Eureka!! Pitchy vocal improvement

[lesmac]

I have spent many weeks working on the same 3 or 4 songs and apart from the time sink of learning to think like a drummer and program drums my vocal delivery has been disastrous. To the point where I lost all confidence and wondered if I ever sang an in tune note in my life!!
Well today I turned the corner. By running a triangle tone of the root note in the key of the song my efforts have improved dramatically. Nowhere near perfect and a trip to Melodyne land will still be in order but for me it has made a huge difference.
Just wanted to share the tip in case someone else is going through the same horrors and it may be of some help.

[mojobone]

I don't know many exercises for improving vocal pitch, but I do know that pitch is easier to maintain when you have good breath support, and are relaxed; here's a great exercise for that; Get a tone flute, recorder or ocarina, the kind they used to give to fourth graders before introducing them to 'real' instruments, stop up all the holes and play the lowest note, for as long as you can, then do it again. repeat for 15-20 minutes a day, breathing in through the nose and out through the flute, concentrating on holding the note steady. Start with maybe five minutes and work up to it, if it's hard at first; set a timer so you won't sneak looks at the clock. Done right, this should self-hypnotize you into a relaxed state that's good for any musical effort, not just singing; red light fever can cause tension in the body and that's usually not good for the music.

[lesmac]

Thanks for the tip Mojo. I like the idea of the one note drone and the relaxing effect so I will definitely give that a go. I have neglected the vocal instrument, trying to do everything yourself can be hard with so many bases to cover. A structured daily plan is what's needed. Note do self...DO IT!!

I had some vocal coaching 6 or 7 years ago from a very good teacher who for the first week gave me an exercise to breathe out as far as I could then raise the epiglottis and draw in a super big breath, like pro swimmers. Her motto was air is power. The next week on the out breath sing one note, then up an octave then back down, so three notes in all for the whole breath. Strengthening the stomach muscles can help as I have noticed the singing exercises affect these as well. There are some similarities with what you suggested and yeah I know have to put in more practice.

Having the reference tone play throughout the song was a bit weird through chord changes but it did seem to relax me and allow me to get back into the song. Before that I had been mapping out the melody on the keyboard and playing that in the headphone mix as well as practicing to it.
I am rather nasally and my voice seems to be in my head with the highs filtered out. If I push the volume the higher nasal sounds outside my head are quite harsh and not too pleasing. I just seemed to be searching for pitch all the time and my head voice seemed to blur/obscure the key pitch???

I posted yesterday pretty quickly after first trying this so I"m off to the studio now to see if it really did happen.