Carrying a tune

[Bickery]

Any idea for how to help a child learn to carry a tune? One of mine can't even begin to and I'd like to help!

[Peggyann]

IDK, I've always thought that was something you were born with or not.

My Mom and I can,,,Dad and Mel couldn't carry a tune in a bucket! :lol:

~PA~

[indigo]

Any idea for how to help a child learn to carry a tune? One of mine can't even begin to and I'd like to help!

I really think it's something that can be learned. But I'm not sure how. C, even though he has a great ear, has trouble staying in tune. He's gotten a lot better in the last year. What if you have your kid copy simple note patterns that you sing? Just for fun. Maybe that would help forget that connection between ear and vocal chords.

[Bickery]

It seemed like she could at least match a tone when she was a baby/toddler. I stopped doing it with her at some point :(

[collier]

It seemed like she could at least match a tone when she was a baby/toddler. I stopped doing it with her at some point :(

Dh (a professional musician) suggests:

1. Having her match different individual pitches comfortable in her register
2. Then, have her imitate progressively longer series of notes. You could start with notes by step, such as Mary Had a Little Lamb
3. Have her imitate longer songs and songs from an instrument/CD (i.e. different type of sound)

Each step could take several weeks. DH thinks that pretty much everyone can carry a tune who has normal hearing. And if she could do it as a baby, she should be able to do it now.

Good luck!

[Storymama]

I can't myself, and I'm really self concious about it. I had zero resources to try and teach my daughters either - especially Amelia, who loves to sing, and was not at all aware that she lacked any sort of tune-matching when she did.

This was accidentally solved when I sent her to a summer Fine Arts Camp at 12, and lo and behold . . . they taught her to sing! For real! I thought it was just for art LOL! She sounds great, now. She especially likes to sing Jewish/Hebrew music.

I'm still hopeless.

[Sherri]

The music director at the last church I worked at could definitely teach people how to carry a tune. I think he did pretty much what Margaret mentioned, but I feel like I used to know some more specifics than that, but don't now. Part of it is practicing ascending and descending notes by following the teacher's hand going up and down.

True tone deafness is extremely rare. Some people naturally learn to sing and others don't just like some people with minimal instruction learn to draw realistically and others think they are hopeless but can learn to amaze themselves with the right lessons.

Sherri

[Sherri]

carryatune.com sells software that supposedly teaches the skill (if you google "learn to carry a tune" you can get a number of interesting discussions of the subject).

It is important to determine whether the person has a hard time distinguishing tones, remembering tones, is singing in a key that is wrong for them or using the wrong approach to singing in that key, or aren't providing the proper breath support to support singing the right note. I, for example, sang out of tune often when I was younger, and it was most often a memory problem. I could sing along with a strong singer reasonably accurately, but had a hard time reproducing the melody without another singer. Other people start out lost because they have a hard time getting the first note. They never get a secure sense of being "right" and strong when singing, so they never know if they are heading in the right direction.

I know many women who try to sing in a tenor or baritone range that are offkey, because their voice sounds really odd and thin to them when they sing in a more appropriate range for their voice. After being talked into bringing it up and octave, a few lessons can have them singing along well.

Anyway, it can be a lot of things.

Sherri

[macaquinha]

Any idea for how to help a child learn to carry a tune? One of mine can't even begin to and I'd like to help!

Learning to play an instrument helped my kids tremendously because it forced them to learn to listen for the pitch. They're still not all that reliable when singing a tune by themselves, but they're both way better than they used to be. Strings (violin, viola, cello, bass) are especially good for ear-training because you have to be able to pitch each note.

FWIW, I agree with Margaret's husband. My brother teaches sight-reading and ear-training, and does pretty much what R suggested.