Chapter 1
Understanding Pitch Matching and How to
Get Better at It
In our experience, all singers are concerned about their ability to sing the right notes in songs. Becky, one of our in-person students, has a beautiful, resonant voice, but many of the notes she sings are either sharp or flat, making her performances sound just a little off. This inability to consistently match pitch was what brought Becky to our studio. She commented, "I sound pretty good when I'm singing with the artist, but when I sing to a backing track where I fill in the vocals, something just isn't right."
That something is her ability to match pitch.
At the beginning of her training, she had difficulty identifying which pitches were off and what segments of the song needed the most work. But as she trained in the studio and at home using an online pitch detector, her ear improved, as did her ability to match pitches more consistently. This took time-short but consistent practice sessions coupled with feedback from her singing coach and the app helped Becky become the type of singer she has always wanted to be.
This chapter answers your questions about pitch matching and provides you with the tools you need to improve. Let's get started!
What Is Pitch Matching?
Pitch matching is singing the right note. But what's the right note? It's the note that is being played by an instrument or sung by another person. Pitch matching implies that there is a pitch that needs to be mimicked (or matched). For example, it could be a piano note, a guitar note, or a person singing a note. It involves hearing the note and then being able to reproduce it. The person singing needs to determine, by ear, what note needs to be sung. This can be challenging for beginners, but it's a skill that can be learned in a matter of weeks although it can take several months to become proficient. Just like other musical skills, matching pitch is something that you get better at as you progress as a singer. Given how difficult it is at the beginning, it's a skill that frustrates most vocalists because it interferes with you being able to sing the way you would like. This is why it must be addressed as early as possible in your singing journey. Once you have the capability to do this, singing becomes challenging and rewarding rather than frustrating and ego shattering.
What Is Pitch in Music?
Pitch refers to the frequency of a certain note, which is how fast the sound waves are vibrating. Slow vibrations are low in pitch. Fast vibrations are high notes. For example, middle C (which is an often-cited reference note and is also called C4 on a piano) creates sound waves that vibrate at 256 hertz (Hz) or 256 cycles per second. The note A above middle C vibrates at 440 cycles per second. The higher the note, the faster it vibrates. Most people can hear notes between 50 Hz and 15,000 Hz, with some people able to hear up to 20,000 Hz.
It is helpful to use a piano keyboard to help visualize where various pitches are in relation to one another. See Graphic 1.1. The keys on the left are lower in pitch than the keys on the right.
How Are Pitches or Notes Named?
Referring to Graphic 1.1, if you play the white keys, starting from middle C and going from left to right, this is the sequence of notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then it goes back to C. (This is also called the C-major scale, but let's not worry about that now!) You can continue this cycle until you run out of piano keys. As the notes get higher in pitch, it is easy to see that the next C will be higher than the previous one. When a cycle ends and the note returns to C, that's an octave. It's the same thing with the next octave down, where the pitch is lower. That sequence of notes going to the left would be C, B, A, G, F, E, D, C. All notes have octaves.
Sometimes you will see notes with numbers attached to them. For example, C4 (or c4) denotes the C note in the fourth octave. C2 is the C note in the second octave, which is two octaves down from C4. We refer to a singer's range using this system, which we discuss in Chapter 2.
The black keys on the piano are sharps if you are moving up in pitch, but are flats if you are moving down in pitch. Moving along the piano keys from C and playing all the keys, including the black ones, results in this sequence of notes: C, C, D, D, E, F, F, G, G, A, A, B). Moving down in pitch involves flats (same pitches, different names), so the sequence would be C, B, B, A, A, G, G, F, E, E, D, D. Notice that there is no sharp or flat between E and F and B and C. You can physically see this on the piano. Here is a keyboard with note names and sharps and flats labeled.
What Is the Difference Between
Pitch and Dynamics?
As discussed above, pitch is the actual frequency of the notes (how fast the sound waves are vibrating). Dynamics refers to how loud the pitch is sung or played. The same note can be soft or loud. As you turn up the volume, it doesn't change the note. And as rockers, we like it loud!
What Is an Octave?
An octave is the same note at a higher or lower frequency, which means it is vibrating at double or half the frequency. For example, middle C vibrates at 256 Hz, and the C above middle C vibrates at 512 Hz. The C below middle C vibrates at 123 Hz. Another way to think about it is that an octave is the same note, just sung or played higher or lower than the reference note. See Graphic 1.3 to see where these are on the piano. For example, the note of the higher octave for middle C is the next C to the right. The note of next lower octave from middle C is the next C to the left.
You can also test this with your voice by singing the song that almost everyone knows: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. Once you hit that second Do, that is the octave. But remember, you've got to work on your pitch matching to make sure you're singing the right note.
Is Pitch Matching Hard?
Pitch matching is hard if you've never done it before, but with the right exercises and time, you can do it. The biggest obstacle is how most people approach it. They sing along with their favorite song, sung by the original artist, and this is the slowest way to learn how to match pitch. This gives you a guide tone and is not the way to develop pitch matching. Pitch matching is developed by doing exercises that challenge your ability to match a note.
How long does it take to competently match pitch? That depends on the person and the note. Usually, it's easier to sing notes that are in your speaking range (which is also called chest voice). To match pitch relatively well can take from two to six months, depending on age, health, and how often and long you practice during each session. Assume you're working on pitch matching with a visual reference (e.g., online pitch detector) and spending fifteen to twenty minutes a day on it. If you are over the age of sixty and have never sung before, it may take six months to a year to reliably match pitch. On the other hand, if you are in your twenties and sang in the glee club in junior high, it may take you less time than that.
Remember that matching pitch is an ability that doesn't have a top end. You can always enhance your skill set. For example, you've developed good pitch matching, but how long does it take for you to find and lock on to the note? We call that singing metric speed of resolution - how long it takes a singer to lock on to a pitch. That is a skill related to pitch matching that will continue to develop over time.
Assuming you can hear the note (and that means you aren't tone deaf-don't worry, most people aren't), it comes down to positioning your vocal folds correctly. See Graphic 1.4 below for an image of your vocal folds. Positioning vocal folds correctly can be difficult given most people aren't even aware of where they are! To help you to begin to position them correctly, we recommend using a visual aid (e.g., an online pitch detector or app).
Pitch detectors will allow you to sing into the app, and the app will tell you what note you are hitting. This is where it is important for you to pay attention to how your throat feels. What is the sensation when you hit the note correctly? Using a pitch detector and paying attention to your body sensations gives you...
