Very fascinating! I really, really want to sing on pitch! I love how the voice can vibrate with the piano (or other voices), and create a noticeable oscillation when they’re close, but not perfect. One of my close singing friends coached me to sing sharp if in doubt, lol. He said that general audiences don’t mind a little sharp, but surely will get their tomatoes out when you sing flat! I appreciate you, Albert. You are a really good coach.
Hello Good Sir, it would be benevolent of you to release a series of video on the introduction to music. I don't know if I said that right but I hope you see this. Thank you.
Thank you for your videos. You are correct to endorse accurate singing as a foundation for accurate hearing and by extension, accurate playing. I would go so far as to propose that every serious music student should participate in a chorus, from childhood, if possible. This includes orchestral musicians. Why? In the Western music idiom, the concept of singing is the foundation for musical thought. We aim for a “singing tone” with all our instruments. Innately musical children generally can sing intuitively, and in fact, many languages (e.g., Italian and French) rely heavily on tonal inflection for meaning. Our society, particularly in America, has tended to suppress this innate musicality, and the subtleties of linguistic inflection is supplanted by a lot of grunting, shouting and wailing- that’s popular “music” today. Plus, the act of singing, for most people, is highly personal, and they are extremely hesitant to do it in front of others. It’s like people’s typical reluctance to be photographed. Getting a piano student past that obstacle is difficult but critical. When I was in graduate school, I always thought the best chorus was not made of voice majors, but of pianists and guitarists-because they valued above all accuracy of tone, and were far less concerned about themselves than about the aggregate sound. Frankly, these are the musicians who just cannot tolerate being out of tune.
This video quality is crazy! Are you already experienced it making content like this? The editing and cameria angles are really cool! This makes me really want a piano.
Thank you so much! Upgrading my studio turned into quite a project over the holiday. I used to be one of those jerks who assumed that “photography isn’t a ‘real’ art because the camera does all the work”… until I had a very modest application of recording piano lesson videos for the internet. It’s the furthest thing from filming a Hollywood blockbuster, yet I managed to mess it up time and again! LOTS of trial and error, lighting and camera experiments later, hopefully the results are finally just right. Thanks so much for such a kind and encouraging comment. Sincerely appreciated! 🙏
I needed this video, it's knowledgeable and right to the point of what exercises can be down to improve the process of ear training, so thank you for uploading and sharing your knowledge! . . . This is a small part of the video, but it gave me pause and I'm looking for some clarity in it. You sang Do-Mi-La while playing the pitches C#-E-A. To my training I would use the solfege Mi-So-Do for these notes, assuming we're in the key of AMaj OR I would sing Do-Me-Le for this. Is there a different system of solfege I'm not used to using that makes do-mi-la make sense, or was this just a small mistake? Thank you again!
Good point. I use and recommend fixed do solfège. This is the original solfège and the international standard. Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and si (not ti!) are simply the note names in French, Italian, and Spanish. Only these syllables are used, even for sharps and flats. This is ultimately a much simpler and easier method than the movable do method commonly used in the U.S., and I think it’s a more effective one as well. Incidentally I originally trained in movable do. It’s effective in the very beginning, but as soon as there were transpositions, sequences, or any kind of harmonic ambiguity, our whole class spent all our time trying to figure out which syllables we were supposed to sing, even though we clearly heard the notes in our minds and could sing the pitches. It would have been far better just to learn fixed do from the beginning. You might find this blog post and video explanation useful: key-notes.com/blog/solfege Hope this helps!
I’ve been playing piano for two years and this is something I’ve been neglecting. I do have a psychological baggage that is quite large due to my musical education. I was the kid choir teachers told to move my lips and not make a sound. Once in University an opera singer friend encouraged me to at least develop a stage voice, so I signed up for beginner singing. I was devastated when the teacher asked me at the first lesson if it was too late to get my registration fee back. It was and I went to the second lesson where she apologised and tried to teach me the fundamentals. But the damage was done and I never practiced. I guess I should start.
You could certainly whistle the notes, although it’s even better to use the solfège syllables (do re mi fa sol la si) if you can since they really do tend to help your pitch accuracy. In any case, whistling also allows you to externalize what you hear, so that would also work for this purpose. Good idea!
This was as concise as I was able to make it in order to share this valuable information. It would be worth watching again and taking it to heart. Hope this helps your musical progress.
Sehr geehrter Herr Franz, ich bedanke mich ganz herzlich für die nützlichen Videos.
Very fascinating! I really, really want to sing on pitch! I love how the voice can vibrate with the piano (or other voices), and create a noticeable oscillation when they’re close, but not perfect. One of my close singing friends coached me to sing sharp if in doubt, lol. He said that general audiences don’t mind a little sharp, but surely will get their tomatoes out when you sing flat! I appreciate you, Albert. You are a really good coach.
Just stumbled upon this and I appreciate the knowledge you shared with us! Liked and subbed.
Hello Good Sir, it would be benevolent of you to release a series of video on the introduction to music. I don't know if I said that right but I hope you see this. Thank you.
Thank you for your videos. You are correct to endorse accurate singing as a foundation for accurate hearing and by extension, accurate playing. I would go so far as to propose that every serious music student should participate in a chorus, from childhood, if possible. This includes orchestral musicians. Why? In the Western music idiom, the concept of singing is the foundation for musical thought. We aim for a “singing tone” with all our instruments. Innately musical children generally can sing intuitively, and in fact, many languages (e.g., Italian and French) rely heavily on tonal inflection for meaning. Our society, particularly in America, has tended to suppress this innate musicality, and the subtleties of linguistic inflection is supplanted by a lot of grunting, shouting and wailing- that’s popular “music” today. Plus, the act of singing, for most people, is highly personal, and they are extremely hesitant to do it in front of others. It’s like people’s typical reluctance to be photographed. Getting a piano student past that obstacle is difficult but critical. When I was in graduate school, I always thought the best chorus was not made of voice majors, but of pianists and guitarists-because they valued above all accuracy of tone, and were far less concerned about themselves than about the aggregate sound. Frankly, these are the musicians who just cannot tolerate being out of tune.
This video quality is crazy! Are you already experienced it making content like this? The editing and cameria angles are really cool! This makes me really want a piano.
Thank you so much! Upgrading my studio turned into quite a project over the holiday. I used to be one of those jerks who assumed that “photography isn’t a ‘real’ art because the camera does all the work”… until I had a very modest application of recording piano lesson videos for the internet. It’s the furthest thing from filming a Hollywood blockbuster, yet I managed to mess it up time and again! LOTS of trial and error, lighting and camera experiments later, hopefully the results are finally just right. Thanks so much for such a kind and encouraging comment. Sincerely appreciated! 🙏
I needed this video, it's knowledgeable and right to the point of what exercises can be down to improve the process of ear training, so thank you for uploading and sharing your knowledge!
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This is a small part of the video, but it gave me pause and I'm looking for some clarity in it. You sang Do-Mi-La while playing the pitches C#-E-A. To my training I would use the solfege Mi-So-Do for these notes, assuming we're in the key of AMaj OR I would sing Do-Me-Le for this. Is there a different system of solfege I'm not used to using that makes do-mi-la make sense, or was this just a small mistake? Thank you again!
Good point. I use and recommend fixed do solfège. This is the original solfège and the international standard. Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and si (not ti!) are simply the note names in French, Italian, and Spanish. Only these syllables are used, even for sharps and flats. This is ultimately a much simpler and easier method than the movable do method commonly used in the U.S., and I think it’s a more effective one as well.
Incidentally I originally trained in movable do. It’s effective in the very beginning, but as soon as there were transpositions, sequences, or any kind of harmonic ambiguity, our whole class spent all our time trying to figure out which syllables we were supposed to sing, even though we clearly heard the notes in our minds and could sing the pitches. It would have been far better just to learn fixed do from the beginning.
You might find this blog post and video explanation useful: key-notes.com/blog/solfege
Hope this helps!
Awesome, thanks!
Thank you!
Insightful video. I should have watched this before play the piano.
Thank you! Happy to hear it’s helpful to you!
I’ve been playing piano for two years and this is something I’ve been neglecting. I do have a psychological baggage that is quite large due to my musical education. I was the kid choir teachers told to move my lips and not make a sound. Once in University an opera singer friend encouraged me to at least develop a stage voice, so I signed up for beginner singing. I was devastated when the teacher asked me at the first lesson if it was too late to get my registration fee back. It was and I went to the second lesson where she apologised and tried to teach me the fundamentals. But the damage was done and I never practiced.
I guess I should start.
wondering if you can also whistle the notes instead of singing them? probably an odd question but very helpful and informative video nonetheless.
You could certainly whistle the notes, although it’s even better to use the solfège syllables (do re mi fa sol la si) if you can since they really do tend to help your pitch accuracy. In any case, whistling also allows you to externalize what you hear, so that would also work for this purpose. Good idea!
Great video (:
Thank you!
Too much talking!
This was as concise as I was able to make it in order to share this valuable information. It would be worth watching again and taking it to heart. Hope this helps your musical progress.