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Comment by enzoaguado | Hacker News Reader

Singing is about so much more than just hitting the right notes. Breath management is one of the most important skills you can develop to improve your singing. Proper vocal technique helps you avoid injuring your voice when tackling difficult songs. Learning to recognize and use techniques like belting, twang, head voice, chest voice, vocal fry, etc., can really bring your singing to life. Prosody and rhythm training help you develop good timing (one of the most important aspects of music), and there's so much more to it.

This kind of app is great for getting started and getting a taste of what singing involves, but it would be awesome to cover these other aspects as well, or at least mention their existence for aspiring singers.

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I'm not great at any of these things. I do agree with you... do you have links to good resources in this regard? Maybe I can start by linking to them, and then later building the features that make sense into the app.

I like Dan Callaway on YouTube. Jeff Rolka is another good teacher. However, singing is complicated and choosing which exercises you'll use to teach folks ... You need 1. Vowel alignment 2. Coordination of voices 3. Breath support and vocal tension management 4. Mouth shape, tongue placement.

And then there's "how to read a song", deciding which words are emphasized, where to breathe, modifications to fit your voice, etc.

Thanks, will check these out!

If you're willing to elaborate - For what goals and stages, do you require these?

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Background to my question: I was looking for music teachers for myself and my kids (guitar and piano), and I found two types:

1. Royal Conservatory Curriculum, Lesson 1, Page 1, firmly, formally, and without deviation: You MUST learn notation, theory, and proper everything, first. THEN, 5 years later, you get to have fun :)

2. Let's have fun! If you like it and stick with it, we can tackle advanced topics in a customized manner and see where it takes us :)

I find approach #1 is only valid for people who know they will go far and stick with it (either because their parents force them, or for some other, rare, intrinsic motivation); but it hugely discourages huge number of people who don't have such long-term motivation and dedication yet - it postpones the rewards and makes the initial curve super steep.

So my question is: For a completely casual, random person who sings terribly and wants to get "a little bit less embarrassing / dip their toes"; isn't pitch training usually the first step for them to enable their hearing, rather than the complex vocal techniques?

I doubt you'll get an answer here, and people in "type 1" don't want to talk about type 2.

My take, without directly addressing your questions: "have fun" doesn't go very far, and you'll discover that if you want to be good at anything, you'll need to put in many hours of practice with endless repetition and go through setbacks and self doubt, none of which is fun. And for sure there are singers and musicians that never go through formal training, including at the highest levels, they are few, when most musicians you know have been learning music since they were kids.

Absolutely agreed that effort is needed to reach ranks above beginner; my main point/peeve is the steepness of the curve from "nothing" to "beginner", not the work definitely required to go from "Beginner" to "intermediate" let alone "Expert".

My approach, from "nothing" to "beginner", is to give a taste of the "target" - how fun and rewarding it can be. A 7 year old kid who learns how to play Mario Galaxy theme on piano, gets motivated and excited, and then goes through the effort; vs the 7 year old who's sent to music lessons and they spend 2 months on perfect finger positioning for C-major scale. Similarly for adults and guitar - I find teaching them 4 simple chords and strumming which cover 40% of pop songs in 2-4 weeks, gets them hooked and willing to then invest the effort, vs starting with notation and theory and picking hand positioning etc on day 1.

As specific to singing matter at hand, it is my understanding that pitch training will have an immediate, early, quick, and lasting benefit (which is, however arguably, benefited by the app in the post), vs saying "well you can't sing if you don't also do these 5 intermediate-level things right away" (unfair representation, but I've been on the receiving end of it:).

I have a close friend who's an opera singer, and absolutely did proper training from early age, daily, for years -- but, most of us aren't and won't be; my primary point is that early stages of training/learning shouldn't necessarily be the same.

No. Pitch is not super important (and almost certainly will iron itself out as the ear improves) and can be a marker of the other issues.

I completely agree with OP that breath management is the number one issue I hear in a beginner.

In my experience, the people who subscribe to type 1 are afraid that a potential Mozart or Beethoven won't reach their full potential because of bad habits and bad instruction. And the people who subscribe to type 2 are afraid that some kid won't have the pleasure of making music because they can't even start making music for years under strict type 1 tutelage.

There are many more people who never make music because it wasn't fun when they tried than potential Mozarts and Beethovens.

I've added links to these two in a new Beyond Pitch section of the site: https://singonkey.app/docs/beyond-pitch

Thanks for mentioning these!

0.2.0 is also out now https://singonkey.app/changelog

You probably cannot imagine how bad some people are at singing. I have people near me who sing completely out of tune, so much that it hurts. I am not an Apple guy, so I cannot test the app myself, but I will definitely send the link at least to those who know themselves that they are terrible at singing, hoping that Christmas will be less painful for my ears this year.

Please don't mix stereotypes, it's not because I own a Mac mini that I'm an apple guy. Macos is mandatory if you want to publish an app on the app store.

They spoke directly at op and you responded for some reason. Op made an iOS only app and that’s most likely why they referred to them as ‘an apple guy’.

Nobody was saying “everyone who owns a Mac Mini” or “everyone who ever has published an iOS app” is ‘an Apple guy’.

Anyway, for the same reason, just because you make an iOS only app doesn't make you an "apple guy".

I've been doing classes for more than a year with an online teacher and it's been amazing and when watching the demo I saw so many of the mistakes I've done in the past and yet the app keeps saying to the singer GREAT and PERFECT but the coordination is all over the place, not to mention an octave lower and in a very monotone way (lack of prosody or emotions).

And it makes sense, you can't add emotions until you cover some of the basics.

This app can work really well once you have breath and placement nailed down and you just want to focus on pitch, but it feels like it can me misleading to people to think they sing good.

The scoring is overly lenient at the moment. If I added a few new modes for how harshly someone is scored, I'd add harsher modes.

> and in a very monotone way

You should hear me speak, people start yawning :)

OnKey intentionally ignores octaves when scoring so that you can sing inside of your range without straining your voice.

Support transposition and maybe a range finder…

Building in a range finder now, and a filter for the songs in your range.

Transposition is difficult if OnKey isn't playing the song itself... maybe if it allows you to play your own mp3s later, then it could be done.

Looked into transposition and I think it's going to be challenging considering that OnKey doesn't play the music. I have built in a range finder in the new version which picks up your singing range based on your performance and then you can filter songs in your library by your range. Let me know what you think of it.

New version should install on a restart.

Pushed a 0.2.0 version with a 'Relaxed' (current scoring mode), and a new 'Steady', and 'Pro' scoring modes which are harsher. Scoring is done in all three so switching them you see the score for the mode you've picked over all takes.

I've added a Beyond Pitch section to the site: https://singonkey.app/docs/beyond-pitch

Let me know what features could move the app towards a more rounded tool for singing training!

This.

As an amateur musician who can afford private lessons, I cannot understate how important a teacher is in music learning. You can try to learn things on your own and mess with these stuff, but a teacher goes a long way. They spot your mistakes instantly and help you progress efficiently.

I understand that it is not financially viable to everyone, but seriously, if you are able to, get some professional guidance.

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