Countess Richard

Yes - I can have the same problem, and contrary to Leeneia it's often because I'm not singing with sufficient power/confidence/commitment. Yes, you can go TOO loud and on a good day I can hold a tune almost under my breath, but mostly singing out with a decent amount of confidence does the trick. However, sometimes my voice just does't do what I tell it. It's not cos I can't tell I'm out of tune or in which direction(cos I can and it's excruciating!) and it's not cos I'm in an inappropriate key - I'm pretty good at pitching in a sensible place for myself and at matching the accompaniment, if there is one. It's just plain mis communication between brain and mouth!

Reasons? Giving up smoking took a year to recover from - for ages I sounded like a choir boy on the cusp! Drink can affect it (I don't mean binge amounts, just the odd glass), what I've eaten, who I'm singing with (if someone in the audience is joining in badly out of tune that can throw me all over), a cold (I'm usually BETTER in tune with one of them!), not concentrating or not committed to the song, a bad PA system (if you get a lot of feedback or reverb in the monitor you subconsciously try to compensate). There's probably a dozen other reasons that I haven't even thought of which also affect me.

Mostly I sing in tune. Sometimes a few notes go astray and there's not much I can do about it. I've noticed that some of my favourite performers can have the same problem occasionally, so I don't feel too bad. As long as the songs are sung with care and understanding, then they themselves are generally more important than the performance I find.