Thursday Seeds | Rise up and over, light softly on top

The cure for a sliding pitch is to rise up and over, and then light softly on top of the pitch.

You’ll nail the note for sure and bring confidence to the performance and joy to the song because you did it, you didn’t slide down into the dumps of off key or off pitch.

Every good high soprano needs this skill. The reach required at the top of a voice range takes good energy without straining. No one likes to hear a straining soprano high note.

It’s funny because many folks will call those sliding notes “off key” when in fact, it’s really just a note below which is really more about being off pitch.  To be off key is to start the song with the wrong notes and continue the pattern of the notes in the wrong key.  

Everybody’s key is….

The key of C with standard tuning.  Have you just started to play guitar? Then you know the string letters for the pitch of an open strike to each string. You can add a capo if you want to switch keys.  And as long as the instrument is tuned correctly, it should return the right note at the right pitch.

Voice is different. That’s the one that has no guard rails for pitch or key. Maybe a person with “perfect pitch” can tell but most folks have to train their ears to know the right notes.

It takes practice and attitude and the monotonous training of the ear to know the notes. If the song is good or well liked, it’s easier. If you have heard it a million times, it’s easier.  Unless you go deaf in one ear. Or unless you have water in one ear. Or unless your pitch tuning isn’t perfect and won’t seem to learn with practice.  

We all have skills we are good at and luckily, they aren’t all the same. If this is your talent, you should use it, even if it’s only for you and never heard by anyone else but you. It still helps you. It still helps the world and the cosmos too.

Note on spelling: Monotonous has more O’s than I thought! Lol