Ryfujk

People with perfect pitch can easily reproduce a tune they've just heard on their instrument of choice.

Most trained musicians without perfect pitch can also do this, but they would have to experiment a bit first to find the correct notes.

However most people, without perfect pitch, and even without singing experience can easily sing or whistle a tune they've just heard which they haven't heard before. Or at least find it much less difficult to do so than with an instrument.

I would have thought that this is down to relative experience between the use of vocal chords and instruments. I am much more experienced in using my vocal chords to make sounds than any other instrument because I've used them for talking every day for most of my life.

However, there seems to be a contradiction in this logic because even people with no singing experience can reproduce a tune with their voice much more easily than a professional pianist can reproduce a tune by ear on the piano (without perfect pitch).

Why do I find it easier to reproduce tunes with my voice than with an instrument? Even if I am highly trained with that instrument?
Why do I have to experiment with pitches on an instrument to reproduce a tune by ear, but I don't have to experiment with pitches when using my voice?

Voice is an 'instrument' that many people learn in almost an ideal way. We start young, and practice with it very frequently - even speaking teaches you how to control the pitch of your voice. And because it's an instrument that everyone has, almost everyone also learns to sing in various environments, from singing rhymes in nursery school, to singing along in school assemblies or as parts of a sports crowd - not to mention those who learn in a slightly more formal way.

Voice is also an instrument we have very direct control over. We don't have to worry about things like finger positions - people develop a subconscious mental map of how to control their vocal cords to hit a certain note; it almost becomes like a "thought-controlled' instrument. Due to the immediacy of control, we can also correct ourselves very quickly, so small mistakes can be corrected quickly.

Due to all these advantages that being 'built-in' to the body gives, it's true that many - perhaps most - people do have the ability to sing back a tune.

However, I think you're underestimating how good professional musicians are at reproducing tunes by ear. As per David Bowling's comment, I'd expect most professional instrumentalists to be able to play back tunes on their instrument by ear. It may be that they aren't able to do so with quite as little conscious thought as someone can when they are singing, but their experience with mapping heard notes to scales, and their scales to positions on the instrument, will make up for that.

Why do I have to experiment with pitches on an instrument to reproduce a tune by ear?

Probably simply because you haven't attained enough experience in reproducing tunes by ear on an instrument! To get good at this you probably need to learn from various angles. One angle would be doing some ear training exercises to help the mapping between the sound and the notion of which note of the scale; another exercise would be to practice scales and arpeggios on the instrument to reinforce the mapping between the concept of the note and the physical finger position. Practicing improvisation will also help to make your playing more instinctive. Even some quite 'passive' exercises - like noodling on the instrument while watching on TV - will help with this.

I would have thought that this is down to relative experience between the use of vocal chords and instruments. I am much more experienced in using my vocal chords to make sounds than any other instrument because I've used them for talking every day for most of my life.

As you say: even not trained people are able to reproduce a tune (singing or whistling). This must have become an unconditioned reflex by our language acquisition.

In opposition to your assumptions it can be aid that some musicians become a unison with their instrument that they can play every tune they hear without reflecting (right in the same way you are able to reproduce a tune.

To the most part of people the training of solfege and relative pitch is what they need to identify the tones of a melody.

The reflection of the names of the notes you sing or whistle will be necessary to play the right tones or keys on an instrument. It will take years of practice until this may become a conditioned reflex.

The way we produce sound with our voice is the simplest thing on earth: if you want to sing low, you open your throat as much as possible, and then gradually close it to produce higher sounds. So all you need to sing is the ability to recognize wether you are too low or too high.

On the other hand, when you play an instrument such as the piano, you can't adjust your note as fast as you'd do when you singing. So if you are playing a note which is to low, you will have to make a guess on how much it is too low, and if you don't get it right away (which will probably happen) you'll have to do it again and again. This will take way more time than adjusting your throat takes.

I think this is also why when someone starts to whistle, he gets good really fast, even though he has not been practicing since being a kid.

If you play saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, or anything that has an embouchure, try playing a song with only your embouchure, and you'll see it's not so hard (even though some do not have a huge range, like the saxophone's embouchure in which you can barely get an octave).

So yes, I'd say it's the way the voice works which makes it so easy to use.

Singing is monophonic - only one note at a time. Piano and guitar and drums and so forth can play lots of notes at once. each extra note will take another human to sing it.

Also, you can feel whether the note is right or not immediately when singing and quickly glissando to the proper note if you hit it wrong. hit the wrong note on an instrument and there's usually no saving yourself - it was just wrong and there's no hiding it.

But provided your instrument is monophonic, you'll eventually get to the point where you can "sing" with it.

With instruments that can play 2+ notes at once, you will always have to "just learn and practice it"... It's just gonna be harder because you're doing multiple things at once.

Singers have it easy (ok ok sorry sheesh).