Rex Trulove
There is no shortage of people who think that they can’t sing, for one reason or another. I’ve already addressed one of those ‘reasons’; people who think they can’t sing because they aren’t talented enough. Talent is definitely not a pre-requisite for being able to sing well. Does that mean that nobody was ever born with singing talent? Of course not. However, as Tera Simons, celebrity voice coach, X-Factor finalist, founder, and owner of Tera Simons Studios says repeatedly, “Singing is 90% mental and 10% talent.” In other words, if you can talk, you can sing. Another reason people give for not being able to sing, though, is “I’m tone-deaf” This is almost certainly untrue.
Tone deafness is defined as relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch. Would it surprise you to learn that only 1 to 5% of the population is actually tone deaf? People may have been told that they are tone-deaf, but few people really are. They may have difficulty singing on pitch, but this isn’t tone-deafness and they can be taught to sing on pitch. If you can tell when someone else is singing wildly off-key, you definitely aren’t tone-deaf. Improper technique can cause a person to sing off-key, but they can learn to sing properly. That is what this whole series is about, after all.
Remember the part about singing being 90% mental? Don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you can’t sing because_____ (you fill in the blank with any reason/excuse). Instead, tell yourself that you can sing because you can.
The sad truth is that nobody will believe you can do something until you first believe you can. Put in a different way, if you believe you are going to fail, you are going to fail. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is true of anything in your life and not just singing.
Naturally, nobody can force you to sing if you don’t want to, but there is absolutely no reason to offer excuses not to sing, at least for yourself. That includes the excuse of being tone-deaf.
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Has anyone ever sugggested that you are tone-deaf?
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Yes
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No
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No, but I’ve thought I was
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I am definitely not tone deaf. I played the piano for a long time and when I sat down to play I already had the melody in my mind and I knew just what it had to sound like.
Excellent. That is playing by ear. Most of the instruments I play are played by ear. I’d wager that if you listen to someone singing and they sing a flat note, you can instantly tell that they are flat.
I was not told that I was tone deaf, but that I sang off key, so instead of singing, I play the clarinet, flute, saxophone, piccolo and guitar. So I can’t control my voice, but the musical instruments all come out fine.
Telling a person that they sing off-key is also deceptive. A great deal has to do with voice placement, which I also haven’t written about yet. It is a learned ability. In fact, the same is true of musical instruments. They must be learned and practiced before they sound right.
No, no one said it, I sing, and I love singing, just I am far away from a true singer. being a child, I sang in the school choir but did not very like it. I more loved to dance.
You can become better at it. Even professional singers are continuously trying to become better at it.