Genie, I found it remarkable to see in action the kind of thing mentioned in your last paragraph. One such person I knew wanted desperately to sing with a high-achieving chorus, but her notes were so far off it was hard to call it a tuning problem--she's be off by a semitone or tone or even minor 3rd, and on some down intervals she'd overshoot by nearly a 5th. Not only was she unable to hear when two notes were in perfect unison, or even near-unison, she didn't know what to DO to make her uttered note go higher or lower. To the surprise of many, she was able to learn 2 songs accurately enough to perform on stage thanks to a few months of 2x weekly voice lessons and her refusal to back down from the challenge.

What she needed at first, along with vocal flexibility exercises, was a lot of time for safe experimentation, non-judgemental trial and error with someone willing to say over and over when she was wrong. It reminded me of what children are given when they are learning language, with the endless loving repeat-it-correctly that parents give them. Few adults can set aside their ego fully enough to go through that much correction; similarly few adults can set aside their egos fully enough to give that much correction to another adult with endless love and non-judgement.

I am happy to have witnessed the turnaround, it was remarkable!