Lend Me Your Ears

One thing to keep in mind (it happened to me) is that her voice will change when puberty sets in. The change could be for the better or the not so better.

In my case, it was for the not so better. I loved singing when I was a kid and sang in the school chorus and at many school plays. When my voice changed, I could no longer carry a tune and people were covering their ears. I still love to sing, but only do so when alone and no one else can hear me.

There are many voice lesson videos on youtube. That may be a place to start to see if she's interested in extending them to more intensive lessons.

Singing in the school chorus was enjoyable for me and I'm glad I had those years prior to my voice changing.

Sozlet certainly has Relative Pitch and she may have Perfect Pitch. Her singing is perfectly in tune.
What is absent though is any form of vibrato. Singing with a "straight" tone can take its toll on the vocal chords. I suggest if she pursues any vocal studies she should find a teacher that can help her gain a good vibrato.
A vocal coach gives this definition of voice vibrato:

Thanks so much Panzade.

OK, this has definitely been interesting. It looks like her singing is definitely not bad, maybe pretty good. Good enough that I shouldn't talk her out of singing at her school's talent show, for example. (They have a wide range of "talent" there, including some kids who really should have been talked out of it, going by what other people have told me.)

That's actually how this all started -- she hasn't been much of a singer (she's tried but wasn't that great), and then about five months ago in talent show rehearsals (she was in a group dance number) she had to listen to another kid's butchering of the same song over and over, which was driving her crazy, and she sort of absently started attempting to do it better, and got pretty good at that one song. Then has been branching out from there.

So then she was talking about singing in the next talent show, and while that wasn't the only reason I wanted some outside feedback on her singing ability, it was part of it.

I really wasn't expecting some of the next-level stuff I've been getting here. ("Musical future" et al.) I recently asked her, "If you turn out to have a really great voice, what would you want to do with it?" She shrugged and said she wouldn't actually want to be an international pop star or anything, pretty much the highest level she'd want to reach is being the lead singer in a band made up of her friends, playing some local gigs.

She was interested in what has been said here about preserving her voice, though, because she definitely does want to SING, even if on a small stage. She's now more interested in taking some sort of voice lessons for that purpose. I'm going to start looking around for that -- I have some starting points in mind.

So, THANKS, and if anyone has any further feedback I'm interested. This is very much blind man and the elephant (deaf woman and the singer) -- I just have to kind of put together an idea from the various bits of information I can get.

Having had a few lessons in my distant past...what I learned was that cultivating a good singing voice is all about practice - especially if you have a decent voice witch which you start.

They teach you to improve by strengthening your diaphragm through breathe control. The stronger your diaphragm, the better you can sing with conviction and stay on key while keeping from wavering and trailing off.

Then you practive more and listen to the key (pitch pipe or piano notes) and you practice/repeat. Then use of the metronome to keep timing and phrasing, etc.

Hopefully the next step is that you learn songs...hopefully that you prefer (not the teacher's preference).

Wishing you two the best of luck and harmony in all ways.

It's good that you let Sozlet go for it. Your sample is too short to tell if she'll win or not, but she definitely won't embarrass herself.

The danger, here, is that someone misguided might try to get her to project her voice, which is not a good idea for a kid's (still developing) vocal cords.

Yeah, job one will be to find a good, responsible teacher. I think I'll ask all of my starting points (there are about four) and see what they have to say.

Thomas, the talent show is more of a showcase than a competition. I don't think they turn anyone down who auditions, and there isn't a winner. A hefty percentage of eligible kids participate in it, whether they have talent or not. But there IS some absolutely amazing talent on display, too.

Embarrassing herself wouldn't be the end of the world of course -- might even be good for her! (She's a bit too much of a perfectionist.) But good to have this feedback, both from that perspective and just pure information. It's kind of weird to have this gap.

Just out of curiosity, what is she like stage-wise? Does she enjoy showing off her talents in public, or does she have a problem with stage fright?

No problem at all with stage fright. Very comfortable. Loves the spotlight. Often the one calming everyone else down backstage.

She's so far participated in maybe a couple of dozen onstage experiences, loved them all. Her favorite so far was when her class wrote and performed a play with the help of a theater professional (high production values, big audience) -- she wrote a really juicy villainess role for herself and proceeded to chew the scenery to pieces.

Somehow I'm not surprised.

Yeah, she's been a ham from day one, pretty much.

Soz, First allow me to say how clever your title was to this thread.

I was most impressed with that child's great intonation. That's a difficult thing to achieve for an eleven year old child.

Interesting. And thank you, Letty, I know that you are an expert in this area. I appreciate your take very much.