Vocally Tone Deaf vs Musically Pitch Genius

Hi...

Sorry for the very long time no post (as I reminded myself I should write bi-weekly), but I have a very bad habit recently, WOKE UP LATE, i mean, VERY LATE! In these last 3 weeks, I think I have watched 4 or 5 K-dramas overnight until the sun come up at 5 or 6 am! Oh my God, this is seems very wrong (I know)... So I just stopped watching some dramas for now (i hope), and sing some song in my own karaoke room. Actually I don't own a karaoke room because my karaoke machine is placed on my family space, there is no wall that separate the family room with the whole house, so yeah, I literally singing for the whole house.

I mixed some Korea Pop (Kpop) Song Instrumental with some video on youtube. The video is actually has its subtitle in Hangul and the Romanization on the top of the video and the meaning in english on the bottom. So, I combine the 'video' with the instrumental and taa daaaaa~ it's become a  my own karaoke video (no one sells k-pop karaoke dvd for now, sadly T_T)

I really like to go to karaoke back in my university day, I could go like everyday or every 2 days or 3 days with my friends, or humming myself in my rented condominium just to sing a long with the instrumental from my laptop. My condo mate probably know a lot that I like to sing a LOTTT and sometimes annoying her but she's okay with it because I can sing in the right tone.

Back to the present time, I have my mixer machine for singing the karaoke video (my father bought it for me since my old one is broken) and the new machine is too good. My old mixer didn't have any function, it is literally only a speaker with equalizer to control the bass, treble etc. The new one had so much function and I don't know the names of it (LOL) but I use it very well, I guess ;)

From the first time I use this new mixer, I use the echo function as well to make my voice echoing much and sometimes it goes very wrong and my dad like complain my voice is going wrong since I'm using the mixer. I was thinking, well, maybe because I cannot sing like the singer did and I did this only for fun and I have half heart passion on singing (I mean, I only sing to my favorite song and all of it in Korean).

Today, I turn off all the function of this mixer have, and sing it with my original voice without any echo or reverb function. Guess what, for the first time, my dad is praising me and my mom got a very first time goose bumps hearing my voice, but this one is in the positive way, she means that my voice is very good, like the real singer. My first response is smile and laugh, I was thinking "Yes mama, I am your daughter, of course you will be very happy to hear me sing a good one," and also I'm literally tickled hearing what my mom and dad said.

I have no formal vocal & singing training, the only training that I got when I was in my primary school, and I was underdog member of my school choir, unnoticeable one since I was placed on the bass section. The vocal teacher never praise me, teach me, maybe she didn't even know that I was there to learn to sing, and I literally envy those kids that praised a lot by her because their talent was shining over mine. I was no popular kid during that day and I don't have so many friends since I don't have many confidence like my other friends. And I was even bullied by some friends and I don't know the reason why. I never told anyone of this because I am strong enough to ignore that issue and I believe I didn't give any shit about them.

The only one that support my musicality talent is my music teacher. He taught me a lot to play many kind of musical instruments and sometimes he praise me a lot. It's also the same when I was in my junior & senior high school, my music teachers (not vocal teacher) magically treat me like I'm a musically genius. I can't play other chord scales than the C major chord scale (C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am-Bb), but I can play all kind of the music, replicate the song that I heard (even I'm still using the C major chord scale). Until I was graduated from senior high school, I never sing again because of my traumatic memory from my primary school vocal teacher never care about me. I still remember that once, she yelled at me because I can't sing and why I was still at that choir.  She treat me like i was tone deaf.

It opposites with what my senior high school music teacher told me when I was down, "maybe you cannot sing because you are uneducated on that field, but I knew you have a lot of note, song to be expressed, so instead of singing with your voice, you still able to sing with your finger." With that, I stay believe in myself that I can play music better rather that sing it.

Just before I decide to post this, I googled about 'natural pitch talent' and it result with Wikipedia's Absolute Pitch (the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone). I was thinking, I was probably talented in this absolute pitch, but I have some error in my pitch sometimes, maybe I'm not this one. It could be other type, Relative Pitch (the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical by comparing it to a reference note and identifying the interval between those two notes). It could be it, but I remembered that one time in the very beginning of my junior high school days, I was failed on my piano level entry test and I cannot identify which one is minor and major chord (well, i don't know actually because I never learn it before) so I was placed in the very beginner level class. So I search some other type, and I think this one suit me the best, Ear Training (a skill by which musicians learn to identify, solely by hearing, pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, and other basic elements of music), in my case, I heard a lot of K-pop music, sometimes only the instrumental for me to learn the melody blindly (and sometimes I start searching the subtitled videos to be combined). I realized that I maybe not talented enough as a singer, but I have a lot of experience in this ear training, and this training is informal one since I train it by myself.

When I'm thinking about the title, I decide to use "Vocally Tone Deaf vs Musically Pitch Genius", which represents how much negation that I had since I was a kid, especially when I had my vocal training in the choir. It's pretty bad so I can only say that she (my primary school vocal coach) at her loss that time because she didn't train me like she train other talented kid. I can't sing because I didn't know how, it wasn't because I am not able to sing.

I had a dream as a singer since I was a kid, but it seems I cannot reach it for now because it's too late, but at least, I still train my voice because I have passion to be a singer.

p.s I have posted about related issue on October, click HERE to read it again :)