Why people miss a note they can hear
Most people who sing off-key hear pitch perfectly well; true tone deafness affects about 1.5% of people. The miss usually happens in the voice: starting the note somewhere else and not adjusting, scooping up from below, or singing too fast to settle. Researchers found that most occasional singers sang about as accurately as professionals once they slowed down (Dalla Bella, Giguère and Peretz, 2007).
Another study looked closely at poor-pitch singers and found that most of them heard pitch normally. The difficulty was in linking what they heard to what their voice did (Pfordresher and Brown, 2007). That link is a motor skill, and like any motor skill it's learned by trying, checking the result and adjusting.
How to practise
- Listen to the whole note before you sing. Don't start while it's still playing.
- Hum it first, quietly. Humming takes the effort out and makes small adjustments easier.
- Start a little away from the note and slide onto it. Feeling yourself arrive teaches the target.
- Hold it for a second once you're there. A held note is where you notice drift.
- Check against something that measures. Your own ear is the thing being trained, so it can't be the judge yet.
Common misses, and what to do about them
- Singing the right note in another octave. That's not a miss. Men often sing a woman's note an octave lower, and that counts as matching it.
- Going flat at the end of the note. Usually breath running out. Take a fuller breath and hold a shorter note.
- Going sharp on high notes. Usually tension: pushing harder to reach the note. Relax the jaw and sing a little more quietly.
- Scooping. Starting below the note and sliding up. A little is natural; a lot means the voice is searching. Hum the note first, then sing it.
- Notes out of your range. Nobody matches a note they can't comfortably reach. Practise in the middle of your range first.
A five-minute routine
Short and daily beats long and occasional. Spend a minute humming and sliding gently to warm up. Then match single notes in the middle of your range, holding each one, for three minutes. Finish by singing two notes in a row, one step apart, so you practise moving between pitches as well as landing on them. Write down your average error, or let an app keep it for you.
How close is close enough?
A cent is a hundredth of a semitone. Within 50 cents of the note sounds in tune to most listeners; trained singers usually land within 25. The singing test measures where you are now, in about three minutes.
Watch the number over weeks rather than days. Tiredness, a cold or a noisy room all move it from one day to the next. A steady drop in your average error is the sign that your ear and voice are learning to agree. Once single notes are reliable, the next steps are intervals and short tunes, covered in ear training for singers.