On the Importance of Intonation

Intonation. Oh, intonation.

I started out as a violinist. I was four years old. I was one of those Suzuki kids (IYKYK). The training in this method is meticulous-bordering-on-pedantic and incredibly precise, and there is a heavy emphasis on developing a good musical ear.

From the moment you are able to place a finger on a string to produce a note, intonation - that is, "playing in tune" - is priority numero uno. Little kids are given tapes to put on their violin fingerboards to help their tiny fingers know where to go, as they simultaneously build their listening skills by learning many of their first pieces by rote. Eventually, once their intonation has solidified somewhat, they shed the tapes, with the expectation that they will rely solely on their own ears and muscle memory to play in tune.

As they advance in their studies, string players have scales and exercises and etudes and techniques galore that are meant to help them improve accuracy and consistency of intonation, and spend hours upon hours every week building this skill. (Don't get me wrong - there are other priorities, too. I won't even get into how many hours I spent developing my vibrato, or trying to perfect my bow-hold. But a focus on intonation is always there.)

Once you get to a certain level, playing out of tune is considered unacceptable. It might be overlooked, to a certain extent, if you’re sight-reading, but never when it comes to presenting prepared, practiced music. If you can’t play it in tune, you might as well not bother.

So when I decided to become a singer, and started taking voice lessons, I was surprised to see that intonation, or "singing in tune," was hardly ever talked about.

This was such a jarring experience for me as an instrumentalist, that I found myself practically reconstructing my entire concept of what pitch is and how to produce it. The way I'd been trained to think about intervals and other pitch relationships as a violinist seemed to be almost de-emphasized. The implication was that I should not attempt to focus on pitch itself, necessarily, because in an effort to "control" it the way I would as a violinist, I might inadvertently create technical issues - like tension, for example, or other imbalances or compensations in my instrument. It was better, I was told, to just focus on technique, and "intonation" would take care of itself.

This is a trend I've noticed in the voice world, over and over again, and, like many things I just accepted

as true when I was younger, I now find myself questioning how true it really is.

To be clear, I'm not talking about singers who have difficulty matching pitch consistently. I'm talking about singers who have no trouble singing "on key" but who are sometimes slightly flat or slightly sharp on certain notes, the way a violinist would be if their finger wasn't placed and angled exactly right on the string.

We've all heard singers sing out of tune, but "intonation," in and of itself, doesn't seem to be a thing that is addressed in voice lessons very much, if at all. Pitch issues in singers are often chalked up to technical challenges like poorly shaped resonators, or improper register balance, or too much or too little air pressure, or weird vowel shapes, or posture/alignment issues, or any number of other things. Very rarely do I ever hear a voice instructor say something like, "That was out of tune and you need to fix it."

Now - before all you fellow singers and voice teachers come at me, I will be the first to admit that, yes, pitch issues can be caused by any number of technical challenges a singer is facing. I've seen it in my students and in myself, at various points in my journey. And I'm all for fixing the root cause(s) of the intonation issues. And sometimes, by fixing those root causes, the intonation issues sort themselves out.

But I think we do singers a disservice when we don't tell them they're singing out of tune, even if it is due to a technical struggle. We can, and should, talk about and address the reasons for the intonation issues, but if we avoid talking about intonation altogether, singers do not learn to really listen for those ever-so-slight-but-important discrepancies in pitch that make a note or phrase in tune or out of tune. They aren't given the opportunity to exercise awareness of their intonation, because "technique" is just supposed to take care of it.

And no, of course we don't want singers doing unhealthy or unsustainable things with their voices just to sing in tune. But helping them build a skill where they at least recognize that they are out of tune, and how much, and in which direction (i.e. sharp or flat), would be better than solely focusing on technique when they face these issues.

Because, think about it this way - if we tell singers that good intonation is just a by-product of "good technique," they will never think to listen to or think about their intonation if they believe their technique is, in fact, good. They may sing out of tune and be completely unaware of it.

Believe it or not, this is an issue I see all the time, with trained, experienced, degree-holding singers. And my (perhaps unpopular) opinion is that when singers of this level sing out of tune, it's not due to technique - it's because they're not aware and they're not listening, perhaps because no one ever helped them to build this skill.

I hear it happen in accompanied and unaccompanied music alike, from opera arias to art songs to choral music of all types. Yes, I hear singers sing out of tune even when they are being accompanied by another instrument. And I don't just mean they're a little flat here or a little sharp there, on isolated pitches. I'm talking about entire phrases or an entire area of their voice where they consistently sing under or over the pitch. This, to me, is not necessarily a technical issue, but a pitch conception/perception issue.

In other words, the way your brain perceives, conceives, and tells your vocal folds to execute pitch actually has very little, if anything, to do with your vocal technique.

And to take this point even further: I’ve also seen plenty of singers with, let’s just say “underdeveloped” technique, who sing perfectly in tune. Despite poor alignment habits, tension, wonky vowels, or misplaced or missing breath support, they sing in the center of the pitch, nearly all the time. And it’s likely because their brains are perceiving, conceiving, and executing pitch in a way that produces an accurate result - despite the fact that their technique might have some unhelpful or unsustainable elements.

So, no, we can’t say that “technique” is all it takes to sing in tune.

This has huge implications for all singers, but especially those who want to do any kind of choral or chamber singing. When you're singing in a group, personal accountability to the overall ensemble tuning is crucial, especially if the music is unaccompanied. You need to tune like a string player. Listen and adjust, listen and adjust. You need to be asking yourself at each moment whether your choices and your sound are contributing to or hindering ensemble unity, and a big part of that means adjusting your tuning to what’s going on around you. If you’re facing challenges doing this, you can chalk it up to vowel shapes or registration or airflow all you want - but sometimes, it's not fancy technical maneuvering that's required. It's just recognizing and owning that you sang out of tune - i.e., that your perception, conception, and/or execution of the pitch was incorrect - and then fixing it.

Singing in tune is a skill that is separate from technique, period - and one that all singers must develop.

It is certainly influenced by a singer’s technique, but technique is not the sole cause of nor remedy for intonation issues. And, for professional, working singers, singing out of tune should be considered just as unacceptable as it would be for a string player of commensurate training and experience.

I said what I said.

Those of you who know me might say, "Well, Ellen, this isn't completely fair because you have perfect pitch."

Well, I guess I'm getting on that soapbox now, too.

Contrary to popular belief, having perfect pitch doesn't mean you sing in tune all of the time. All of us, perfect pitch or not, have brain blips where the communication with our vocal folds doesn't go as planned, and wonky stuff happens. And, as we discussed earlier, technical challenges can play a role in intonation.

Here's the thing: perfect pitch or not, singing in tune requires intentional focus.

When I'm practicing, and I step away from the piano and sing a few phrases or a whole piece without accompaniment, and find myself drifting away from the center of the pitch, it's because I'm not focusing on it. I'm thinking about other things. I think of when I hold a warrior 2 pose in my yoga practice, and my back arm tends to drift downward because I’m focused on another element of the pose instead - like the angle of my bent knee, for example. It doesn’t mean I don’t have the strength or ability to hold my arm up - it just means that, when your brain is really focused on something, it will often let something else go. We are not, as humans, the multi-taskers we believe we are. It’s the same when you’re singing, and this is why singing is hard. You are balancing and recalibrating so many different things at any given moment, and sometimes, your brain is just like, “Well, something’s gotta give.”

Is that an excuse for singing out of tune? Perhaps in a practice session, sure, but not when it comes to a performance or a choral rehearsal where my vocal and musical choices (and non-choices) have greater consequences. In those contexts, I'm a professional who is expected to execute, and there really is no excuse not to sing in tune.

But it's because I have built an awareness of my intonation that I'm even able to recognize that I am, in fact, singing out of tune in the first place. I don't need another instrument or voice for comparison, or to "keep me on track," because I can feel and hear when I start to drift.

Anyone can build this skill. You don't have to have perfect pitch to know you're singing out of tune.

And if you know you are, you need to fix it. Don't just let it go and tell yourself that it will resolve once you're with piano or your fellow choristers. Singing in tune is something YOU are responsible for, regardless of what is (or is not) going on around you.

It would be unthinkable for a string player to play out of tune during his practice session and just say, "No worries - it'll resolve when I'm with the orchestra." No. Playing - and singing - in tune is a skill involving specific muscle memory that must be cultivated, alongside whatever technique you are working on.

"Having a good ear" does not just mean readily recognizing intervals, or being able to immediately replicate a musical phrase you've just heard. It's about developing the ability to discern those very small, seemingly inconsequential discrepancies in pitch that actually make an enormous difference in how professional and polished you sound.

I like to say that string players are obsessed with intonation in a way that most singers just cannot fathom. And I think that the voice world would be better off if we were all just a little more obsessed with intonation.

Let's normalize phrases like, "You're singing out of tune. Let's fix it." I hear teachers and directors dodge and dance around phrases like this all the time, softening their language or using euphemisms, probably in an effort not to offend anyone or perhaps insult singers’ intelligence.

But, teacher/director friend, if the singer(s) knew they were singing out of tune, they’d have probably fixed it on their own by now. If they haven’t, they either don’t know, don’t care, or are aware but don’t know how to fix it. You probably can’t do much about the “don’t care” crowd, but the others? They are there because they want to sing and make music under your direction and instruction. So tell them. If they get offended by an objective statement of fact, that is a “them” problem, not a “you” problem.

And singers - when a teacher or director tells you that you’re singing out of tune (or gives you basically any other objective critique), it is not a judgment on you as a person or an artist. The individual giving you the critique is literally doing their job. Please do not take it personally. Instead, accept it with humility and an open mind, and ask for clarification if you need it. Statements like this, when addressed with thought and skill, can lead to better music-making.

And isn't that what we are all here to do?