A question for people who can’t sing….

Middle C is just the middle C on the piano - the white note to the left of two black notes. So the most central one.

Anyone who’s had piano lessons for a year or two will almost certainly know what middle C is, whether they can sing in tune or not.

I thought ‘perfect pitch’ meant being able to identify any note straight off. I can sing a middle C, but certainly wouldn’t be able to identify a random A or F sharp.

Last Christmas my DGS had a lovely afternoon together putting up my tree, eating sweeties and listening to carols - at one point he said to me 'please don't sing this Nana, I like this one' 😂

I can't carry a tune in a bucket!, If my speaking voice is recorded I sound like Peggy Mitchell, unless I'm using my posh voice and then I sound like Dot Cotton. Hey ho, in my mind I should have been one of the girls in ABBA, thankfully my family still loves me!

I had 3 lessons and came out more convinced I can't sing than when I went in, so I quit before I depressed myself into never opening my mouth again!

Turns out I can't open my mouth fully. (Or stick my tongue out far, or as AHH at the dentist etc)

I can carry a tune ok if singing by myself but my voice is naturally in an atypical key, I think.

I just transpose the song automatically into a key I can sing , and when I drop it to a more common key my throat hurts.

This!!

Oops posted twice

I think what I hear is what I want to hear. You know those “audio illusions” where you hear a piece of audio and if you’re told that it says “green bag” you hear “green bag” but if you’re told it says “red car” you hear “red car”? I think that’s what happens in my head, because I sound ok in my head.

i can recognise tunes and enjoy music; I just can’t seem to reproduce it!

Sorry, what’s your experience/background to make the claim that there is no difference between head and chest voice? I’m not a singer myself but have been playing in bands for over 30 years and worked with incredible singers and every single one of them has used these terms and the difference is very clear to me. Anyone with a professional interest in music knows that these are real things and all singing teachers train them, especially the transition between chest and head voice.

It's not that bit (although I sound pretty bad thr whole way through 😬) It's when she sings

Promise I'll be KIND
But I won't stop until that boy is MINE

KIND is just - impossible! I can hear it in my head but my voice does not comply!

There’s a big difference between being musical and having any level of technical proficiency on an instrument. Sorry, but you are musical!!

DH is in a choir. As well as proper concerts, they do a big informal carol concert at the local pub at Christmas time. One of the singers said to me: 'I see you know all the words my heart '(I mime them ) '- why don't you join us?' I told her I can't sing and she said, 'I bet you can.' So I thought - I'll give it a go. I know these carols so well. A few songs in, she said, 'OK, yeah. Maybe go back to the crowd!'

My talking voice is alright. Apparently I have a warm and relaxing tone with a hint of west country (my loverrrr) but...my dog and dh howl in horror and disgust whenever I try to sing.
Doesn't stop me though.

@HesterLeggatt I can sing and am in a choir, I can sing you a tune that I know, in tune, from any starting note that you give me (vocal range allowing), but I don't have perfect pitch or the ability to start singing a song in the same key as it was recorded in. e.g. I know Paparazzi and can sing it in tune, but would only be able to approximately pitch it and probably wouldn't start on the same note as the Lady Gaga recording.

If you gave me middle C, I can do intervals and sing you back a note that you ask me for based off the starting note. I can harmonise when someone else is singing and so on. So I think I have what you'd call relative pitch, rather than perfect (absolute) pitch.

This made me smile, partly because it is so me - I don't recognise notes at all. In fact, I only recently discovered that "Do Ray Me..." were each a different note. Who knew? DD, who is very musical, and can teach herself a tune on the piano just by picking out the notes, is very scathing about my lack of musical ability. I think it's hard to understand when music comes so naturally to you. But when it doesn't, all notes sound more or less the same!

McGurk effect

I can hear that I'm terrible but would have no idea how to make my voice make a certain note.

Don't you hear it when they're singing it?

Going up and down the steps

I love singing Both parents had perfect pitch and would get cross with me as a child, thinking I was just messing around rather than singing perfectly. They sent me to a school where music and being in the choir was a big thing. The usually very very critical music teacher smiled at me for my first (and only) audition for the choir and said it was important to have enthusiastic singers in the congregation. I was very happy with that.

In the mid 2000’s I got involved with a research project advertised by The BBC, at a university in London, investigating what ‘tone deaf’ actually meant. They suggested I lacked musical memory, I could join in a sound which was being sung by someone else but not by myself. And I could keep up with them for about a bar and then lost it completely, memory overload.

Now I consider it a blessing. Very musical DH genuinely suffers when he hears people singing off key. I just don’t notice. I knew about Henning Wehn because of how people laugh and comment, not because I hear anything bad.

Rhythm is my superpower, singing not so much.

I love singing @HesterLeggatt but I am terrible at it. I'm either too high or too low. I wouldn't have any clue what middle c sounds like, let alone sing it

I’m a poor singer, largely because I had middle ear problems as a small child and I think I missed the crucial window for learning how to use my voice properly (I also struggle with volume control for the same reason).

I can more or less hold a tune although I have a tendency to go flat; I can hear when I’m out of tune, though.

What I absolutely can’t do, which means that I can’t sing along with other people, is recognise what key I’m in, or when that key is different from the key everyone else is singing in. I don’t really understand what ‘key’ is, although I can hear if there’s a key change in a pop song. A musical friend once told me that I sing flat and ‘a third below’, which I also don’t really understand 😂