A question for people who can’t sing….

So if I’m singing to the radio I feel like it’s in tune but almost certainly isn’t. But if you played a note on a piano and said “sing 3 notes higher” you might as well ask me to speak Arabic. My brain has no way of making that happen.

I agree. DS is a brilliant musician but can't sing. Like me, he has no control over the notes. He's in a semi-pro band but can't join in the chorus or harmonise. I hope it doesn't hold him back because he is genuinely so gifted and can hear the music. I score 100% not tone deaf on listening tests but vocal would be a different matter. Same for him, even though he's a gifted musician.

I’m not tone deaf. I can hear what it’s meant to sound like and I can hear that I am not hitting the notes but I don’t know how to make my voice do it. It makes me sad, I’d love to be able to sing.

I suppose that the easiest way to feel it is if you hum, can you feel how the note changes? Like something is going up and down. I feel like if I was a man it would be my Adam's Apple but I am not so I don't have one - but it's roughly where that would be, and if I put my hand on my neck as I hum I can feel the vibration moving up and down as I change the pitch.

When I talk, the sound feels like it's in my throat and mouth at the same time. And all accents have a slightly different facial position. Sometimes I can see accents in someone's facial mannerisms (only for accents I know vv well, though).

Maybe the awareness of these muscles is what it is when you can either do it naturally or not? And what gets trained when you do voice training of any kind.

No, I can't feel it in my throat at all, the vibration I would say is in the roof of my mouth? I think I do feel it moving upwards, sort of, in that my highest pitch hum is more in my nose than a lower pitched hum is.

You may well be right, because some people just have an innate ability to sing in tune - little kids can do it after all! - so there must be something that is different somewhere between them and people like me.

I don't have any musical aptitude. If I sing I can hear when I'm wrong but I can't do much about it. I can tell when our piano needs tuning but only in a very basic "that doesn't sound quite right" kind of way.
I did learn an instrument for a while as a child and I was ok up to a certain point, but it was very mechanical. I'd look at the music and know that a symbol meant I had to play such a note for a certain length of time but I always felt like I was breaking a code and never got "fluent" no matter how hard I tried. My DS who is quite musical was really surprised when I told him that I can't hear music in my head when I see it written down and I was equally stunned when he said that he can!

As a singing teacher, usually with some careful work and guidance you can get people to sing in tune. Some people find this easier than others and women particularly struggle with the transition from chest voice to head voice. I’ve only had one student that really struggled with pitch. She did make some improvement, but it wasn’t instinctive for her and she needed a lot of prompting.

I’m a horrifically bad singer and yes, if I hear myself sing on my own I can tell it sounds awful. I couldn’t tell you why, though. I know it doesn’t sound like it’s meant to sound but I couldn’t tell you if I’m too high, too low, too sharp, too flat or whatever.

I am tone deaf. I took part in a study a few years back, and I can't hear the difference across six semi-tones. I have no idea what that actually means, of course.

In practice, it means I can rarely recognise a song until the lyrics start. If it's an instrumental, there's virtually no chance I will be able to tell what it is (I can tell the National Anthem because it's so familiar, but not a lot else). I have no sense of rhythm; I have to watch other people and then count the gaps in their clapping before I can clap in time, for example.

I think I sing beautifully. I am quite sure that I am hitting every single note spot on. And I sing all the time at home and in the car. My husband has perfect pitch, and is a saint.

I have perfect pitch - when I'm listening to something. I used to be able to sing in tune (but not a particularly good voice) when I was younger. Sang in a choir.

Can't sing now. I lack the control so although I know what a note should be, I'm often a bit off or can't hit it. I know it's wrong and can wobble my way on to it, but can't reliably just sing the note I want straight away.

Yup, totally get this.

In real life, I’m the person they’d want to stick on the mic when it’s pub closing time and they want all the drunk bastards to just bog off home.

In my head, I’m sold out for 3 months at Wembley.

That makes two of us !
I can also hear the notes in my head but can't make them come out of my mouth correctly.
I can read music and can play a wind instrument but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket !

I’m a terrible singer but so what. Good singers tend to burst into song and then wait for the compliments.

I always sing in tune. I'm in a choir. I love singing.

I work with two people in particular who also live singing. However, they couldn't sing in tune to save their lives, and they sing along to the car radio whenever I give them a lift to the station. I worry that it's contagious.

So, for example if I think of middle C, I can hear only head what that should sound like, and then I can sing what that sounds like, and a middle C will be what comes out.

That's 'perfect pitch', isn't it? I had it as a schoolgirl - was tested, sang in the choir - but it sort of wore off as I got older. I recently learned I have a mild deformity of the palate/throat/sinuses, which probably explains both my inability to scuba dive and my musical ineptitude!

I can still hear when a note's off, but can't hear my own voice properly or control the sound it produces.

ETA: Out of interest, I just 'sang' middle C in my head, then checked with a video. Yes, I do still know how it should sound (to my surprise) but can't produce it to order. Also, I realised I didn't hear the note in my head - what I have is more like a mental map of the middle C vibration.

I wonder does this problem affect people who speak tonal languages and if so, in what ways?