Singing in Tune: How Pitch Accuracy Actually Works

Intro

Have you ever sat there and said, “Oh boy! I’d really love to sing this song completely out of tune today?” No? Me neither.

Welcome to The Voice Science Podcast, where we dive into the science behind all things singing and teaching. Here, you’ll learn how the voice works and discover practical tips to train it more efficiently. I’m Drew and I’ll be your guide for this episode about singing in tune.

If you have questions about this episode or questions about the voice and singing in general, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to us on our website at voicescience.org/contact/. We’ll reach back out with an answer, answer your question in a future episode, or both.

What is “In Tune Singing”

Obviously, everyone wants to sing “In tune”, but what does that really mean? Singing in tune is a complicated topic that has a lot more grey area than you might expect. So let’s fall down the rabbit hole.

Pitches are complex and are made of a large number of frequencies, the one we’ll focus on is the fundamental frequency, which in most cases is the lowest frequency. The rest of these higher frequencies are called harmonics. Fancy, right? So when we say we want to sing in tune we are saying that we want our fundamental frequency to be the same as the expected frequency.

Frequencies are measured in Hertz, which is a number that represents the number of oscillations per second of the frequency. Faster oscillations produce higher frequencies and slower oscillations lower frequencies. So when someone says A 440, what they are actually saying is a frequency that is 440 oscillations per second or Hertz.

Outside of digitally created pitches, nothing is perfect; that includes our ability to produce perfectly in-tune pitches – and fortunately, also our ability to hear a pitch is perfectly in-tune as well. This inability to hear pitches perfectly gives us a small window of about 5 cents plus or minus that we can be out of tune and no one will be able to tell. One group of music professionals known for their accuracy are piano tuners and even professional piano tuners are only accurate within a few cents.

Now I’ve used a new term there, cents, C E N T S. Cents are used in music and science to measure the difference between two adjacent pitches or half steps. Between two adjacent pitches – C to C# or E to F – there is 100 cents. No, you may be asking ‘Why use another measurement, didn’t we just talk about hertz?’, and yes we did. But as it turns out the frequency difference between each and every note is unique. So cents fill in as a kind of bidirectional percentage of pitch accuracy.

Now, not only do we have some wiggle room in our hearing of pitches, but our ability to produce perfectly accurate and stable frequencies is a challenge. There is a natural slight adjustment of pitch up and down that occurs while singing, it’s called vibrato. And to get out in front of the comments; yes, straight-tone singing is a thing. However, your ears are lying to you, there is still an oscillation of pitch it’s just slower occurring only a few times per second. Currently, vibrato extents, the change in frequency, are around 50 cents plus and minus, meaning there is a half step of pitch variation. This much variation in pitch is still perceived to be in tune as long as the average is within a few cents of in tune. We’ll dive into the mystery of vibrato in its own episodes in the future.

So to summarize, singing in tune is keeping the center of your pitch, including the vibrato that you have while singing with a straight tone or not, within about 5 cents of the desired frequency. 

Auto-tune

Before we discuss how to work on singing in tune, let’s address the elephant in the recording studio: auto-tune.

If you’ve magically never heard of this software before, it is a tool that is used in recording and even sometimes live performances that can forcibly correct pitches. This can allow singers to be tuned to be perfect (or close to it depending on the desired results). To be clear, auto-tune is used by the vast majority of professional musicians when they are doing new albums, there is little acceptance for even slightly out-of-tune music in professional recordings.

From a pedagogical point of view, I find the consistent use of auto-tune disappointing. It is an unachievable level of perfection that can’t be lived up to in live performance, without again using auto-tune.

To keep this brief, if you record an album professionally auto-tune is going to be used. Take pride in your craft and be as accurate as you can anyway.

VoSci Method

With that downer out of the way, let’s talk about how you can improve your pitch accuracy.

Music is a language, it develops in the brain the same way as English, Spanish, Mandarin, German, or any other language. Because of this, we know a few things about how to help the brain out. When you are learning your first language, obviously you start by writing full essays that you read aloud. Of course, you didn’t! Language follows five steps that must be completed in order:

First, you hear a bunch of sounds that don’t really make any sense. Second, you try and mimic the sounds “ba ba, ga ga, da da”, third, you finally get the hang of it and you are able to speak (at least a little), then we go on to read written words and connect print to sounds, and finally we are able to write out own words to be read later. Interestingly, when we try and learn a second language and music we try really hard to skip steps and even sometimes start near the end with reading!

To really speed up our learning of the language of music we want to devote as much time to listening and then mimicking as possible. Because of that what we recommend is a pattern of eight repetitions that can be used for intervals, scales, arpeggios, short passages of music, really anything. What you do is:

Listen – take in how it sounds, how it feels, and anything else you notice, but try to not sing it in your mind.

Listen again – did you notice anything else

Audiate – now sing it in your head, also called silent singing.

Listen – did you sing it in your mind correctly?

Audiate again 3 times

And finally, listen and check yourself again.

Those steps again: Listen, Listen, Audiate, Listen, Audiate, Audiate, Audiate, Check

A quick note, for it to be audiation the notes cannot be provided to you, it is imperative that you create them in your mind.

Once you are accurately audiating it’s time to add phonation to the mix, the pattern is almost the same but now it is: Listen, Listen, Audiate, Listen, Sing, Sing, Sing, Check. Note that we are still putting a large emphasis on listening and audiating. 

 ‘But how do I know I am doing it right?’ You don’t, but you are doing it right. It will be messy initially and over a surprisingly short time you will get more and more accurate. This accuracy will transfer to every other bit of singing you are doing.

At VoSci we have thousands of audio files for intervals, scales, and arpeggios set up to be used for this purpose.

Why Not Use Apps

If you’re a techy person or just of a certain generation you might be asking: ‘Isn’t there an app for that?’, you bet there are… and it’s been our experience that they aren’t great. In fact, they can be downright frustrating and discouraging. The apps will tell you that you are not singing in tune, pretty much ever. Computers are really bad at ‘close enough’. When it expects you to sing A 440, it is looking for A 440, A 440 -3 cents is not A 440 and is out of tune to an app; to an audience, it is perfectly in tune. From a practical standpoint, you also can’t really use an app while doing a live performance to track if you are in tune, it’s better to develop an internal sense of pitch, future you will thank you.

Recap

Singing in tune is a more complex concept than most people think! It’s not just about hitting an exact frequency—our perception of pitch allows for small variations and even professional musicians work within a range of a few cents. Vibrato naturally causes pitch variation, and yet, we still perceive singers as being in tune. So, the key isn’t perfection—it’s staying centered within that small window of acceptable pitch accuracy.

We also talked about auto-tune and its prevalence in professional recordings. While it’s a tool that can create an impossible level of perfection, it’s not something to rely on for live performance. Instead, focusing on training your ear and your voice is the best way to develop real, reliable pitch accuracy.

And speaking of training—our brains learn music like a language. That means the best way to improve is by listening, audiating, and repeating before ever adding phonation. By following VoSci’s structured eight-step listening and singing process, you’ll strengthen your internal sense of pitch and make more consistent progress over time.

As tempting as it may be to rely on apps, they often demand an unrealistic level of accuracy that doesn’t translate to live singing. Instead, building your ability to hear and reproduce pitch naturally will serve you far better in the long run.

Outro

Thanks for tuning in to The Voice Science Podcast! If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe and share it with other singers and teachers. And if you’re ready to take your pitch accuracy to the next level, check out voicescience.org, where we have thousands of curated audio exercises to help you train effectively.

Until next time—happy singing!

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