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I couldn't google any clear answers on this one, and I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I don't want to join some singers forum just to start this thread. Besides, it is related to piano because when I transcribe vocals to piano, I find it more difficult than transcribing instruments.

But why exactly is it harder to transcribe vocals? Some may disagree, but it is for me at least. It makes me wonder if they really sing at the exact pitch that the score dictates them to sing. Instruments (properly tuned of course) will play at the correct pitch no doubt, but do even professional singers sing exactly at the correct pitch? If not, or if there are pitch variations (perhaps intentional), is that why vocals is harder to transcribe? Anyone here know from experience how accurate singers' pitches are?

Most Singer's pitches are not as accurate as instrumentalists. They strive to be, they think they are, but they are not. I studied voice, sang professionally, and have spent a lot of time accompanying singers. The first issue is that what singers hear in their heads, is not what we hear as the audience. A lot of the times a singer may be slightly sharp or flat and not hear it when they are singing, but if you play back a recording to the singer, they are shocked at the pitch inaccuracies. Secondly, especially in Jazz and popular music a singer will, as they call it, "Bend the note" for effect. I've done a bit of transcribing of popular songs from recordings, and I have found lots of pitch inaccuracies...as a transcriber, you will get used to it.

Ok. I finallly found a reliable answer. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds transcribing vocals often tricky. I take it that a singer's pitch throughout the note duration is often not stable, even when it is supposed to be.

I would also add, in the line of Williamus' idea of "bending the note" that this is often what adds to - rather than detracts from - the marvel of a fine singers' vocal technique. It's true, too, particularly in popular vocal music but often in opera, that a singer will start a long note with virtually no vibrato and add vibrato as the note is prolonged. This doesn't necessarily change the pitch, but it adds an element to the vocal line that pianists cannot achieve. This is sometimes done in instrumental music, too, with instruments whose degree of vibrato can be controlled.

I think it might be accurate to say that a good singer/violinist may sometimes distinguish between enharmonic pitches, particularly when a modulation occurs under a single note: if, in the score, a single note over a changing harmony - a G-sharp becomes an A-flat, for example - the singer/violinist will intentionally micro-change that pitch because, in reality (the piano accompaniment notwithstanding) they are different notes.

None of this, however, should make it difficult to transcribe such vocal lines, I would think.

Regards,

I have to ask then, suppose a singer sings a note that is kind of halfway between E and F. How do you know which note to choose when transcribing to piano?

Folks, my wife is a classically trained singer. She sang with the Houston Opera Studio and soloed with the Houston Symphony (shared billing with YoYo Ma). I submitted the original post to her and here is her response.

"I think I might know what he is referring to… and it is NOT the accuracy of singer’s pitches. An excellent singer sings on pitch, otherwise they are sharp or flat, just like any other instrument that is not correctly tuned. A singer can and does sing exactly what is written in classical music for the most part, but since they are not automatons, various human elements are incorporated into what is being sung. These human elements could be a non-written glissando up or down to a particular note or an appoggiatura preceding a note or a glottal stop which is singularly human.



If the blogger is referring to pop music, that is a different animal altogether. I usually find that piano transcriptions of pop vocal lines vary more in terms of rhythm than pitch. It seems more staid when the pop vocal line is played by a pianist than when sung by a singer.



A classical singer has been trained to sing on pitch and rhythmically correctly... Also, classical singers usually sing in their correct tessitura. It’s sometimes more difficult for a classically trained singer to sing pop music because it sounds to “refined” and it is usually too high or too low for their voice. Pop singers are usually less trained. This being said, pitch, rhythm and tessitura up for grabs!"

Maybe this helps?

Shouldn't the key of the piece and the particular line of melody on which that E/F is sung determine which pitch one actually writes?

Regards,

But sometimes both notes are in key and sound ok with the melody. So in that case just choose whichever you like better (and hence why some music sheets of the same song vary in the pitches sometimes)?

I think you have it backwards. The singer if he/she is singing between E or F is either sharp or flat. I think it would be best if you didn't transcribe anything from a singer that is obviously incompetent and cannot sing on pitch. You said the singer was "professional". Pros sing on pitch!

Ok, your wife is classically trained and I'm sure sings on pitch. I should say that I have been transcribing pop music and I guess those singers are not so formally trained, but are considered professional because it is their career. I think Williamus was referring to these singers when he said that most singers of popular music don't always sing perfectly to pitch.

So we are actually talking about entertainers that happen to phonate, but can hardly be called singers. I am sure in some circles Brittany Spears and Christina Aguilera would be considered "singers". All bets are off working with that crowd. There are some interesting outtakes of Barbra Streisand in rehearsal on Youtube. Her standards are high and she sings on pitch. She is obviously not classically trained, but there's no doubt that she's a singer. She spends time keeping the conductor and orchestra in line so to speak.

Let's take Whitney Houston. A professional singer, right?

Ok, two different transcriptions of the same song, in the same key. I put a box around the notes for the word "know." One transcriber hears the notes A,B,C#. Another hears the notes C#,B,C#. They cannot be both correct. What was Whitney Houston supposed to sing exactly there? And whatever she sang why two professional transcribers could not agree on the same notes? I'm guessing that she must have sung some oddball sets of pitches that the two transcribers could not make out clearly, i.e. she did not sing exactly the notes she was supposed to sing (whatever those are remain a mystery now).

Looks like the transcribers just worked from different performances, no?

In that example the pitches are actually the same for "know" except that the upper version leads up to the C# which is the actual note ending the phrase.

All that this illustrates is that she likely sang different notes on different occasions. It is not unusual in pop or jazz. Two transcribers heard two versions of the same song. Where's the mystery? Chalk it up to artistic license. If you look at the original edition by Dolly Parton, that note is a C# unembellished.The style over the last 20 years or so has been to circumnavigate the basic pitch, as opposed to hitting it dead-on. It is kind of a throwback to some gospel style singers. It's not a preference of mine, but that's a personal thing. I am somewhat amused that anyone would transcribe a particular performer's performance note for note. I would sort of think that you would start with the original and modify it to suit YOUR needs (obviously what Whitney did), or style as opposed to a copy-cat kind of thing, but what do I know.

As to whether Whitney is professional or not, well I tend to lump her in the entertainer category. She had a good basic instrument that with some training and a lot less drug addiction could have been quite something. At her best, she really didn't know what to do with what she had. She was anything but subtle, everything was really LOUD all of the time and she wouldn't know a phrase if it hit her over the head. She had great vocal placement though, and unlike a lot of other performers could turn the mike down some and still be heard. She was quite a loss to pop music I would say.

I'll chime in with something that hasn't really been directly addressed:

To me, transcribing a singer is more difficult than transcribing an instrument because the singer manipulates the timbre and tone of his or her voice much more readily than an instrumentalist does, and I think that makes it harder to hear pitch accurately.

John Pels (and his wife) addressed some "human elements" such as glissandos, appogiaturas, and glottal stops, and there's no doubt these things play a role, but I'm talking about something different I think.

When you're transcribing the playing of an instrument, you can hone in on the sound of that instrument, whether it's a piano, a trumpet, a violin, whatever, and that's pretty much a constant factor, allowing you to concentrate on pitch. But with voice, singers can (and do) drastically change the timbre and quality of their voice in order to provide expression. Yeah, I know, instruments can do this also, especially wind instruments, but not nearly to the degree that a singer does. I'm thinking of a jazz singer who can stay on one pitch and modulate the timbre of their voice in all different directions... unless you listen closely, it sounds like they're doing a glissando or something, but upon closer inspection the pitch actually never changes, just the quality.

This, IMHO, makes it much harder to accurately hear and transcribe what pitches are being sung. It "confuses" my ear if I don't listen really really carefully. As a simple example, it's not unusual for a singer to sing up a minor scale with a "dark" tone to their voice, and then hit the target note at the top with a "brighter" sound. This almost invariably makes me think that top note is a half step or whole step higher than it actually is... because it's "brighter," my brain thinks it sounds "higher."

On the other hand, maybe it's just me and I have an easily confused ear.

The issue is mst likely lack of experience transcribing singers and the current NA aesthetic of loud voices which is accompanied with rather large vibrato that makes it rather hard o hear the intended pitch. Not much a singer can do either as vibrato is a natural phenomenon that allows maximum resonance and since concert halls in NA tend to be on the gigantic side, you get this really large vibrato.

The other issue is rhytm. A soloist will weave in between the other instruments and their time framework.

And finally, singers will purposefully sing say a leading tone sharp and say the bass note of an augmented 6 cord going to the dominant flat but I don't really think that causes issues as these micro tunings only distort the perception of pitch if you are relying on a piano to transcribe or you have rediculous perfect pitch were even micro adjustment will sound wrong.

I should also add that bin opera, singers are constantly out of tune. Even the current greats. Not all the time but having to worry about staging allows less brain juice for note placement.

Another thing to consider, what are you listening to? Live performances or recordings? There's pitch correction software that "fixes" notes for singers on digital recordings.

If you are talking about pop singers, I know what you mean. Sometimes though, I think the not in tune notes are intentional. It adds tension or emphasis or style or something. (I'm just guessing, but perhaps if they haven't been formally trained, they just sing whatever sounds good to them, not necessarily what is a correct note.)

I've always had issues with classically trained singers though. Even when they sing a note "right" there is so much vibrato that it sounds fuzzy and mushy and messed up to me. It's probably because I'm so used to the set pitch of the piano.

Don't see how you could have trouble with pop. Most of it is not only straight tone but then autotuned so that the pitch is inhumanly perfect

I never could stand to listen to classically trained singers. Too much vibrato, too much chest, and even when they sing in English I can't tell what they saying.

my girlfriend sings opera. it is actually painful to listen sometimes when she practices. Unfortunately it isn't a choice. If you want to resonate , the vibrato just happens. And you won't get work if you can't be heard. Pop singers have a microphone in their face so they can whisper pitches and then have it compressed then mixed louder than the entire rhythm section.

My girlfriend likes pop and had expressed interest and so I made it a little side project. I wrote and produced 3 pop/dance gaga ish tunes and with the temp tracks with a synth doing the vocal line managed to get funding to record with the caveat that she could not sign with anyone else.

After about 3 days. She gave up, well I gave up. There are all sorts of things you need to do to sound pop most of which are bad for your voice and every time she would sing, she would sound like a classical singer and no amount of coaching could change it. Like her pallet would stay up which gives the tone a really distinct character that isn't pop but that is the proper way to sing so she wouldn't not do it. She wouldn't use chest voice. I think she just wants the pop attention. Not to actually sing pop.

So true! Although the fact that once you get up really, really high vowels don't distinguish and it's very difficult to form consonants probably contributes to the incoherence.

WinsomeAllegretto, you should hear John Eliot Gardiner's recordings of the Bach cantatas. The vibrato isn't so wide, that if you're following along with text (and translation, unless you know the language, hehe), you understand exactly what they are singing the whole time.

Plus, they're Bach's cantatas, which are awesome!!

i really do think it is an American phenomenon. The halls area bigger, singers need to be louder .....

What nonsense! It's obvious to me from some of these ignorant comments that those of you making them have not even heard good singers!

So basically a classical singer can't sing pop, and a pop singer can't sing classical? Is it that hard to find someone who can sing both?

Some have better pitch than others, but other than that, they all sound the same to me. They may have great skill, but I can't stomach the timbre they all achieve by singing "proper". Sorry, you are welcome to enjoy it all you want.

Try :

Kiri Te Kanawa's album: "Kiri sings Gershwin"
Kiri Te Kanawa's album: "Blue Skies"
Thomas Hampson's album: "Night and Day" (songs of Cole Porter)
Eileen Farrell singing anything pop
Renee Flemming singing jazz
Marilyn Horne's album: "The Men In My Life"
Samuel Ramey's album: "Sam Ramey on Broadway"
Bryn Terfel's album: "If Ever I Would Leave You"
Bryn Terfel's album: "Something Wonderful" (songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Dawn Upshaw's album: "Rodgers and Hart"

These are almost all superb song stylists in the popular song.

Regards,

A good singer is a marvel.
I once heard an excellent cellist (David Finckel of the Emerson Quartet) say that he would tune his cello to Dietrich Fisher Dieskau's pitch. Listening to a great singer's phrasing can be eye-opening. Especially when accompanied by an exquisite pianist.




P.S. Here is an interview with DFD on his 80th birthday. A very interesting read.

"I am hard to please," Fischer-Dieskau admits. He thinks "much is being lost about the good ways of making music", and regrets the decline of "true legato singing" - a charge that critics occasionally made against his own performances. "When you have something to say in music the phrases must be clear - the beginning, the climax, and the ending."

Oooo, thanks for that, Andromaque. The man is miraculous. (Actually both of them )(all three of them if you include Schubert...)