# People's 'ear' for music versus their singing ability



## Catharsis (Mar 15, 2010)

This topic is something I've pondered for a while now: I'd like to know what some of you here think about people's ability to 'listen' to music and understand what they hear in comparison to how accurately they can sing a note.

This first concept started to bother me when I heard a friend of mine sing. On all accounts they appeared to understand what they were hearing in various classical pieces, and they enjoy a wide repertoire of styles. I would presume that their enthusiasm for classical music (bearing in mind it's potential complexity) would be borne of having some sort of understanding of it.

However, despite this it appeared to me that this person came across as more or less tone deaf. I would be interested to sit them down next to a piano and dictate them to sing keys individually; really testing how accurate my observation was. They sang as if they had no understanding of key.

So, can someone be a good listener, but a bad singer?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

That's an interesting thought, and I'd like to hear what someone more knowledgeable than me has to say on it. My intuition would be that the sounds created by music are generally received in the same way by all people, but where some have a problem is in translating the mental image of that sound into an equivalent vocal analogue.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

I had the same thought for quite a while now, which at times makes me doubt my musical abilities.
The sounds might be received in the same way, but the perception (having in mind the pitch and tuning) can vary. 
I remember when listening to live rock concerts by amateur musicians I could sometimes notice that something is wrong - either the guitar is out of tune or the bass picks a few wrong notes while my friends wouldn't notice them at all. I am sure that most of you had the experience of hearing those "imperfections". I just wonder how well can those people control their voice? 
As Polednice, I'll be waiting for someone's with more knowledge than me to comment.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Singing solo a capella and staying on pitch is a real challenge for many people. That piano accompaniment is there mostly to keep the untrained voice from wandering.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

There's a big difference between listening and appreciating music and actually being able to produce music. Singing is especially difficult, since the sound is not produced with any external device that can be controlled by touch, but within yourself. It requires the ability to simultaneously hear the pitches in your head and physically produce them. In my college sight-singing class, many music majors simply couldn't sing the notes on the page well at all, even if they could play an instrument well. Even when they actually knew the piece, many had difficulty staying on pitch. It's a skill that requires practice.

I've also accompanied for enough vocal majors to know that it's a struggle. You have to constantly rely on your relative pitch capabilities, which many people have a hard time with.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I wouldn't presume to know the answer to this but it's a fascinating subject so thank you _Catharsis_.

I wonder if you hear a piece of music differently from how you hear your own voice? Maybe someone can immediately tell if they play a wrong note but cannot hear their own wrong notes from the inside?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

sospiro said:


> I wonder if you hear a piece of music differently from how you hear your own voice? Maybe someone can immediately tell if they play a wrong note but cannot hear their own wrong notes from the inside?


That's an interesting idea and would explain not just why some people are out of tune, but why they are delusional about thinking they sound great!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"I've also accompanied for enough vocal majors to know that it's a struggle. You have to constantly rely on your relative pitch capabilities, which many people have a hard time with."

Thanks for this, _Ravellian_. I have saved the message to my 'documents' folder (properly accredited). And you mentioned _relative_ pitch, which is, of course, where the painful-to-hear wandering is. Most of us listeners don't care whether A=440Hz or 415Hz, as long as the intervals are close enough to being right.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

If this wasn't a simple fact, I would know tons of great singers because I sure do know dozens upon dozens of excellent musicians. This, unfortunately, does not translate into good singing nor is there any connection.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> That's an interesting idea and would explain not just why some people are out of tune, but why they are delusional about thinking they sound great!


I know that my recorded voice doesn't sound much like the voice I hear 'from inside' when I speak. In fact, the recorded voice sounds like it's lower pitched. Hmm.

Not relevant here, but my regional accent seems more pronounced in the recording. Hmm, again.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

at 30:20 in this video there's the story of the first day of the collaboration of Fenby with Delius. Fenby had perfect pitch and still listen at 30:52 what he heard :lol:


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Joseph Calleja invites questions via his musician/band facebook page so I've just asked this:



> When you listen to a recording of your voice does it sound different to when you're actually singing and you hear your voice 'from inside'?


He's not able to answer everyone's questions but if I get a response, I'll post it on here.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

You can tell that someone is bad at singing in tune when they think that moving their hand up and down by their faces will make them more in tune.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

There is a nice answer to the question of hearing one's own voice here. Basically, you hear your voice through a combination of sound waves through the atmosphere and through the bone and tissues of your head. The lower frequencies are transmitted better through your head so your voice sounds lower and distinctly different.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> There is a nice answer to the question of hearing one's own voice here. Basically, you hear your voice through a combination of sound waves through the atmosphere and through the bone and tissues of your head. The lower frequencies are transmitted better through your head so your voice sounds lower and distinctly different.


That's really interesting, thank you!


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## Catharsis (Mar 15, 2010)

OK, thanks for the ideas everyone. My own take on the matter is that there isn't a clear cut answer. From a personally devised "theoretical" experiment I would suggest looking at doing something at the basic level, e.g. "what do you think you hear here?"; do a series of "tests" in a similar respect, then likewise assess that person's accuracy at reproducing a note. The latter part is more scientific. However, I realise such an experiment is crude.

Anyway, this is what a friend of mine had to say on the matter. I think it sums it up quite well:
"_It strikes me as not only possible but common for someone to be able to hear accurately but unable to sing accurately. Most people haven't trained their voices to reproduce pitches and would struggle to sing melodies that they may well be able to hear perfectly clearly in their heads.

There seems to have been a fair bit of research done in this type of area. Two books that are good summaries of what we think we know about music and brain activity are 'The Music Instinct' by Philip Ball and 'This Is Your Brain On Music' by Daniel Levitin_."


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I don't know if this has any relevance, but I was just thinking about how when I tap on the table with my fingers, I can make the tapping sound to me like a complex melody with any pitches, though, of course, to anyone else without a preconceived melody in their heads, it all sounds the same pitch. It's just that I'm exploiting a mental image of a melody already in my head, and somehow affecting the way I perceive a fairly pitchless sound. So I think there's a capacity to have the image and sound of a melody clearly in one's head, but translating that in and out of noises you create is a different process.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Singing solo a capella and staying on pitch is a real challenge for many people. That piano accompaniment is there mostly to keep the untrained voice from wandering.


I thought it was mostly to keep pianists employed.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> There is a nice answer to the question of hearing one's own voice here. Basically, you hear your voice through a combination of sound waves through the atmosphere and through the bone and tissues of your head. The lower frequencies are transmitted better through your head so your voice sounds lower and distinctly different.


This helps me understand why I always hear myself when I speak but others never seem to! haha, thanks


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Yes it's possible. I have a degree in composition, and yet my own singing reminds me of Peter Boyle as the monster in Young Frankenstein trying to sing _Puttin' On The Ritz_!


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Singing is a physical skill. Just because I can appreciate good handwriting, doesn't mean I can produce it (and I can't).

i also know i could never be a good pianist for two reasons: 1) I have too good an ear, and once I've heard a piece or know it from other performances, I'll to play what I heard rather than what's on the page. 2). Don't have the physical skills. Have written several million words on typewriters and computer keyboards and still make enough mistakes that I know I would be an awful pianist. ;-)


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Catharsis said:


> This topic is something I've pondered for a while now: I'd like to know what some of you here think about people's ability to 'listen' to music and understand what they hear in comparison to how accurately they can sing a note.
> 
> This first concept started to bother me when I heard a friend of mine sing. On all accounts they appeared to understand what they were hearing in various classical pieces, and they enjoy a wide repertoire of styles. I would presume that their enthusiasm for classical music (bearing in mind it's potential complexity) would be borne of having some sort of understanding of it.
> 
> ...


I haven't read everything said in this thread but it seems to me listening is about following the structure of a piece and the drama and development of ideas.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I'm not offering this as a general explanation, but there are many for whom performance anxiety is an issue. Have you heard the one about death being the second greatest fear of many people, just a little behind public speaking? Well, I suspect adding public singing to the mix might push death to third place.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

kv466 said:


> If this wasn't a simple fact, I would know tons of great singers because I sure do know dozens upon dozens of excellent musicians. This, unfortunately, does not translate into good singing nor is there any connection.


A-Yep!

Any group of well-musical first year music students going at the task in ear-training, where we all have to sight-sing, is a perfect demonstration: many are not at all used to using their voice in singing, even if they have a good ear. What sounds initially come out of all of those without any previous experience or practice -- with self-consciousness and wanting to get it right usually a good part of what is going on -- is anything but pitch accurate or stellar singing 

The fact the vast majority of those who signed up for those courses later pass those courses and meet all the course requirements also shows that skill, which is not initially attached "to the ear," is one which is readily learned through constant and diligent practice. People who "could not carry a tune in a bucket," will several semesters later successfully and accurately sight-sing an atonal line -- that is if they have any hopes to pass the ear-training courses.

The quality of their singing voices is all over the map. A high quality singing voice is "something else," that for most is a matter of an entirely different and extensive technical training.

So meander all over the place is something quite typical for even those with a more than decent ear, and it has more to do with unfamiliarity of using their voice than a lack of any kind of ability 'to hear.'


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

Catharsis said:


> This topic is something I've pondered for a while now: I'd like to know what some of you here think about people's ability to 'listen' to music and understand what they hear in comparison to how accurately they can sing a note.
> 
> This first concept started to bother me when I heard a friend of mine sing. On all accounts they appeared to understand what they were hearing in various classical pieces, and they enjoy a wide repertoire of styles. I would presume that their enthusiasm for classical music (bearing in mind it's potential complexity) would be borne of having some sort of understanding of it.
> 
> ...


Yes, yes, yes! The above description could be me, although I don't think I'm *completely* tone deaf, just somewhat challenged in that area! What I think is being forgotten in this thread is that music is not just about the notes. The rhythms play for some of us an equal or even more important role. While I couldn't sing in tune to save my life, what I can do (provided I'm already familiar with it of course), is recognise a piece of music just from its rhythm. Over the course of many years and mainly through dancing, I've discovered that things that seem absolutely natural to me rhythmically aren't necessarily natural to everyone. Despite experimenting with several forms of dance, I've never learnt to count, mainly because I've never needed to. The only explanation I could ever give to somewhat nonplussed teachers was that the music on its own told me what to do and when to do it. Certainly I would have struggled to remember the routines without the music helping me.

What an ear heavily biased towards rhythm can do is throw up some anomalies. I've only just discovered by complete chance from clicking on a link here, that Gounod's "Repentir" and "O Divine Redeemer" are the same song! It's not the first time I've failed to recognise a piece sung in a different language from the one in which I'm used to hearing it. Changing the language changes so many dynamics for me that it can sound completely different. On another occasion I couldn't understand why the composer had written such a beautiful piece of music for the orchestra and then given the baritone a completely tuneless aria to sing over it. On rewinding and replaying it several times, it finally dawned on me that the baritone was indeed singing the same notes as the orchestra, but his interpretation of the music was so at odds with what I was hearing, I'd failed to put two and two together. (There are certain singers I now avoid like the plague if I'm trying out an opera that's new to me as I know I won't have a snowball in hell's chance of getting to grips with their roles.)

Music is all about movement and flow for me. It takes a good deal of concentration on my part to sit still when I go to an opera and I envy the performers who aren't under the same constraints.

So yes, those of us who don't have a good sense of pitch can still appreciate music and obtain a tremendous amount of pleasure from it because there's a lot more to music than just the notes.

That's my somewhat belated defense on behalf of the rhythm merchants!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If you learn the names of the intervals, and can identify them by name instantly, then you have a "good ear." This bypasses singing, and turns it into a ear/brain game. This is ear-training 101.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Singing is a physical skill -- requiring muscle and breath control, with feedback that can be provided by your ear, but avoids the concept of musicality completely.

I have a good ear, but couldn't hit a note dead on to save my life. Don't know how I would fare with training, but am too old to find out.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MarkW said:


> Singing is a physical skill -- requiring muscle and breath control, with feedback that can be provided by your ear, but avoids the concept of musicality completely.
> 
> I have a good ear, but couldn't hit a note dead on to save my life. Don't know how I would fare with training, but am too old to find out.


And very difficult I might add, tried for years but it takes lot of self-discipline and stamina.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm sure I'm not tone deaf but I can't sing outside a very limited range of 1 or 1,5 octave. In my view there isn't any connection between the two. My ears and brain have a much wider range.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

An interesting question. I have never really thought about it. I have a reasonably decent ear, and family legend has it that I could sing before I could talk. As a kid I had a good voice, but when my voice broke it kind of broke to pieces. Even so, while the quality of my voice isn't good I can still keep a tune, and I can whistle a tune accurately too.

But that's just me. As others pointed out, singing is a physical thing too, not just a mental one. Even well trained choir boys go through a phase where they can't sing well, when their voices break. 

I wonder how one should go about testing someone's innate talent. I always thought you could, for example, simply play notes on the piano and have the person sing them, but it won't work if the person has great talent but a bad singing voice. I kind of assumed that the two will go together, but perhaps not.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I'm certainly not tone deaf, and have little difficulty hearing when someone is singing or playing a little out of tune. I am tone dumb, in that I cannot sing a note in tune with an instrument or another singer. It's irritating, as I would love to be able to sing even modestly well.


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