I wondered if anyone had any good exercises I could try myself to help stay accurately in tune... I know that it improves with time, but unless you have perfect pitch it's so much easier to slip and not realise it when singing than on an instrument (where you have some frame of reference in the tuned notes). A friend of mine is giving me a few informal lessons over the summer (I'm teaching her French in return!) and if I can somehow find the money I'd like to have a few "proper" lessons (maybe one a month) when she goes back to uni. I am fortunate in that I already play several instruments (and have sung in many choirs) and so my tuning is better than it could be, if I am singing with others or with an accompaniment then I am unlikely to go "out" unless I have a cold, but singing on my own even 5 note scales I tend to go out a fraction at least half the time, and while it's not very much, if I was singing a whole piece a bunch of those little fractions could end up being quite a lot! We also do a certain amount of a capella singing at chapel in our vocal group, and sometimes we stay beautifully in tune, other times we go awfully flat... I figure that the more in tune each person is capable of staying, the less likely we are as a group to get horribly out.

Anyway I'm waffling, but help would be appreciated!

Maintaining breath support, and appropriate shaping of vowels are critical to me.

Biggest danger areas?

(a) Singing pp will get you flat, unless you have the same breath support you would use singing loud.

( Also where you have a descending scale or any descending series of notes,. there is a tendency to let go of the breath support. This was an area where I really had to work.

Have you heard examples of (a) and (?

As a flautist I'm ahead of the game when it comes to breath support, fortunately for me!

We spent most of my first lesson singing vowels!


I've not even tried dynamics yet to be honest (not when singing on my own at any rate!)... I'm just trying to stay reliably in tune even singing 5 notes up and down. (ending up the same place you left off!) I was trying at the piano this afternoon, and I am fine from the bottom to middle of my range, but when I start going high I have a tendency to not reach high enough going up, and thus end up flat coming back down. (if that makes sense) I guess that things will get better with time, but I do need to learn to pitch more accurately and confidently.

If you think you're going out of tune on for example a 5 note scale try singing it very slowly thinking about every note. Try doing it with the bottom note as a drone. I find that people are OK going up but collapse on the way down - you need to keep up the support coming down too.

As has already been said, breath support is the key to staying in tune.

David

It's only at the extremes of register that I really have a problem, but it does seem to be improving. I had another lesson today and it went really well