is not born with that gift. Rhythm, pitch, especially pitch, a tone deaf person will never get it. If they do, it may be a very focused shot in the dark. You know what they say about opera singers, we have no rhythm... and I can't sing jazz for life, and I cannot play syncopated rhythm on piano..and we sopranos just have to sing melody. (although training can help with harmony)

Some parents have approached me to teach their kids how to sing because they like my voice. And in voice coaching, a singer can be taught techniques and possibly expand their range, but I always tell them, singing is an instrument. If you don't have the proper instrument, you will never achieve. I know I sound very harsh, and at the same time I have to be hopeful about my son to have a discerning ear in order to play violin right. His brother is 8 and they both sang do re mi at a school performance while I struggled with guitar chords to accompany them. I know my 8yo can hit the notes correctly.

I like to believe that I can train the 6yo to develop right pitch. His brain is still developing. It's going to require more work than needed for the 8 yo.

But for an adult, I venture to say, it is hopeless..sorry..!