Ep 2 Live Q&A – February 27 2019 – What is pitch and how does it work?

Mike Elson: Right, awesome. Good, let’s move on to the next question, so question number three let me drop this in. Clicking the wrong button, sorry guys, [inaudible 00:25:24]. Here we go, question number three, looking around. Question number three comes in from, what is this? This one comes in from William, writes in, my question is about my pitch. He doesn’t quite tell us what’s going on with this pitch maybe we’re going to say that there’s something going on with the pitch. So let’s talk about the different types of things that can happen with pitch, getting the right pitch, getting the wrong pitch, being over the pitch, under the pitch, hearing multiple pitches. I mean there’s a couple different things that can happen with pitch. Well okay, go ahead.

Matthew Edwards: I hear people pretty commonly say, “Well I’m tone-deaf.” Most people are not. In order to be tone-deaf, it’s really a medical condition that there is a nerve that innervates, which means that controls the muscle that changes pitch in your vocal folds. And in some people that nerve can get damaged, it oftentimes will be more likely to happen after surgery. So like if you have a thyroidectomy, they could nic the nerve, it could paralyze the muscle that tilts your larynx and then you end up with the problem where you can’t modulate the pitch of your voice. People who are legitimately, medically tone-deaf, they speak everything in monotone. So it would be somebody who talks like this and there is no much relation to their voice whatsoever, okay? [crosstalk 00:26:49] yeah, but 99. probably 7%, I think the percentage of people is what it is, do not have that problem. They’re what we would instead consider tone illiterate. And that means basically is that they have not figured out how to control their vocal mechanism to line up with the piano, which is a man-made invention to categorize pitch, right?

Mike Elson: Right.

Matthew Edwards: So if you act 200 years ago the note that we consider middle C had a different tuning than it does today. Today’s tuning is higher than it used to be. And at that point in time in history like during the day of Mozart, people could sing on the pitch really well in that tuning. But then when you come over to modern instruments it’s different. And it used to be that in Europe they were still using a different tuning setup than in the United States. So if you were an operatic reformer who learned to roll in the US and then went over to Europe it would be up a little bit and so all of a sudden high notes that we’re fine in the US were harder over there, and it could really mess with people, okay? So knowing that, that it’s a man-made thing, then we just got to start teaching our brain where those pitches exist. And so that is a motor learning thing, an ear training thing, and it just takes time. Now one of the biggest things roadblocks that get in the way is not really understanding registration, and where pitches fall within your voice range. So sometimes I’d hear a female singing or trying to sing low notes, but they’re doing it in head voice. And they can’t find the pitch.

Matthew Edwards: Well the reason they can’t find the pitch is they’re not creating vibrations at the vocal fold level to create that pitch. They’re not getting enough vibrations, so they’re going “Woo.” And it lacks the core of the sound versus getting a little bit more chest in the mix, a little more vocal fold closure, thick fold usage. We can go from, “Whoo” to “Whoo.” And then we can start to hear where those vibrating harmonics of the vocal folds line up with the harmonics of the instrument that we’re seeing with. Does that make some sense like on a basic level? So basically to simplify that even more, you have an instrument that puts out these things called harmonics. And then your voice puts them out too. And if you are producing enough vibrations to manage the vibrations coming from the instrument you can line those guys together. And they line up and then that you’re in pitch. But what will happen is sometimes people are missing a lot of the harmonics and this is all they got. So then they’re trying to put them together with the instrument, and they’re not sure where they’re supposed to line those guys up.

Matthew Edwards: And then it starts to mess with their ear they get frustrated, and they feel like they’re off-pitch. So doing some basic registration work of isolating chest, isolating head, and then starting to work in the middle. A lot of times when I have people that have pitch issues we just start doing a lot of glides instead of trying to isolate on the specific pitches just moving around on glides until we start finding where our voice really does buzz. When it feels like when those vocal folds are really sucked two together. And then start to adjust, pick out the pitches that the person’s on, and then get them to start singing that pitch by initiating it. So you end up finding-

Mike Elson: [crosstalk 00:29:56] slow down because I’m following you, but like I’ve read a couple of books, so [crosstalk 00:29:59].

Matthew Edwards: That’s what Mike’s here to do. He’s here to throw me down.

Mike Elson: I don’t know anything. How do I find out like what pitch I can sing like how do I match a pitch, let’s back it down. [crosstalk 00:30:14].

Matthew Edwards: So give me a pitch. So here’s the [crosstalk 00:30:22] what you want to listen for is whether or not … There’s the circles of sound, and they’ll start to line up. Yeah, I think it’s a little bit easier to hear on a guitar. okay so, I’m going to turn this thing off. So let’s say I usually it’s tuning a guitar, you’re trying to get the two sounds together. When they’re off you hear this weird wavering.

Mike Elson: Yeah, so what pitch is the over-under?

Matthew Edwards: Right, so it’s really hard to hear. And so what we end up trying to do when we’re trying to match pitch is line up those two different waves. So we’re trying to line up the waves of the instrument we’re matching with the waves of our voice. So I’m going to try to just match up these two waves of these strings, so you can hear what I mean. So these two don’t match and all of a sudden you start to hear all of the waving come together. And there you hear this almost like vibrato to the sound because they’re out of pitch. But if I bring them back down, you’ll eventually hear where they line up. So that’s what you’re listening for within your voice is if there’s like … A lot of my students will describe it as circles that are going around, and they’re trying to line up the circles. So if it’s with the piano, sometimes what’s easiest to do is just start making sounds and going, “Aah.” And then stop on one of those, “Ahh.” And then find what it is on the piano. [crosstalk 00:32:02] you can move your voice around again, “Ahh.” That’s low G.

Matthew Edwards: So then you can move up and down around that pitch and listen for those waves. [inaudible 00:32:15] this going, “Ahh.” Just try and align those guys up, okay?

Mike Elson: Right.

Matthew Edwards: Learn single pitches just start going up the keyboard on single pitches until you master those. Then you can start moving up just by a single pitch at the time, “Ahh.” Or skipping one on white keys just going white key to white key, “Ahh, ahh, ahh.” And starting to get your brain program to how far apart those are. What I find is for a lot of people who are in that learning place it really helps them to physically play the pitches as they sing it. So in a voice lesson I have them sitting at the bench and then playing the notes that I show them because it grazes a kinesthetic awareness of feeling your fingers articulate the spacing between those pitches as you’re trying to get your voice to go in between that same spacing. So the other thing that can sometimes then affect pitch is the amount of air that’s being released or not released from the vocal folds. So when you’re not releasing enough air we call it pressed phonation, this would be press phonation. “Ahh.” Where I’m just like squeezing into it.

Matthew Edwards: And when you squeeze into that sound it’ll oftentimes drive you sharp or flat, and you’re not quite on the center of the pitch. The other upset end is going to breathy phonation where you don’t have enough of those vibrations to even line it up, “Ahh.” And you end up sounding flat because you’re not producing those harmonics. Harmonics are the vibrations that add up to equal pitch that come from our vocal folds. So in that instance, that’s where like singing through a straw can be helpful. So grabbing a little drinking straw, they call it straw phonation, you put it in between your lips and try to match the pitch singing through these. Feeling like you buzz these guys like a kazoo because what that does is it helps balance that vocal fold vibration, so you get the right amount of air, so it’s not too pressed, it’s not too breathy. Breathy would be. You can’t even really make a pitch because the pressure is upsetting the vocal fold vibration. And if you press it doesn’t feel good because, again, the pressure of your sound hitting the straws upsets the vocal fold vibration.

Matthew Edwards: But when you get it just right, you find the right amount of flow, and then you can start finding that on each pitch. So you would do, “Ooo, oooo.” Going up and down throughout your range trying to establish that better airflow relationship. And a lot of times that will help you start putting an end to being either too sharp or too flat on pitches throughout your range.

Mike Elson: Got it, and now would you advocate because I have heard and I’ve experienced myself that the falsetto, which is a different register than the chest voice. What level should we be doing some falsetto exercises that can also help improve my pitch control?

Matthew Edwards: Yeah, I would say start exercising in your falsetto as soon as you can. This is a terminology thing. So what I mean by falsetto is that really light sound in a guy voice that, “haaaa.”

Mike Elson: I just want to hear you do falsetto that’s all I wanted to hear.

Matthew Edwards: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:35:51] that light, “haa,” that little sound. The female voice it’s also that light, airy, breathy sound because when you’re in that production you are mainly exercising the pitch lengthening muscle of the vocal folds [crosstalk 00:36:07]-

Mike Elson: Hypothyroid, right?

Matthew Edwards: Yeah, hypothyroid which gives you your pitch. And so you need to be strengthening that guy up. And then eventually you want to move into either reinforced falsetto for men or more of a classical head voice for women. So we’re going to be going from, “Haaa” to putting some more point in it, “Haaahaa.” So then as you blend into that regular voice which you heard happen [inaudible 00:36:32] “Hey.” Before you fill it in the rest of the way, “Hey.” But if you build on that falsetto in that light place, you’re really getting that lengthening muscle to strengthen up to be more coordinated. You’re lengthening the ligament and the vocal folds. And all of those benefit your ability to control pitch and especially to get the higher into the pitch range of your voice.

Mike Elson: Right, right, right, so if you do any exercises will you then go from falsetto to chest, chest to falsetto, or vice versa?

Matthew Edwards: Oh yeah, all the time. So like for instance in a guy’s range we would start carrying that falsetto down, so I’m on a G above middle C going, “Ahh.” And I’ll have them carry that all the way down low into the range, “Ahh.” And as we get to the point where they’re real voice can come in, what we then do is try to start crescendoing down into your chest voice. So doing, “Ahh.” To start bridging that gap, right? “Ahh, ahh.” Then do the opposite, “Ahh, ahh.” So your body’s starting to learn to be able to navigate alright I got it and you make it all harder by flip-flopping those things. [inaudible 00:37:59] you start in your chest voice and then you carry down into falsetto. “Haa.” And when you practice a lot it won’t do that little flippy thing that’s because I teach more than I practice nowadays, right? But that, “Haaa.” And then do the opposite on the bottom where you start off in head voice and then crescendo into head, “Haaa.” Then start going onto single pitches and beginning in the head, crescendoing in the chest, and then coming back to head, “Ahh.” It’s doing those swell starts coordinating your ability to go between those two registers.

Matthew Edwards: And then that also addresses that airflow issue because when you’re in chest you have less airflow and when you’re in head you have more airflow. And when you’re in that mix you’re starting to get more into that flow phonation place. So by addressing registration you will also start to free up the parts of the vocal folds that need to have some flexibility to give you pitch accuracy throughout your range.

Mike Elson: Great, great, well thank you for the detailed explanation. So we’re going to jump, and now we see Jonah, do you see the question now below. I’m just going to put it on the screen in just a second.