It's fairly common advice to try singing the melody (and other voices) to help improve phrasing & musicality. Every time I try this, I give up quickly. I'm immediately turned off by the sound & quality of my voice, plus my range is never quite right...flipping back and forth between different registers really distracts me and kills the flow.

My teacher is a professional singer and has more voice than piano students. I have to assume if I discuss this with him, there will be some singing required in my lesson. I hope to avoid this...forever! So I thought I'd bring it up here first.

Do any of you have personal experience to share? Have you found that singing is helpful? Is your voice terrible?? If so, did it get easier to ignore/accept over time?

I find singing helps my piano soloing / improv. I'm still very much learning how to be a decent blues pianist, and when I solo I find that I fall back on all-too-familiar licks and patterns. Lately, I'm practicing alternating singing and soloing, in a call-and-response way, and that's helped free up my piano playing a bit.

My voice is passable -- I can sing in tune most of the time -- but I don't have a great range, and I'm still not sure I've found my true voice. I'm working on it with some vocal exercises, and just plain trying to sing more. I'm not sure I'll ever really like it. 🙂

Enthusiastic but mediocre amateur.

    I've sung in school choral groups when I was in junior high and college. I think my range was pretty good then. I sang alto because it was more interesting to sing the harmony, but my sister's voice teacher gave me a lesson once and said I was a lyric soprano.

    Years later in retirement I was doing some ear training for jazz playing by singing the circle of 5ths. I'd sing through the circle and then test on the piano if I ended up on the correct note. I discovered that after 50 years or so of not singing, my range was extremely limited, so that I'd have to switch registers all the time. Within a couple of weeks of using my voice again, I noticed that my range and quality of voice improved quite a bit (quality started off as more of a croak).

    What I've been trying lately is mentally singing to help with phrasing. For example, I've been relearning "God Bless the Child". I got a mostly good recording as far as notes and smooth rhythm, but it sounded boringly the same. So I've been mentally singing the words while I play, pausing where I'd take a breath, playing the words the way they'd sound as speech with some syllables pronounced faster than others and some phrases softer than others, etc.

      TC3 My voice is passable -- I can sing in tune most of the time -- but I don't have a great range, and I'm still not sure I've found my true voice. I'm working on it with some vocal exercises, and just plain trying to sing more. I'm not sure I'll ever really like it.

      I suppose it's probably common that we are overly critical of our own voices. I can sing in tune as well (usually), I just can barely stand to listen to the tone.

      Pallas not grade yourself on your singing as singing.

      Excellent point, thanks. It's hard not to but I suppose I need to work on that!

      lilypad Within a couple of weeks of using my voice again, I noticed that my range and quality of voice improved quite a bit (quality started off as more of a croak).

      That gives me hope, thanks! I haven't really given it a fair shot yet. I was afraid either you have it or you don't...

            Thanks for sharing your perspective.

            Ithaca If my focus shifts to my voice in a significant way, then, yes, it's like a record scratch, and everything stops.

            I think this is it for me. I like what you said about viewing it as simply a tool rather than considering it "singing." This is probably the mental shift I need to make in order to make any progress with it. Every time I try, I'm instantly despairing over how awful my singing is and I lose track of what I'm trying to use it for.

              I do agree that singing helps with your piano phrasing. Not a good singer myself. I showed up with my violin at a typical Christmas party where people sing carols.. When people are asked to sing, I'd avoid singing playing along. Once I was playing "O Holy Night" in a holidays gathering, several people who are in a church choir started filling in the words.

              There were songs I played including "What a Wonderful World", Bob Dylan "Blowin' in the Wind", John Lennon "Imagine" and a number of Christmas classics including "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I learned the words in my head but don't usually sing them unless I'm in church with 500 other people that would drown out my voice.

              My singing is ok, no more, but in my head I can sing like the best singers I have ever heard 🙂

              I don't need to sing out loud, but I do a lot of silent singing. My aim is that the listener will recreate in their head something similar to what I hear in mine. I can never be sure if I have really achieved this, but if somebody tells me that I really make the piano sing, I think I may have gotten near.

              In fact the piano cannot sing - it is indeed a percussion instrument, be it a very refined one - but the best pianists can create a most wonderful illusion of singing.

                MRC I don't need to sing out loud, but I do a lot of silent singing.

                Did you initially sing out loud and then transition to doing it silently? I wonder if getting comfortable with physically singing is a helpful (or necessary) first step. Maybe I'll try both ways for awhile and see if either are helpful.

                • MRC replied to this.

                    JB_PT Did you initially sing out loud and then transition to doing it silently? I wonder if getting comfortable with physically singing is a helpful (or necessary) first step. Maybe I'll try both ways for awhile and see if either are helpful.

                    I'm certainly used to singing: I've sung in choirs, and in my work with singers I'm used to hearing their voices and singing their cues. But the idea of singing silently first came from one of my teachers when I was a student. He said, if you listen to singers who phrase naturally (he suggested Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby), you get the feeling of singing, even if you don't sing yourself.

                      Ithaca Thanks for the detailed reply!

                      We are in the same age group. In my school, choir was part of the required music class but only until the 5th grade...that's when the band program started and I was always a band geek. So I have not done any group singing in nearly 40 years.

                      Ithaca I guess I'm trying to understand if you're not used to singing out loud at all, ever, or if you just don't like doing it solo even if you're alone, or if you just particularly don't like/aren't used to doing it when you play the piano.

                      I sing along to music in my car all the time (assuming I'm alone). But I never sing beyond a low to moderate volume and the music is always loud enough that I can barely hear myself. I have never been inclined to sing "solo."

                      I didn't recall this until your comments prompted me to think about it...but I did have to do some sight singing in a college class too. That was extremely uncomfortable, but I do remember that I had a much easier time getting through the assignments correctly vs. a large percentage of the class. And I used to love Playstation games like Karaoke Revolution - I got pretty good scores because I could stay in tune. 🙂 So I guess there is some evidence to suggest that I "can" sing, but as you mention I am not used to actually hearing myself - I suppose that is what I need to practice (while also letting go of the overly critical judgment - not an insignificant task for me).

                      I appreciate the helpful comments!

                          8 days later

                          I've been thinking about this question since it came up. My weakness, as you know, is at the opposite end, getting a feel for the underlying drumbeat so to say. Singing, I think (?), is supposed to be for phrasing.

                          The only and then main thing that I had for a long time was singing. When I learned to play the piano, I sang the melody from the page in some rudimentary solfege, and then played what I heard from the page. The same thing went for recorder, guitar, or any instrument I could get my hands on. There were no lessons, and there were no models. Yes, I had a strong feel for phrasing. It was also undisciplined, with a rubato untamed by underlying pulse, and there were certain "cliches" to my music, because none of it was controlled or conscious. Did it give me something? Probably. But it also is not the bee's knees as it seems to be made out to be.

                          If the question is phrasing, can't that be done in spoken proclamation, as in a poem or an orator's speech?

                          A weakness in singing being the first association, as it was for me, is that the piano is not voice propelled by breath; it is percussive. If you hear a single note swelling for three beats, the piano doesn't do that. If you put energy into that note for three beats, with piano you have to let go of that note in a single percussive strike. If you're a singer by nature, you have to remove your voice from the equation so to say.

                          What about the fact of chords? How do you sing or even hear chord qualities? Answer: you don't.

                          I also learned over time to create some things artificially and cerebrally. Gradually slow down this passage: extend that note a little bit more (agogic accent) - If your melody is quiet, create the crescendo diminuendo artificially in the left hand giving the illusion of it happening in the right. If singing had a role, it was only a partial role.

                          And then, nobody has the range of a piano. Might speaking in phrases or chanting beats scat-style also play a role?

                            keystring But it also is not the bee's knees as it seems to be made out to be.

                            Do you mean singing as an aid at the piano? I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of the people who really push this idea are natural singers, so it's very easy for them to integrate it into their playing. And it probably does help them a lot - but that doesn't mean it works for all of us. That said, I'm not giving up on the idea just yet.

                            I am trying to sing at least a little bit on most of the days that I practice. I'm not attempting to "do" anything with it yet, so I have no expectations. I'm just trying to get used to doing it and to hearing my voice so that hopefully it will become less distracting. One thing I have realized already is that I sound a heck of a lot better if I actually put some effort into it. I've been prone to doing this very weak/breathy sort of thing because I don't want to be heard...when I'm literally the only person in the house, so that's pretty silly! At this point I can admit that my voice is not terrible, so I guess that's progress.

                                JB_PT Do you mean singing as an aid at the piano?

                                Yes, since that's what I think you were talking about. 🙂
                                (Thinking about this) When I've read or watched advice here and there, my general impression is that they refer to melodies, and the melodies are usually quite diatonic. I'm not sure how well a singer-type person would do with atonal music, or music that isn't "melody plus chords". Of course we can't sing chords at all since the human voice can only produce one note at a time (two, if you include throat singers and such. 😃)

                                What is the purpose? If it's to help you play the music because you're not that adept at reading piano music; then that purpose falls away for a skilled reader.

                                I've been thinking about this while at the piano. For playing expressively, I'm back to thinking that it's more the art of the orator: louder, softer, slowing down, cadence of the voice, and you don't need the tune or be in tune, really. I do find myself chanting rhythms and nuances these days.

                                Meanwhile: if someone is by nature a singer then I can see singing as the go-to. But if have other strengths in your nature, what if you pull those things in?

                                  a month later

                                  iternabe That looks awesome - thank you!

                                    I find that trying to sing the "tune" is quite distracting to me, almost like adding an extra hand or foot and having to manage yet another part. (I played organ for quite a few years so I had to add a foot into the mix, sometimes two, which was a mental challenge at least at first.)

                                    What I do sometimes find helpful is mentally "singing the words", not so much the tune, but the actual words. An example is the Christmas songs "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". They don't sound so much alike at first, but as the B section comes back into the A section to come to the end, it is VERY easy for me to take off and play the other one, not because I'm trying to, but because they're so similar that my mind can easily wander the other way... unless I'm mentally bringing the words along with the playing. And the reason for that example, it's a true one for me, and an actual happening gig before last. It wasn't really an issue the first time it happened, we were just playing a little to warm up before anyone was really listening. But I noticed it and the bass player did too.

                                    In order to actually sing well, it would take a lot of practice for me to accompany myself and have it sound like anything anyone would wanna listen to. As a younger person, I did sing. Had a LOT of issues later on that caused some throat damage that makes it harder. Might still be possible with some work.