This is a statement heard time and time again in the singing world. Firstly, being tone deaf isn’t as common as you may think. Being tone deaf means that you wouldn’t be able to hear pitch in anything! For example; if somebody asked you a question, you would be able to pick up the slight raise in pitch at the end of their sentence. What this means is that pretty much everybody can sing and that you’re probably not actually tone deaf.

There are a number of different points I’d like to cover in this blog. Firstly, finding singing in tune hard is something that can be worked on. You may find there’s a discrepancy between the note you hear and the note you’re singing. With time, training and practise, you’ll pretty much be able to amend this issue.

Secondly, if singing makes you feel good and it’s not in tune, so what?! I believe that in life we must do things that make us happy. Singing is proven to improve general wellbeing and really does give that feel-good factor so, why wouldn’t you sing? There is so much pressure in today’s world to be good, that we often forget the basics. We forget that singing can make you happy! There are so many health benefits to singing and music in general. I am very fortunate to be part of an organisation (Tempo) who specialise in the mental health side of singing and it’s true, singing can be a very important part of your life. For more information on Tempo, visit our website (www.tempowellbeing.co.uk).

If you feel like singing in tune is hard, spend a little time working on it. It wouldn’t take too long to start to notice some changes.

To summarise, sing every day and have fun. It’ll make you feel good, I’m sure of it!

The simple answer is yes. For those that don’t know, singing in harmony means that you’ll be singing different notes (which are in tune) to others, to create a pleasant sound. It’s a skill that needs to be developed and is an important, but often overlooked element of any singing career.

The bottom line… harmony singing isn’t easy. Harmony singing takes years and years of practise and understanding. Like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes and also, some songs are much easier than others.

I spent a lot of time in my teens trying to work out, and record, various harmony lines of songs to consciously improve my ability to hear and sing harmony lines. I strongly encourage you to try to do the same. You’ll make a number of mistakes and this is useful. I really believe that we learn from our mistakes and for that reason, don’t be scared to make them. The beauty of harmony singing is that you’ll know when you’ve made a mistake because it’ll sound awful.

Another way to try and hear the harmonies of a song better is to search YouTube for acapella versions of the song. Acapella means ‘without music’ so this way, you’ll just be able to hear the vocals and the harmonies within the song. It’s still tricky but slightly easier.

I’d love to hear how you get on! For inspiration, listen to Boyz II Men. Their harmonies are incredible.

This is a question that I hear time and time again and it raises a few interesting points.

Firstly, auto-tuning and pitch correction are very different things. Auto-tuning is the thing that makes a singer sound like a robot or more specifically, the singer “T-Pain”. Most of the time this is added to a vocal recording intentionally. It’s a stylistic and an artistic choice. It can usually be found on more contemporary R&B songs.

Pitch correction on the other hand is a process that takes place on almost every commercially released song. This is down to a couple of reasons. To begin with, our expectancy of singers in this day and age is so high. Programmes like ‘The X Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ have turned us into very critical listeners. If a singer was to sing a slightly out of tune note on a recording, we’d probably say ‘wow – they’re not very good!’… which isn’t actually the case. Every single singer in the world will occasionally hit a bum note. It would be weird if they didn’t. Either way, the pitch is altered on a recording to ensure that it sounds the best way that it can.

Secondly, it also makes the song sound more polished. If a harmony vocal was fractionally out of tune, it would still sound good, but not as tight and as impactive as a pitch corrected, perfectly in tune note.

I actually think that pitch correction is a really great way of making sure that a recording sounds the best way it can. After all, that’s the point of a recording, right? To create the highest quality version of a song.

I don’t however agree with using pitch correction on singers that aren’t very good live. When the music industry uses singers that look the part over their vocal ability, we have a problem. I’ll use Rhianna as a perfect example here. When she’s recorded and is in tune, she has a very distinctive sound, which sells records and therefore generates money and income for the record labels, distributors, her and her team. Rhianna live, is a different matter altogether. She has a real issue staying in time and in tune. This raises a completely different point, money or music?

To summarise, I think that pitch correction used on great singers who can also sing live is brilliant!

I’d love to hear your thoughts.