Do You Know How to Sing in Key?

The question of how to sing in key is one that asked often. Believe it or not, it’s even asked by singers from time to time. We’re going to try to answer that question for you here and hopefully you’ll get a feel for it.

I’ve had a number of occasions during my “career” as a singer when people have approached me and said something to the effect of “Man…. That’s really great singing, I love to sing too, but how do you stay in key like that?” Well it’s not that hard actually once you start to develop the right habits.

Think about it for just a second. What’s the first thing you notice when you hear a singer that you don’t like? You might think that it’s just the sound of their voice but what it is in fact is their voice, coupled with the fact that they’re not singing in key. This failure to be singing in key greatly exaggerates any persons’ voice in a way that usually makes them sound terrible. Once you get that person to learn how to sing in key, then all of a sudden they sound good, maybe even really good.

The truth is that just about anybody can sing equally well when compared to the next average person. It’s been my experience that there are only a handful of people that actually have a really “nice” voice. Most singers these days rely on all kinds of effects to make their voice sound good, programs like Antares Autotune to give them the “robot voice” or even other types of pitch correction software. While all of those programs serve a legitimate function as far as music production goes, it doesn’t help most people when it comes to live singing. Most singers these days have an average voice but they know how to sing in key or in the correct pitch,  that is the proper volume in the mix, so it sounds good to the end listener.

So, back to business then. How do we learn to sing in key? Well, it’s another common theme on this site, it comes down to you listening to what it is that you’re doing, or doing wrong as the case may be, and making the necessary corrections to make it sound good. The single biggest thing any person can do to improve their singing is to learn how to listen to what they’re singing. This is more important than the singing itself. If it sounds right, then you can be sure that the singing component is taking care of itself.

It’s sort of funny actually, if you were to play a note on a keyboard, and then try to emulate that note by singing, it would go like this. When the notes match it would obviously sound perfect. The notes would be in unison and have the same frequency, so the only difference would be the difference between the keyboard tone, and the vocal tone. Just as an example, we’ll pretend that you slowly slide the vocal note up a bit in pitch. So, your vocal note goes up a bit and as it does so you’ll notice that you hear a little bit of a wavering sound between the two notes. It will sound like a sort of waaaaaawaaaaaaaawaaaaaaa kind of thing. Continue to slide up just a little further and you’ll notice that sound increasing in frequency so that it sounds more like waawaawaawaawaawaa. As you finally hit the next note in the chromatic scale with your voice, which would correspond with the next higher key on the keyboard (black or white, depending where you started) it will sound terrible.  Keep going higher and you’ll notice that the notes will start to work together again in a way that sounds like a harmony. That’s because it is a harmony.

If you pay attention to how this concept works, you can begin to see that notes that are closer together sound more dissonant when produced at the same time. Alternatively, notes that are further apart will start to sound better (specifically 3rds and 5ths, but that’s a music lesson in degrees and is more than we need to touch on here).

The ironic thing about this whole idea is that when a person is not sure about how to sing in key, and they start to sing a song they may actually be closer to the notes they need to be singing than they sound like. This is because notes that are side by side on the chromatic scale sound terrible when played together, so it stands to reason that they may actually be very close to singing a song in the proper key after all. If they move the notes they’re singing further away from the note they’re trying to sing, it’ll eventually turn into a harmony and sound good as well. Get it?

So how does this help you learn how to sing in key and what does it have to do with listening? It’s simple, if you’re singing a note and it sounds off compared to the note you’re trying to sing, then you need to adjust your pitch up or down to hit the right note. Chances are you’re only a note or two away from where you want to be and don’t actually have to adjust your pitch that far anyways. You’ll hear when it gets to be closer to the note you’re trying to emulate because the waaaaaaaawaaaaaaawaaaaa that you hear will become longer or even non existant. Then you’ll know you’re doing it right.

It all comes down to listening and knowing what to listen for. Of course I’m only talking about singing the right notes. They could be a full octave lower or higher if need be to make it work and still sound OK.  I’m not talking about a person that is trying to hit a note that’s out of their range and they end up singing flat either. That person needs to learn how to use their head voice to hit the right notes. If you’re constantly singing out of your range you’ll never learn how to sing in key.

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