PITCH PERCEPTION
This is a reprint of a response I posted on an internet group I subscribe to. The post was something about helping a singer who is challenged in the area of hearing and reproducing various pitches. Sorry it’s a little long…
Hi, gang. This is my first post, so be gentle with me…
If a person is challenged in the area of pitch perception, trying to get them to hear half steps is a rough place to begin. They don’t encounter chromatics very much in the music they hear from day to day, and can become discouraged quickly. So take a longer view…
Like anything else, it’s important to build their confidence (“See? I CAN do that…”) before attempting something more outside their box. I tend to start by having them successfully sing familiar hymns, or well-known commercials. If they can navigate those, move to major scales. I’ll begin by singing along with them in unison, and if they demonstrate the ability to do that, then I’ll sing in 3rds along with them. When a person has to sing alone in front of you, the knee-knocking will be so great that the brain often stops functioning almost completely.
That serves as the entry point. After that, some of the techniques you’ve posted can be helpful, I feel. The age-old one about the perfect 5th being the opening to the “Star Wars” theme, or the 6th being “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” etc, is great, because again, you are relating it to something in their experience which they can easily apprehend.
I’ve also found that typically, 90-95% of just about any choir can use work on this, and in some choirs (where rehearsal time permitted) one technique I have used to good effect was to spend about 5 minutes at the beginning of rehearsal doing little drills, all built around major scales (but as you progress, there’s no reason for excluding minor scales, I just never did use them). In that exercise, I will sing a pitch (a capella) and call it “One.” I usually would begin on a C. After I sing it, I have the choir sing it, “One.” Progressing, I will sing “One, Five, One.” Choir: “One, Five, One.” And so forth. What I sing gets increasingly complex, always singing the number of the note in the key and scale, rather than using solfege, which is a new language to have to learn. Singing numbers is instantly assimilated, since it is already part of people’s language and understanding.
After doing this for a while, I will go around the room a bit and ask people to shout out their phone number. I will repeat the number. Then we will sing “5-5-5-1-2-1-2″ or whatever. A ‘zero’ becomes a ’10.’ You can speed up and slow down as necessary. Sometimes a complex set of jumps needs piano reinforcement. Choirs have fun doing this…it doesn’t feel like work, rather like play, if you as the director treat it that way, and they look forward to it.
Later, during music rehearsal, if an interval is a challenge, I will stop the rehearsal momentarily, sing the interval (“2-7-9-3″) and ask the section to sing those notes with those numbers. After they sing them, I’ll ask them to sing the same notes with the words of the lyric. They will have all those phone numbers, etc., to fall back on as they do this, and it does seem to help, ultimately working in somewhat the same way as the “Star Wars” example, because of the increased familiarity.
When using this technique to deal with intervals not in the major scale (let’s say the pitch jump is 1-b5, a tri-tone) I can demonstrate (and have them sing) “1-5,” then “1-4″ and finally “1-b5″ right in the middle, maybe reinforcing it on the piano so there is no chance that a perceived inaccuracy in my voice will throw them off.
Finally, as they sing, insist on accurate intonation. This way, it also can be a good exercise to reinforce in-tune singing, though there are maybe some better exercises involving singing harmonies, if you have time in your rehearsal to do them.
Grace, blessing, and encouragement to all of you! I love and respect you, and admire the way each of you is walking out the Call of God!
Dave Williamson
checking up on myself!