My biggest trouble right now is to sing in tune. I do completely well when I sing with the actuel song but when it comes to things like karaoke orjust me singing by myself without any music I am completely off ..... What can I do to fix that? Thanks!!

never practice singing without a piano!!! It helps to know how to play the notes and tune your voice up to them. please trust me! this will improve u 100%!

hope this helped,
mrviolin

How old are you? You could be going through a voice change. I know females don't go through it quite as dramatically as males, but it still happens. During voice changes, some people cannot find any notes at all. Period. It eventually comes back though.

If you've already gone through puberty, this info won't help you much. Good luck though!

In my experience, when learning a new song (from the written music), singing in tune first depends on finding the starting note, (you need a pitch pipe (best), or something else from which you can get a identifiable note that is already in tune - maybe a piano) then all it is from there is just getting the correct intervals (steps between the notes). It helps me, in learning the interval, to hear the music first and then repeat just a phrase at a time independently of the rest of the music. Eventually all of the phrases sound right to me and I am able to put them all together into a song. And then repeat it again, and again, and again, and again ( carry that pitch pipe around with you and get used to what the note(s) feels like in your throat when you make it- in every vowel. I know we all sing because we love to make music!http://www.8notes.com/images/smile.gif

Only people with a very rare "special" ear (called absolute ear) can sing in perfect tune without a previous reference. If you mean you are "completely off" when you sing without a reference as singing the correct melody (sequence of relative intervals that make a song recognizable but the whole being too low (or too high)in pitch, then this could be normal.

Try getting only the first note (or word) of a recorded song and immediately turn the volume off, while you continue singing the song (you must know it by heart, of course). After a while, turn the volume up again and check if you are still in tune with the recording (at least more or less in tune, but not dramatically off).

If you hear that you are still singing in tune, then I would say everything is OK.

If you are far off, it could be you do not know the melody, or you lack experience in singing. I do not think you suffer from tone deafness as you say you can sing along well in tune.

A singing teacher could help you in checking this problem. Also you can try the singing lessons in Internet, but I do not have that particular experience so I cannot help on it.

Singing with a piano is of course most helpful, but most of us cannot afford an actual piano at home and some music knowledge is necessary to use it correctly.

If you have the basics of music notation, get at least a medium quality keyboard (the better it is, the best, but without exaggerations) and try singing the C major scale while playing the notes. I suggest you sing the note names, such as C, D, E etc. Only white keys first, later add the semitones (black keys). When you master that, try igger intervals such as thirds (C-E for example and fifths C-G). Try to "guess" the second note of the interval before playing the note on the keyboard and check if you were correct. Do this with every note of the scale, not just with C.

You will be training your ear/brain and this should improve your capability for singing the right notes and closer to the correct pitch. Do not expect miracles, however; absolute ears are very, very rare.