A vocal pitch trainer. Any guitarist can get a very pocketable guitar tuner for just a few bucks. So why wouldn’t a singer be able to use the same? Well actually would you as a singer want one? The voice, like a violin can play any note in any tuning. Why would you want to sing a perfect 440 Hz A when other instruments around you are not in tune? Another one is that sometimes you put some ’emotion’ and ‘glides’ in. your singing. That would be lost if you would sing perfectly pitched.
To set you up right. I’m now in the vocal coaching program of Tiffany van Boxtel. I wanted to improve my live singing. Her main goal is to give you confidence while singing. Singing in tune is just one aspect and in her program its NOT the main focus. Better sing with confidence and connect with your audience than sing totally in tune is the motto. The coaching program is awesome for me.
Enter the Korg VPT-1. Its not very expensive, but then again its 4 times as expensive as an entry level guitar tuner. When you switch it on, it immediately shows a level, starting at Easy. The top control toggles between Easy, Medium and Hard. Then when you sing a note appears on the bars on screen. For me it was more useful to see the note letter and octave. For this you can use the middle control. It also sets your center note. It starts at A4 but i set it to C4. Then the bottom control plays the note but with a simple toy-like sound.
Then there is a blue indicator and a sharp red indicator and a flat red indicator. Blue lighting up shows you that you are singing in perfect tune. Red sharp means: higher then perfect tune. Red sharp means: lower then perfect tune. The idea is that if you sing scales the right notes show and the indicator is mostly blue. On level Easy that is easy and on Hard its hard. Simple as that.
Now how does this work in practice? One of the most important things I have learned is to warm up the voice before performing. I use a standard warm up exercise with scales. This is where I now pick up the VPT-1 to just check that indeed most notes light up blue and that gives me confidence. I can see that at the start of the exercise there are more red notes and slowly i get into the blue zone. I do not switch to medium.
For me now using it this way its not a toy but a gadget. It would probably be no use for me while singing otherwise. You have to hold it close to your face to pick up your voice correctly. For just the warm up, which is its perfectly in tune, its fine. Then another exercise is lip buzzes. The VPT-1 does not handle that at all. It doesn’t recognize lip buzzes as notes. All in all I hope you find this information useful. Let me know how it works for you if you have it.
