Pitch Training
Many people who have an interest in developing their voice place a large emphasis on pitch as a criteria for what ‘good’ singing is. Now you have a wider understanding of the fantastic apparatus you have, you understand that pitch is just one criteria and one aspect of singing. Each pitch has its own coordination for the vocal cords, and accurate pitch is muscle memory, not magic. Regular exercises of the kind you already do will help, and there is also some specific pitch training you can do alongside them to fine tune your pitch awareness and accuracy.
We naturally use different pitches in speech. As a result, muscle memory is usually most developed for similar pitches to those we use in speech, where typically pitch will vary somewhat, but doesn’t move in large jumps. Larger interval movements benefit from extra attention so that when they crop up in melody they’re easier to hear and sing accurately.
When it comes to learning melodies for songs, the first step is to be totally clear on what the notes are doing first. Do they travel up in a series? down in a series? up first then down? if you play a bit of keyboard or guitar, try to isolate each phrase and pick the notes out. Repeat each phrase for a few minutes to give yourself the opportunity to build up that muscle memory. When you have done this enough, it will be secure – just as secure as the melody for happy birthday or something similar that you know well.
Use these audios to help you fine tune your pitch accuracy – do some humming/buzzing and lip rolls/slides first and then sing up the intervals. You can record yourself singing alongside the last audio to see if there are any habits you have – like going habitually slightly higher or lower than the target pitch. It’s much easier to hear when you’re not also singing.
1. How to use the pitch training audios
2. One Two One Sequence
3. Eight Seven Eight Sequence
