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Singing in Tune - Fact or Opinion?
Musselmann
Posts: 106 Forum Member
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Now I am not musically trained, but I have a clean pair of ears and a bit of sense.
Why is it that whenever someone is accused of singing out of tune ( often Katie, Aiden or One Direction, but utlimately every act at one time or another ) , they are usually defended by their supporters with 'That may be YOUR opinion but it is not mine'?
So, is out-of-tune-iness a matter of opinion or a matter of fact?
Take Katie for example. there is no doubt that her tone of voice has an interesting quality, but she is without doubt second bottom of the solo artists in terms of basic singing ability - i.e. she hits bum notes and sings flat more often than her competitors. She also has a limited vocal range.
At the other end of the scale, Matt has a wider range and pretty much gets the notes he is aiming for. He is just a better singer.
This comparison is just a for instance. I'm not particularly a Matt fan or a Katie hater ( I quite enjoy the chaos she brings). You could make the same comparison with Aiden and Rebecca.
Am I right or are there people out there who genuinely believe that Katie sings better than Matt. Not the tone or the quirkiness or the stage presence or the X Factor or the likeability. Just the ability to sing.?
Let me stress, I am not kicking Katie, I'm just using her as a model for the wider question.
Singing in Tune - Fact or Opinion?
Why is it that whenever someone is accused of singing out of tune ( often Katie, Aiden or One Direction, but utlimately every act at one time or another ) , they are usually defended by their supporters with 'That may be YOUR opinion but it is not mine'?
So, is out-of-tune-iness a matter of opinion or a matter of fact?
Take Katie for example. there is no doubt that her tone of voice has an interesting quality, but she is without doubt second bottom of the solo artists in terms of basic singing ability - i.e. she hits bum notes and sings flat more often than her competitors. She also has a limited vocal range.
At the other end of the scale, Matt has a wider range and pretty much gets the notes he is aiming for. He is just a better singer.
This comparison is just a for instance. I'm not particularly a Matt fan or a Katie hater ( I quite enjoy the chaos she brings). You could make the same comparison with Aiden and Rebecca.
Am I right or are there people out there who genuinely believe that Katie sings better than Matt. Not the tone or the quirkiness or the stage presence or the X Factor or the likeability. Just the ability to sing.?
Let me stress, I am not kicking Katie, I'm just using her as a model for the wider question.
Singing in Tune - Fact or Opinion?
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For me, yday, Matt and Aiden were horrendously bad but I know I'll be in a minority where Matt is concerned. Katie was also dire, but that's a given.
Yeah cus I though both Aiden and Matt were in tune. I love Aiden aswell, not such a fan of Matt's but he's alright.. Katie has a good voice too I think.
A lot of people aren't pitch perfect, with some totally tone deaf.
To someone with perfect pitch or via scientific testing it is a matter of fact if someone sings in tune or not.
I personally don't know much about music other than what I like to listen to and what pleases my ears. I personally love Aiden's tone of voice but a lot of people on here think he's out of tune. I hate it when people try to push their opinions on others as fact.
Whereas someone who strongly dislikes a singer (i.e., Katie) will often listen out for the faults/bum notes.
It is a FACT. You are either in tune, or you are not. It can be scientifically measured and proven.
It is a fact that some people get wrong. That's not an opinion, it just means that someone is wrong.
Enjoyment or not of a singer is most certainly opinion, but you can measure if someone is out of tune or not so its fact.
Agree with both of these posts combined. It is clearly fact as to whether someone was in tune or not. But people will defend or forgive tuning issues for an artist that they like.
There are occasions when a talented singer will bend pitch to create certain emotional effects - and that is fine.
However none of the X Factor contestants are at that level yet.
Last night, it was Mary who was really struggling pitch-wise for me. She clearly didn't have the song fully in her voice and the praise from the judges was not warranted.
Wagner will never be able to sing in tune for an entire 90 second track - all this rubbish about him having an operatic voice is way off.
Cher struggles with pitch - particularly in the upper parts of her voice where she currently lacks the technique to fully exploit her instrument.
Katie just struggles. She has a small voice with a very limited range and even less technique. The same could be said about a number of successful artists - but Katie lacks that connection with an audience that allows her to overcome it.
Aiden - I like him but he does play with pitch too much and it can sound a bit grating at times.
Matt - there is an over-reliance on his falsetto which risks making him a one trick pony. He had difficulty last night with managing the transitions between his chest and his head voices - but pitch-wise he is probably the best of the bunch.
Rebecca - as I have said on other threads, her pitch problems are covered (but only in part) by her wide vibrato which makes it hard to tell which note she was attempting at times.
1Direction - there are a couple of reasonable voices and a lot of fillers. That hasn't stopped many, many boy bands from selling millions of records... pitch - hard to tell, we rarely hear them sing above the backing track
Depends what you mean by the phrase 'in tune' surely?
If you're talking about measuring it scientifically using apparatus then yes, it's an objective measure and therefore fact.
However, we're talking about Joe public watching a Saturday night TV show and judging the singing using their own auditory systems. It's a very subjective measure and therefore opinion.
I know, but everyone had a different idea of what is tune and what isn't
Completely agree with this!
Notes follow wave frequencies - but the human ear doesn't need to see it on a piece of paper to pick this up. It's just that some people are more sensitive to the accuracy of this than others.
Music is heavily linked with mathematics and physics.
Certain tones harmonise with certain other ones. If the tone you are singing does not harmonise with the rest then you are out of tune.
Saying that someone being out of tune is opinion is like saying 1+1=2 is an opinion. Pure lunacy.
Perfect pitch is also not necessary to be in tune or to recognise when someone is in tune.
Whilst perfect pitch is rare, there is also something called relative pitch which is quite common even amongst non musicians and which can be taught.
I don't know where this trend of calling everithing opinion came from, but it's ludicrous.
When someone sings out of tune often, then they are a bad singer. It's like a footballer who can't kick a ball, useless.
When it comes to phrasing, tone, emotion etc. then opinion can be taken into consideration, however this is not the case when it comes to being in tune or not. Anyone who says otherwise is quite simply wrong.
Yes it's a fact, and last night several of them were out of tune. It's quite easy to hear.
When I tune up my guitar, the strings are either in tune or not, there is no opinion its a fact pure and simple.
If something sounds in tune to you and it scientifically isn't then you probably have a slight degree of tone deafness.
Lol. Word.
I don't know about auto-tune, but I think the reason so many of them were out of tune is that Elton John songs are notoriously difficult to sing. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is exceptionally difficult to sing, & it's a shame that only Matt's mentor saw fit to acknowledge that.
With me, it's the opposite. When one of my favourites sing, I am hyper-critical as I have such high expectations of them.For instance, I think Matt was in tune for most of his song, but forgot the melody at a particular part of his performance.
As far as I'm concerned Aiden, Katie,Cher & sometimes Rebecca & Mary all sing out of tune. The judges harp on about that was brilliant, the small studio audience aren't the ones they need to convince it is the home audience.
Wagner is never in tune but he is fabulously entertaining, so Wagner is my winner.
Peoples opinion about singing may differ - but "In tune" is a matter of fact - not an opinion
a "C" is a "C" is a "C"
If someone sings a "D" when they *should* be singing a "C" they are out-of-tune - exactly like a piano that is out-of-tune
matter of FACT!!!
This is where the phrase "tone deaf" comes from (people that cant tell a "C" from a barn door
Some really good singers will sing different notes on purpose to create harmony or counter-point to the background music
This is often mis-construde as out-of-tune - usually by Simon Cowell who doesn't "get" harmonies or counter point
but out-of-tune is out-of-tune - Fact that can be proven beyond doubt
It is a fact. It's like Les Dawson who used to play the piano deliberately out of tune for laughs. It's no different to singing. It's either in tune, or it isn't. If anyone says its a matter of opinion they know nothing about music. You can sing a song in a different style, an octave higher or lower to the original, in a staccato but it still has to be in tune or that key.
And I agree with what you say about Katie and Matt. Matt is clearly the more talented because he not only has a wide vocal range but commands stage presence. He is streets ahead of the rest of them When he's up there you can sense his passion. Katie has a good voice but has a limited range, so last night ended up singing "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" straining to reach the notes. That was Cheryl's fault.