Oswego County Chamber

For anyone watching the famous television show, American Idol, you are familiar with the term pitchy singing. Virtually every episode a singer gets slammed for their pitchy voice and this issue has become the number one focal point of singing correction in the world. Historically, singers may have experience similar levels of pitch problems, but the advent of technology has changed the playing field significantly. Many singers in modern times boldly want to express themselves and may be filled with passionate performances. However, most seem to be oblivious to their singing pitch problems.

It is highly possible that singers of past centuries had better vocal pitch because there was more time focused on listening to themselves and the relationship of their pitch to other simple instruments. Also, historically, people sang more than they do in modern times. In the twenty first century, people listen to music perhaps ten times more than they sing. Compare this with a century ago where listening to music typically meant that you were singing or in some what participating in making the music. While technology probably contributed to the problem, technology also holds a solution that can train singers to sing on pitch. To find out more, click here.

New developments in singing software can improve vocal pitch in singers with relatively little effort. For years software applications helped in the office place and with scientific calculations. Now, software applications have become adapted to daily household applications that could not have been predicted twenty years ago. For example, research shows that vocalists can rapidly improve their vocal pitch within a matter of minutes if provided visual feedback. While oscilloscopes have been around for years, they were not widely used for vocal analysis by singers.

In the last few years the new discovers enabled pitch voice of singers to improve by simply singing and watching a graphical display of their voice that guided their pitch. The auditory and neurophysiology mapping is not yet complete to explain why the visual feedback is so powerful, yet the results are undeniable. Within ten minutes of using this new pitch voice software, singers improve the vocal pitch by fifty percent. This is not surprising while they vocalist continue watching the graph, but the results continue after the software is removed.

Last year my mother gave my daughter this cool mini greenhouse for Christmas that has changed her life.  It came with great instructions and was easy enough for her to put it all together all by herself, with a little help from dad.  We let her decide where to place it and because it’s so small and portable, it has been easy for her to experiment this year and move it around to find the best place to grow her vegetables and herbs.  She has learned so much about how plants grow that she even did her science project about it in the spring. [»]