Hearing out of tune

[rauschwerk]

In the past few months, with no previous hearing defects apart from the expected high frequency age-related loss, I have experienced a disturbing phenomenon: hearing notes out of tune when they are not. A typical situation arises when I'm singing in a choir, and a passage for full choir is followed by a rest and a soprano entry. To me the sopranos often sound flat, even when I am assured that they are not.

Have any boarders experienced this?

[ahinton]

In the past few months, with no previous hearing defects apart from the expected high frequency age-related loss, I have experienced a disturbing phenomenon: hearing notes out of tune when they are not. A typical situation arises when I'm singing in a choir, and a passage for full choir is followed by a rest and a soprano entry. To me the sopranos often sound flat, even when I am assured that they are not.

Have any boarders experienced this?

Well,, I certainly haven't, but I believe that Fauré suffered from this in his latter years.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

In the past few months, with no previous hearing defects apart from the expected high frequency age-related loss, I have experienced a disturbing phenomenon: hearing notes out of tune when they are not. A typical situation arises when I'm singing in a choir, and a passage for full choir is followed by a rest and a soprano entry. To me the sopranos often sound flat, even when I am assured that they are not.

Have any boarders experienced this?

I experience this every week. The sopranos ARE flat, but the MD praises them to the hilt, and gives the rest of us a hard time. We "fight" them to stay in tune, which often works, in that we haven't dropped in pitch by the end. If the sopranos are still flat, the MD remarks on how out of tune it sounds (normally blaming the inner parts). Tactfully, I ask for a chord on the piano, and the truth is revealed at last. However, on those occasions when the MD is absent, the stand-in conductor (who happens to sing tenor in the choir) usually does recognise the problem, and does something about it.

My advice would be to stick to your guns.

I have a theory about why sopranos tend to go out of tune more than other voices. They usually have the melody line, which often contains cadential points where the 6th of the scale (submediant) falls to the fifth (dominant). For some reason, this seems to be one that many singers overshoot, so that the fall is slightly more than a semitone. The dominant is of course a strong anchor in tonal music, so once a "new" dominant is reached, it becomes standard if enough people follow. The longer the piece, the more times this happens.

It is only a theory, and I'd be interested in reading the views of others.

[greenilex]

I am not an audiologist, but I think a soprano voice or any other is not a single pure frequency. Your hearing loss is not picking up expected resonances, perhaps?

[Alain Maréchal]

Does not Holst require a violinist to keep the off-stage ladies in tune during "Neptune"? Perhaps there is a tendency to "sag".
There is one well-known choral work (I cannot at the moment recall which) with a long unaccompanied passage. The subsequent entry of the orchestra usually makes it obvious that the pitch has dropped. I assume the rest of the chorus are following the sopranos' pitch.

[Cockney Sparrow]

..My advice would be to stick to your guns.

I have a theory about why sopranos tend to go out of tune more than other voices. They usually have the melody line, which often contains cadential points where the 6th of the scale (submediant) falls to the fifth (dominant). For some reason, this seems to be one that many singers over shoot, so that the fall is slightly more than a semitone. The dominant is of course a strong anchor in tonal music, so once a "new" dominant is reached, it becomes standard if enough people follow. The longer the piece, the more times this happens.

It is only a theory, and I'd be interested in reading the views of others.

I have encountered MDs who are not so lacking in objectivity of the soprano efforts. (I have no idea how difficult it is to stay singing the soprano line as the years go by but they are often exposed and given taxing lines so, as a contented Baritone, I don't envy them). I have encountered the same explanation (I think its the same) but in much more simplistic terms - i.e an MD demonstrating how flatness inevitably creeps in on descending phrases. On occasion the criticism of the efforts of the sopranos in this respect has been so unremitting I think they need to be "re-educated". ( I suppose individual voice lessons would help....)

Thanks for your suggestion / explanation EA.

[Serial_Apologist]

If hopefully this is not a physical hearing problem, which I really hope it isn't, it could be down to growing awareness of singers' tendencies to sing out of tune. Charles Ives made a whole career out of such default faults, didn't he!

[Dave2002]

In the past few months, with no previous hearing defects apart from the expected high frequency age-related loss, I have experienced a disturbing phenomenon: hearing notes out of tune when they are not. A typical situation arises when I'm singing in a choir, and a passage for full choir is followed by a rest and a soprano entry. To me the sopranos often sound flat, even when I am assured that they are not.

Have any boarders experienced this?

I sometimes hear a change of pitch if I swallow, so I think there are physical factors which can influence perception of pitch.

An old family friend who was musical mentioned a few years ago that he didn't like listening to music so much (though he still played piano) as it was starting to sound really rather out of tune. Also he wasn't so happy with his piano tuning I recall - and he had a superb piano. Towards the end of his life he did say that he needed hearing aids, and that getting ones which didn't mess up the pitch of music was hard. I think he actually spent a lot on several sets, in an effort to keep his perception of pitch as he wanted.

Re choirs - I think they are often not quite in tune, but it depends on the choir. It is possible that your sense of pitch is correct.

Lastly, regarding the performance issues, sometimes players and singers just are out of tune, and another complication is when a composer writes music which sounds out of tune, and a conductor insists on trying to get players to play the "correct" notes. There are pieces where this is a definite possibility.

[light_calibre_baritone]

I experience this every week. The sopranos ARE flat, but the MD praises them to the hilt, and gives the rest of us a hard time. We "fight" them to stay in tune, which often works, in that we haven't dropped in pitch by the end. If the sopranos are still flat, the MD remarks on how out of tune it sounds (normally blaming the inner parts). Tactfully, I ask for a chord on the piano, and the truth is revealed at last. However, on those occasions when the MD is absent, the stand-in conductor (who happens to sing tenor in the choir) usually does recognise the problem, and does something about it.

My advice would be to stick to your guns.

I have a theory about why sopranos tend to go out of tune more than other voices. They usually have the melody line, which often contains cadential points where the 6th of the scale (submediant) falls to the fifth (dominant). For some reason, this seems to be one that many singers over shoot, so that the fall is slightly more than a semitone. The dominant is of course a strong anchor in tonal music, so once a "new" dominant is reached, it becomes standard if enough people follow. The longer the piece, the more times this happens.

It is only a theory, and I'd be interested in reading the views of others.

It's very, very simple: breathing (or the lack of...)

[rauschwerk]

It's very, very simple: breathing (or the lack of...)

Yes, if the pitch is indeed falling!

I had better elaborate a bit. In a 20-voice choir that I sing in, it is true that the sopranos are not always good at keeping to pitch. However, in the octet I got going nearly 28 years ago, the other founder member is a soprano was in her early 20s at that time. I trust her implicitly to say if she is out of tune, and the other soprano sings very precisely in unison with her where needed. In the pieces where I have noticed this tuning oddity, the overall pitch does not drop noticeably by the end of the piece, which is what I would expect. That's the mystery.

[Bryn]

Searching for "out of tune hearing" offers many links to relevant forums but I have yet to find anything one might call authoritative. Might be worth getting your GP to arrange a consultation with an audiologist, however. There are some references to potential medical causes.

[ahinton]

Does not Holst require a violinist to keep the off-stage ladies in tune during "Neptune"? Perhaps there is a tendency to "sag".
There is one well-known choral work (I cannot at the moment recall which) with a long unaccompanied passage. The subsequent entry of the orchestra usually makes it obvious that the pitch has dropped. I assume the rest of the chorus are following the sopranos' pitch.

There's a notorious example of this in Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony.

[ahinton]

If hopefully this is not a physical hearing problem, which I really hope it isn't, it could be down to growing awareness of singers' tendencies to sing out of tune. Charles Ives made a whole career out of such default faults, didn't he!

Florence Foster Streep made sackfuls more money out of it, though!

[Lordgeous]

Searching for "out of tune hearing" offers many links to relevant forums but I have yet to find anything one might call authoritative. Might be worth getting your GP to arrange a consultation with an audiologist, however. There are some references to potential medical causes.

I produced a rock band once where the singer claimed that he heard slightly different pitches in each ear. It certainly seemed to be the case as we had to make sure he had his (one-sided) headphones on the 'correct' ear when recording. Another acoustic effect noticed over the years is that the louder a sound, the flatter it sounds (especially with headphones)!

Another unrelated observation: Does anyone else always hear the organ as sounding flat when its revealed in all its glory after the Also Spracht introduction? (At least on recordings - I've never heard it 'live'.)

[LeMartinPecheur]

Well,, I certainly haven't, but I believe that Fauré suffered from this in his latter years.

IIRC, Faure experienced some kind of compression of the full range of musical sounds, so that bass notes sharpened and high treble ones flattened. Result: a private existential cacophony

Only notes close to middle C sounded bearable in harmonic combination. It's been said that Faure's late compositions tend to avoid extremes of pitch for this reason.