How to find pitch of your voice

Objective of this small write-up: After reading this document, you will understand how to find musical pitch/fundamental frequency of your voice (or any voice) and also how to sing basic SaReGaMaPadaNiSa tunefully, correctly and rhythmically with the help of mobile applications. PDF Link of this write-up

Each of us has a unique voice/vocal folds and works like a beautiful musical instrument. Like every musical instrument, our voice too has a fundamental pitch around which we modulate our voice and signing. How do we know our fundamental frequency or pitch? When you are relaxed and hum ‘Sa………’ (the first letter in SaReGaMaPaDaNiSa) without putting any undue force, that is your ‘Sa’, that’s your natural pitch and in signing sense that is your sruti. Whether you sing or don’t, you have your sruthi, that is in-built . When children (or grown-ups) go to a Indian classical music class, first thing the teacher does is assess your Sruthi empirically. After few iterations over few days you get it ‘right’. But, now mobile apps come in handy to find out your musical vocal pitch.

The smartphone application: ‘Guitar Tuner’ --or—‘DaTuner’

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bork.dsp.datuna&hl=en

Open the app, you hum ‘Sa’ into it or play an instrument, the app displays the tone/swara/note/frequency/pitch. Do not mind, all these words point to the same – the frequency of the sound that you are producing through voice or instrument. So, relax….., take a deep breath, now hum ‘Sa’ into the DaTuner app. Whatever swara/note displayed on the screen is your Sruthi/fundamental frequency. The notes/tones information captured below.  

The accounting information of swara-stanas /musical notes are captured in the table below for 3^rd octave or middle-C octave. Typical voices fall into this 03^rd octave. I actually measured the frequency of each of the tones using a Yamaha-key-board and the Da-tuner-app Android app. Needless to say, keyboard emits the tones and smartphone app measure the frequencies. 

Table1: Middle-C/Middle octave notes and tonal frequencies
Swara  position #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Carnatic notation	S	R1	R2,G1	R3,G2	G3	M1	M2	P	D1	D2,N1	D3,N2	N3
Western notation	C3	C3#	D3	D3#	E3	F3	F3#	G3	G3#	A3	A3#	B3
Kattai notation	1	1½	2	2½	3	4	4½	5	5½	6	6½	7
Tone frequency, Hz	130.8	138.6	146.8	155.6	164.8	174.6	185	196	207.7	220	233.2	246.9

It is a general knowledge that though there are 7 fundamental tones (saptaswaras), the working Carnatic musical tones/notes are 12 out of which only pre-defined set of 7 notes are selected for musical compositions. That’s how Ragas are formed (ex – Shankarabharanam, Thodi, Kalyani etc.). Again, that’s a big topic for another day.

Cool, now you know your fundamental frequency of your singing voice. Great. You hum it few times, sustain it. It is important to sustain it over longer period – 5 sec, 10 sec, 15 sec to start building a singing voice., 

What if your fundamental frequency is not in the above table? Typically, bossy voices fall into lower octave and female/feminish voices hang around higher octave. Then Look for your pitch in the tables below. Overall, your Sruthi must fall into one note/tone in any of the three tables.  

Table2: lower octave notes and tonal frequencies
Swara  position #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Carnatic notation	S	R1	R2,G1	R3,G2	G3	M1	M2	P	D1	D2,N1	D3,N2	N3
Western notation	C2	C2#	D2	D2#	E2	F2	F2#	G2	G2#	A2	A2#	B2
Kattai notation	1	1½	2	2½	3	4	4½	5	5½	6	6½	7
Tone frequency, Hz	65.4	69.3	73.4	77.8	82.4	87.3	92.5	98	103.8	110	116.6	123.4

Table3: Higher octave notes and tonal frequencies
Swara  position #	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Carnatic notation	S	R1	R2,G1	R3,G2	G3	M1	M2	P	D1	D2,N1	D3,N2	N3
Western notation	C4	C4#	D4	D4#	E4	F4	F4#	G4	G4#	A4	A4#	B4
Kattai notation	1	1½	2	2½	3	4	4½	5	5½	6	6½	7
Tone frequency, Hz	261.6	277.2	293.6	311.2	329.6	349.2	370	392	415.4	440	466.4	493.8

Next step is to sing – ‘Sa’, ‘Re’, ‘Ga’, ‘Ma’, ‘Pa’, ‘Da’, ‘Ni’, ’Sa’ (Ascending)

                                           ‘Sa’, ’Ni’, ‘Da’, ‘Pa’, ‘Ma’, ‘Ga’, ‘Re’, ‘Sa’ (Descending)

( ‘Sa’ is first note of the next octave which is double the frequency of middle octave’s ‘Sa’. Do not worry, it is just accounting info) 

We need to take seven notes from the above table. Take the following notes

S,R1,G3,M1,P,D1,N3,S.

The above notes combination is called MayamalavaGowla Ragam in Carnatic -or- Rag Bhairav in Hindustani. 

Why this combination? This is the Rag generally used for beginners to pick up musical threads. But, other combinations (Ragas) can also be selected.

Open the DaTuner app and sing SaReGaMaPaDaNiSa. First note Sa is your pitch/Sruthi and all the subsequent ones are relative to this fundamental frequency. Make sure you are hitting the right tones/frequencies consciously and visually on the app. Sing ascending and descending alternately.

How do we know that we are singing correctly? In music classes, a teacher first sings and the learner(s) imitate the notes/swaras. Musically we are good imitators, I guess that is in-built. Again, there are numerous mobile apps are available to play the tones rhythmically and then we can sing/imitate to get our swara signing correct. One such app is given below. 

App: Carnatic - Indian Classical Music Notation Player

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajaramaniyer.carnatic

App settings:

Pitch settings: touch ‘C’ option and set your pitch. This is your fundamental pitch/Sruthi that you found using DaTuner app. Then the playback will be relative to this pitch.

BPM (beats per minute) setting: It is a setting/number sitting next to ‘C’ on the Right-UP corner of the app

Set it to 30 on the app (We actually set it to 60 bpm, but looks like this app has some scaling setting. 30 setting in the app is 60 bpm in time sense. Just set it to 30 and forget. You can play with it once you get to know some bpm/timing sense)

Ragam setting: Default setting is Mayamalavagowla. Just leave it as is.

Notation setting: type the following in the text box

SRGMPDNS’ (S’ being S dot on the top)

S’NDPMGRS

(Obviously you can set whatever notes you want to sing/play)

Then hit the ‘PLAY’ button.

Listen to the tones couple of times and then sing along. You will get it right. 

Enjoy!!!!

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Learning 'Sa'

I remember some interesting fact on human voice from one of my graduate course’s introductory chapters. The course was ‘human speech processing’ and the reworded fact was something like this  – a thousand psychologists, neuroscientists and physiologists sitting next to a just-born baby could not figure out how the baby acquires the art of making sounds and act of speaking. Speaking sets us apart from the rest of the living world (It is different matter that every sound producing flora/fauna thinking on similar lines). Speaking is nature’s gift onto itself listen to itself. Speaking is beautiful and signing is even more beautiful and joyous.

Oops, why I am putting all this. Off late, I started picking up some Carnatic music. Just like others, I often sing and croon few popular Telugu songs.  For an year or so I have been dwelling into some basic musical grammar to understand what goes behind in composing and rendering the songs. So, the obvious thing to join under a music teacher. Fortunately, I happened to join under an elderly lady who gracefully agreed to set aside an hour per week to teach SaReGaMa to me.

First thing any music teacher does is to gauge voice range and establish Shruthi for the learner. This is essentially to set the basic ‘sa’ for the voice. This will be done after few iterations of signing ‘sarigama padanisa’ comfortably. This comfort is very important in the beginning as if we voice is pushed beyond certain limit, the voice/vocal chords may get hurt. The goal of this exercise is to set the basic ‘sa’ and fundamental octave. (octave here is voice range from ‘sa’ to ‘sa’ in the adjacent higher octave). All of us have a fundamental ‘sa’ and our comfortable octave to sing ‘Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa’ with ease. Professional singers easily sing 2 to 3 octaves. I flipped through few Carnatic geetam varnam composisitons  - they are generally two octaves range. Next time when you listen to Telugu songs sung by legeneds like Shri Ghantasala, Shri Yesudas, SPB, Janaki, Susheela, just be aware of their voice range and Shruti.

Somehow I was aware of the following music related anecdotes but could not fully comprehend the full import from musical/signing sense.

1. Someone saying ‘I am quite comfortable with 2 or 3 octaves etc.’
2. Someone advising  - keep your ‘Sa’ in correct position and sustain it for longer times to pitch all swarastanas correctly
3. Someone lamenting ‘I used to sing in ‘G’ (or 5) when I was in prime age, but now it is dropped to C-sharp' or something like that to convey of age-progress and associated inability of signing higher notes
4. In Telugu music/singing realty shows, like Paduta Teeyaga in Telugu, SPB sir asking contestants to peg their voice at higher note than ‘usual’
5. Someone told me that one harmonium guy accompanies Shri Lata Mangeskar in music shows or recordings to provide required Shruti

Some accounting information of swara stanasa /musical notes are captured in the table below. I actually measured the frequency of each of the tones using key board and an Android app. Needless to say, keyboard emits the tones and smartphone measure the frequencies. It is a general knowledge that through there are 7 fundamental tones (Saptaswaras), the working swara stanas are 12 with few minor variations around fundamental tones.

Swara  positions	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Carnatic notation	S	R1	R2,G1	R3,G2	G3	M1	M2	P	D1	D2,N1	D3,N2	N3
Western notation	C	C#	D	D#	E	F	F#	G	G#	A	A#	B
Tonal frequency, Hz  (3rd octave or middle C)	130.8	138.6	146.8	155.6	164.8	174.6	185	196	207.7	220	233.2	246.9
The tones were generated on one Yamaha keyboard and this has five octaves (Total 61 keys) The frequency measurement was taken through the Android mobile app, ‘DaTuner’, which is available on app store .  General readers ignore can this, but, for someone, picky and exacting, looking at this info - I set the key board in transposition mode to ‘-1’ to correct my keyboard’s tonal offset. This also aligns with tones from well-tuned instrument.