What does it mean sing out of key?

Answer 1

Sensitivity to pitch is widely varying among people. Some people are called "tone deaf" if they show that they cannot duplicate a pitch however hard they try, but many believe that no person is completely unable to distinguish pitches. Others have stunning abilities to recognize pitch accurately and effortlessly; these people are said to have absolute pitch, and sometimes perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is sometimes defined as the ability to produce pitch accurately if given a reference pitch, even if they cannot identify pitch without a reference. In this sense, a person who is highly skilled at sight-reading or solfeggio might be considered to have perfect pitch, even if they need a reference pitch to start with. Whatever the case, singing is usually best when the performer can 'hit' the notes accurately, while using variance in the pitch deliberately to achieve beautiful musical effects. Examples are vibrato, trills and portamento. Excessive 'sliding up' to the note one is singing has become very commonplace and I usually find it grating. When someone with keen sensitivity to pitch hears a singer with less pitch sensitivity, the result can be unpleasant. The listener wants to hear notes hit accurately, and the performer may not even be aware that there is any problem at all. We are not talking about timbre, or complexity of the sound itself, but the pitch (frequency) of the notes hit. There is something called "Sprecht-gesang" (sp?) [speech-song] which is found in some 20th century music. This is where passages are "sung" in a way that is very similar to the intonations of language. The intention is not to produce melodic lines as in a standard song, but to stylize vocal utterances in a more linguistic way and usually without strict regard to the exact pitch levels of dodecaphonic western musics. While this kind of speech song can be part of stunningly beautiful music, few would disagree that the performers are singing 'out of key'.