# to sing flat



## C_Langford

A quick question: am I correct in thinking that there is no way to say "to sing flat" in French?


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## viera

If you mean off key, in French you say "chanter faux".


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## C_Langford

Hello, viera: "chanter faux" is "to sing off key", of course, but there are two ways of doing this: you can sing flat (below the pitch) or sing sharp (above the pitch). Neither is pleasant to hear. But they are not the same thing.
Any other ideas?


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## Smerpy

Pitch would be "ton" in french, so I guess it could be "en dessous du ton".

Not sure though ~~


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## The_Traveling_Man

maybe... Chanter de manière aigüe (sharp) ou grave (flat)  ?


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## geostan

C_Langford said:


> Hello, viera: "chanter faux" is "to sing off key", of course, but there are two ways of doing this: you can sing flat (below the pitch) or sing sharp (above the pitch). Neither is pleasant to hear. But they are not the same thing.
> Any other ideas?



sing sharp? Really? I've never heard that one. To sing flat has nothing to do with sharps or flats. It is as Viera said: to sing off key.


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## C_Langford

Smerpy: est-ce que vous diriez "chanter en dessus du ton" pour "to sing sharp"? Aucun des deux ne me semble satisfaisant...


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## C_Langford

Goestan, with all due respect, you're wrong on this: to sing flat or sharp has _everything_ to do with flats and sharps. "to sing off key" is a cover term for the two.


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## gweched

Chanter trop haut / chanter trop bas


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## The_Traveling_Man

flat = bémol   I forgot that.
Maybe you refer to that?

One thing is weird to me... you said earlier... "sing off key" = chanter faux.
When I was in USA, my friends said to me that I "sang flat" instead of "off key". Can it be colloquial?


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## Smerpy

gweched said:


> Chanter trop haut / chanter trop bas


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## kylijah

I do not think that "chanter un ton en dessous" sounds weird.. They may be a better term but when I was studying music theory as a kid, it was common practice..


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## C_Langford

Hello, Traveling Man: no, you're not wrong, and it's not really colloquial. Most people will say "sing flat" to mean "sing off key", perhaps because most people who sing off key sing flat?


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## C_Langford

kylijah said:


> I do not think that "chanter un ton en dessous" sounds weird.. They may be a better term but when I was studying music theory as a kid, it was common practice..


Hi, kylijah: once again, this isn't the same thing, though. "chanter un ton en dessous" is simply transposing, as long as you do it consistently to all the notes, that is!


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## C_Langford

gweched said:


> Chanter trop haut / chanter trop bas



Thanks! A question, though: could these not be interpreted as singing too loudly or singing to softly (=not loud enough)?


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## kylijah

C_Langford said:


> Hi, kylijah: once again, this isn't the same thing, though. "chanter un ton en dessous" is simply transposing, as long as you do it consistently to all the notes, that is!


okay, I see. You need to convey that this person is singing off key and not just "un ton en dessous"..


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## C_Langford

kylijah said:


> okay, I see. You need to convey that this person is singing off key and not just "un ton en dessous"..


Exactly!


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## Gil

Smerpy said:


> Pitch would be "ton" in french, so I guess it could be "en dessous du ton".
> 
> Not sure though ~~


C'est ça.
Exemple:


> En Jazz c'est l'expression qui compte le plus. Les notes sont souvent attaquées un peu en dessous du ton juste et la note n'est pas forcément émise clairement.


Source:
là


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## C_Langford

Just a couple of contextualised examples:

« Birgit Nilsson was also one of the few great singers who, when she wasn't at her best, was more likely to sing sharp than to sing flat. » http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2006/01/birgit-nilsson.html

« Mr. Souzay was a wonder of the postwar years, a specifically French baritone without the aberrations usually accompanying French technique. The traditionally tight vibrato was in this voice still quick but gracefully modulated. Pinched sound became velvet. French singers -- as a function of their language, I think -- tend to sing sharp where Italians and Germans would sing flat. » (NYT, April 23, 1995)


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## gweched

C_Langford said:


> Thanks! A question, though: could these not be interpreted as singing too loudly or singing to softly (=not loud enough)?


 
No, in that case you would say: chanter trop fort / ne pas chanter assez fort


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## C_Langford

gweched said:


> No, in that case you would say: chanter trop fort / ne pas chanter assez fort


Thank you!


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## The_Traveling_Man

C_Langford said:


> Hello, Traveling Man: no, you're not wrong, and it's not really colloquial. Most people will say "sing flat" to mean "sing off key", perhaps because most people who sing off key sing flat?


Thank you very much. It makes sense to me. "Chanter en dessous du ton".


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## geostan

C_Langford said:


> Goestan, with all due respect, you're wrong on this: to sing flat or sharp has _everything_ to do with flats and sharps. "to sing off key" is a cover term for the two.



If that is the case, it is a technical term and not used in general parlance.
As I said, I've never heard it.


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## Lizamichael

Bonjour,

En chant, on entend dire "X chante un peu bas", ce qui veut dire que bien évidemment X chante faux mais il est précisé qu'il a tendance à attaquer ses notes en dessous.

sorry, in english now; when it comes to singing, "X chante un peu bas" is quite commonly used among singers or instrumentists which means that, obviously, X sings out of tune but a technical precision has been added to this fact: X seems always a little bit flat (low, under, ...) compared to the notes  he or she was supposed to sing
Voilà...
Hope it helps!


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## C_Langford

geostan said:


> If that is the case, it is a technical term and not used in general parlance.
> As I said, I've never heard it.



Sorry that you've never heard this, geostan, but that does not mean that it's a technical term. Since when does one's unfamiliarity with a word or expression make it technical? You display what seems to me a very high confidence level.
In any case, we don't particularly disagree: I agree that when we say that someone's singing flat, we usually mean "off tune" and not the opposite of "sing sharp". That said, "to sing sharp" is a perfectly ordinary expression in English for someone who knows a little about music. And those of us who use it do not necessarily master the more technical nomenclature of music theory!


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## LeGuch

The term is not all that terribly specialized, but it's the type of thing that musicians/singers say in a certain way. I'd have been surprised to learn that French musicians didn't have an equivalent, precise term so I was glad to read Lizamichael's post. 

I'm not a musician, but I've been around musicians enough to know that "to sing sharp" and "to sing flat" are reasonably common terms to anyone with just a little musical experience. After all, when you're tuning an instrument or singing you need to know which direction to go in!


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## C_Langford

LeGuch said:


> The term is not all that terribly specialized, but it's the type of thing that musicians/singers say in a certain way. I'd have been surprised to learn that French musicians didn't have an equivalent, precise term so I was glad to read Lizamichael's post.
> 
> I'm not a musician, but I've been around musicians enough to know that "to sing sharp" and "to sing flat" are reasonably common terms to anyone with just a little musical experience. After all, when you're tuning an instrument or singing you need to know which direction to go in!



Thank you, LeGuch!


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## LV4-26

I agree with Lizamichaël
to sing flat : chanter (trop) bas
to sing sharp : chanter (trop) haut

When the context is clear, we needn't add "trop".
"flat", in this case, generally means less than a quarter of a step flat. (unless you're really a terrible singer or you've had  a few too many ).


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## Nicomon

The_Traveling_Man said:


> maybe... Chanter de manière aigüe (sharp) ou grave (flat) ?


 
Ou encore... 

Chanter d'une voix suraiguë / trop aiguë
sur un ton/d'une voix (trop) grave

Chanter trop aigu/Chanter trop grave ??

I believe that "to sing off tune" can also be rendered as "détonner".


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## floralies

Je pense qu'en chant on dit "chanter en dessous de la note" "être trop bas en émission"...


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## orlando09

geostan said:


> If that is the case, it is a technical term and not used in general parlance.
> As I said, I've never heard it.


Well it "is" a techical term, it's a term used in singing, for example in choirs. If you've never sung seriously then you may not know the precise definition. As someone interested in singing, I agree with C Langford - to sing flat is to consistently tend to sing a bit too low compared to the correct notes, to sing sharp is the opposite and to say someone is singing off-key could refer to either. I wouldn't have said personally that people without much musical training tend to talk about people singing flat in the first place, but maybe you're right and some people just use it to mean any singing that sounds off-key/ off-pitch (or "out of tune"). I agree with chanter en-dessous du ton or maybe chanter trop bas or if just a generalised version is wanted, chanter faux. 

However chanter trop bas, could also mean someone chose to sing a song at a pitch that the listener finds unsuitably low, whereas sing flat means someone is trying to sing a song at a given, written pitch (and at which the accompaniment is being played), but not quite hitting all or some of the notes properly.


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## Lizamichael

floralies said:


> Je pense qu'en chant on dit "chanter en dessous de la note" "être trop bas en émission"...



je n'ai jamais entendu cela dans le langage courant des musiciens (jazz, variétés). 
Quand quelqu'un fait "un pain" (c'est à dire, qu'il fait une fausse note), j'ai toujours entendu dire selon le cas qu'il était un peu bas ou un peu haut.


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## floralies

Ce sont des paroles d'une cantatrice du Chatelet, maintenant si "qu'il chante un peu bas" et "chanter en dessous de la note" vous semble opposé ...


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## Lizamichael

floralies said:


> Ce sont des paroles d'une cantatrice du Chatelet, maintenant si "qu'il chante un peu bas" et "chanter en dessous de la note" vous semble opposé ...



Pas "opposé" mais ni courant, ni totalement équivalent. 
Je pense que cette cantatrice devait peut-être faire un master class et tenter d'expliquer une notion, non? 

"To sing flat" est utilisé couramment, c'est pourquoi, je donnais sa traduction dans un registre de langage équivalent. Aucune agressivité ou reproche intented ;0)

De plus, "chanter en dessous de la note" peut être un choix stylistique (pour attaquer une note par exemple) alors qu'être trop bas ou trop haut est une erreur indépendante de la volonté (sauf dans le cas où l'on ferait un sketch humoristique...!)

NB: je suis chanteuse et pour la petite histoire, bien que n'étant pas de formation lyrique, j'ai chanté 2 fois au Chatelet ;0)


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## floralies

"chanter un peu bas "ou " un peu en dessous de la note" c'est pareil d'après moi ni l'un ni l'autre n'est élitiste, et le post d'orlando 09 est parfait .


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## Lizamichael

floralies said:


> "chanter un peu bas "ou " un peu en dessous de la note" c'est pareil d'après moi ni l'un ni l'autre n'est élitiste, et le post d'orlando 09 est parfait .



J'ai dû mal m'exprimer, Floralies car je ne parle pas du tout d'élistisme: au contraire, il s'agirait même dans le cas de "en dessous de la note" de vulgarisation pour expliquer ce que tel ou tel chanteur a fait. 
"To sing flat" est simplement une expression courante chez les musiciens qui, entre eux, ne vont pas utiliser une périphrase explicative. 
L'expression toute faite existe en français dans le langage des musiciens. 
Maintenant, effectivement, je pense que si on devait s'adresser à des non musiciens, on expliquerait forcément par une périphrase, de même qu'un boucher ou un pêcheur à la ligne devrait m'expliquer les expressions typiques à son activité.

Donc, en ce qui concerne le sens, en précisant qu'il s'agit d'une erreur commise, ça peut être équivalent (mon "bémol" -c'est le cas de le dire- vient du fait qu'encore une fois, en jazz, stylistiquement, on peut volontairement attaquer en dessous de la note à atteindre).
Mais en traduction, si vous deviez respecter le registre de langage et l'idée, ce qui me semblait être l'objet initial de ce post, vous diriez selon le degré du problème: "il ou elle est un peu bas(-se)" (ou "chante bas", si la situation demandait cette précision)

Voilà, j'espère que ce post sera plus clair. Je tente de ne pas donner mon opinion mais de m'en tenir à des usages (pour ne pas dire des faits) avérés

Bonne journée à vous avec si possible de la musique dans la tête!


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## floralies

C_Langford said:


> A quick question: am I correct in thinking that there is no way to say "to sing flat" in French?



Re,
Si on dit seulement, il est un peu bas, surtout s' il y a un micro ça, on va comprendre il est pas assez fort...
C'est pour ça que je resterais sur "il chante un peu en dessous de la note". 
To sing flat est quand même une expression d'oreille avertie


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## Lizamichael

floralies said:


> To sing flat est quand même une expression d'oreille avertie



absolument, c'est une expression de "pratiquants"


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