It’s not that my voice sounds bad it’s just that I have no range. I don’t really care though. Who needs to sing when you have whistles?
Well, I’m with Redwolf on this one (if you hadn’t already guessed). 
Perhaps you gravitate to D and related keys, that might be so. But I’d bet that you sing in several keys without realising it. They might be keys that utilise much the same scale tones as D but it’s very unlikely that you don’t also sing in G, Am, Bm, Em at least.
Even good, well schooled, musicians can get key information badly wrong. Only a few minutes ago I was describing a tune I’d just learnt to a friend as ‘yearning’ and told her it was in G major. A second’s reflection told me that couldn’t be right, even though that’s what the sheet music says. A quick glance at the tune’s contours told me it was in fact in D mixolydian mode. The musican who wrote the book I was using is a brilliant concertina player, thoroughly competent in theory. He was probably just being a bit careless or rushing to meet a deadline.
Emphatically YES…I have this problem. I’m listening to a CD, working like all get out to figure out the simplest phrase…finally go to the liner notes and find that they’re playing in Eflat. At this point I utterly give up on trying to learn it by ear, and go to the sheet music.
I believe the Amazing Slowdowner by Roni (which I have, but haven’t used in a while) has a pitch adjuster too.
I’m with you, Sam, in regard to range…maybe half an octave that I’m comfortable in, and another half that I can fake…beyond that, its a wing and a prayer.
Sadly, my voice isn’t much use for the type of singing I do (Anglican choral singing)…the women’s parts are much too high for me much of the time, and my choirmaster won’t let me sing tenor (last bastion of bigotry…men who can sing in women’s ranges are valued, but women who can sing in the men’s ranges are considered an unpleasant oddity). Wish I liked jazz/blues/gospel a bit more…those are genres that value a woman with a deep, smoky, voice. Sigh!
I don’t have an electronic keyboard, but I do have a piano, so I can give that a try…if I can just stop mentally humming!
Redwolf
I can sing tenor too - and had no problem being accepted in the choir I was in - have you looked at singing madrigals, etc? But whatever you do, don’t let them make you sing anything in the messiah unless it is the tenor part. Handel didn’t know what to do with altos, and gave all the interesting stuff to tenors and sopranos. I was just lucky at school that when I was in the choir not enough of the lads voices had broken! (I must admit to being a bit shocked however when my voice broke - especially given that I aquired a double d cup at around the same time. How did that happen?)
Callybeg
Ah, so I’m not the only one! I had a vocal break at adolescence too, which surprised the heck out of me. I’d sung first soprano since my earliest days in the church children’s choir and all of a sudden I was “woman who sings like a man”!
I don’t mind singing Messiah, actually, as Handel wrote fairly accessible parts for altos (I’m not a soloist, so I don’t get to sing the arias in any case. You’re right though…the best Messiah arias are definitely aimed at the tenors!) The more modern stuff is what really gets me…some of the modern composers seem to think that “alto” is just another word for “more sopranos, please!” Hymns can be a problem too, as we usually sing the first verse in unison and the last verse in unison with a soprano descant. Since the melodies are generally pitched for sopranos and baritones, the tenors and the altos really have to strain to sing them. You can almost hear the alto and tenor sections sigh in relief when we break into four parts!
Redwolf
My mother was really upset when my voice broke, since the whole family are sopranos (the ladies at least) barring my good self. She thought something was going mightily wrong, until she realised I could still sing! Family harmonies are always the best though. If you are lucky enough to have someone in your family to sing with, force them to harmonise with you! My mum and Granny sang like angels, especially together. Never sang classical though…
Sing it out, sing it proud, I am tenor, and I am proud!
I can sympathize with the voice thing, Redwolf. I hate singing in church–I constantly have to jump up and down octaves since my range falls halfway in between the mens and women’s. It’s extremely annoying, and nobody else seems to have this problem!
For the transposing and developing your ear, it might be helpful (since you have a piano) to sit down and take a tune you know really well and pick it out at the piano. Then try to pick it out in different keys, both up and down. I have a feeling that much of the problem is inexperience in hearing intervals regardless of key. I have this problem much more with new tunes than with ones I know really well, so it might help if you listen to the tune about 100 times in a row and fix it in your brain before trying to play it by ear. I have a really hard time learning a tune I don’t know well, by ear.
Robin