Tone deafness

[Jimmy]

Is this a thing that any of you guys feel like you're affected by?

I've found that I really can't hum (let along sing) one note to save my life. If you ask me what a G is, I can play one for you, but I won't be able to imagine it beforehand, or produce it with my mouth until I get an audial cue. I can barely do scales in my head (I always seem to miss a step), and if I try an arpeggio, I might get it sort of right, but my starting note will nearly always be flat somehow.

It gets more embarrassing when I think I'm singing the right thing, but then when I listen back to it I'm sometimes out by an entire semitone.

I wonder if there's a way I can teach my brain how to distinguish certain notes so I can always be sure of what I'm hearing. Like... going to bed with a pair of earphones and listening to a track of various instruments all playing one note while I sleep, heh. It should be easier once I'm past that point to actually play/sing the correct notes over the top of whatever I have playing at the time.

[the4thImpulse]

1. Get a piano
2. Play a note, any note
3. Try to hum or whistle that note
4. Repeat

Don't spend hours a day on this, I would think that would be a waste of your time, but a couple minutes everyday should start to help after a week or two (at least that's what I would think). Do scales and simple songs and eventually you will profit!

[Navron]

What you're talking about isn't tone deafness, but rather perfect pitch, a skill only a few musicians have, that takes years to fully develop.

Being tone deaf is more of a joke, used to describe a musician who makes a song with little to no harmony, the absence of a key, and just seems to be hitting random notes because they have no idea what music theory is.

[Raddons]

Steve Vai gave the tip to always sing what you're playing. Give like 15-30 minutes a day with your guitar (or whatever the hell you play) and run some scales as fast as you can sing them (pretty slow). Sing along, hum along, whatever.

[Nine Volt]

I agree with everyone here.
I can't sing well (I can rap though) and I truthfully have trouble imagining what a C sounds like. I think that learning about theory as well as just playing around would help a lot.

[Omnomnomnom]

Unless you have perfect pitch (almost nobody does; it can be a double-edged sword), it is impossible to conceptualize a tone without any tuning cues. That is, it is totally normal to be unable to imagine a G before hearing a benchmark.

However, SHORTLY AFTER hearing the benchmark, you should technically be able to conceptualize (based on an interval) any scale, arpeggio, or tone, with enough ear training. But it can be difficult, believe me.

Overall, it's not about knowing all pitches right off the bat. Pretty much no-one can do that.

It's about hearing the intervals in your head from a given benchmark pitch.

[Jimmy]

Ah right, it seems I got two things confused for one. I sort of assumed that most competent musicians were at least so used to the idea of pitch, that they'd be aware of how each interval should sound even without a cue. See, I know of quite a few people with perfect pitch, so I figured my inability to place a note properly in my head, and my inability to sing without being flat 75% of the time was just part of the same package.

I still think I'm behind, though - if I try to sing a melody, even with a cue, and even when it's one I've written myself, I often get it wrong - it can turn out especially bad if I try to a backing vocal for my brother. I'm convinced that I have a very bad case of tone deafness. I can figure out perfectly well how the scales work in my head while I'm composing - because I work with a program with a staff window, and so the tones come to mind easily.

However, my voice just isn't co-operating with what I have in my mind - I'm nearly always off. I'd like to think it's just a phase I'm going through, but I've been practising for months since I started taking lessons in January, singing every day as much as possible, and I really don't think I've improved significantly (with the exception of now knowing how to harmonize two vocal melodies - but I still can't always do it in practice). Is it tone deafness? Am I just incapable of singing properly?

The truly annoying thing is that if I'd known I was going to pursue music as a career when I was younger, I'd have taken up singing and piano much earlier - but by this point, I'm well past the critical period that would've allowed me to actually learn how to do those things properly. My brain has recently taken up the habit of forgetting things that I've been trying to learn almost immediately. It's almost like I'm genuinely retarded in a way that I wasn't even aware of.

As frustrating as it is, I will persevere. Thanks so much for the advice, guys.

[FIMprov]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with the others here and say you were just thinking of being pitch-perfect (which, trust me, isn't always fun, just as omnomnomnom said) as opposed to having a mastery of scales and intervals. I'm no master of the voice myself, but being out of tune without a cue is perfectly normal for the vast majority of musicians. Now, as far as this goes:

if I try to sing a melody, even with a cue, and even when it's one I've written myself, I often get it wrong

Trust me, it just comes with practice. To elaborate on my former comment on pitch-perfection, I am "self-trained pitch-accurate" (I can recognize most notes and intervals thanks to lots of practice, coupled with the fact that I have a ridiculously sensitive ear when it comes to tuning), and I'm still a terrible singer. Even if your voice doesn't seem to be cooperating with your brain (I know that feel, bro), singing isn't something that always comes easy. As far as the "critical period" is concerned, I'd imagine that singing acccurately wouldn't be impossible even when you're past this period, though it might be a factor in your learning that you feel should be going faster.

The definition of tone deafness, in any case, actually doesn't refer to singing or lack of musical training. To be tone deaf means that you literally can't distinguish one note from another, that your brain is unable to differentiate pitches and intervals. So I suppose in conclusion, you can't possibly be tone deaf because you yourself say that you can hear the music in your head just fine and imagine the scale; my diagnosis would be "needs more practice". I wouldn't call you "incapable of singing properly"; I'd rather say that you just haven't gotten a proper handle on it yet. So best of luck with the rest of your musical endeavors!