Can Anyone Sing?

I have taught voice lessons for a decade and the first question I get from new students is really simple, "Can I Sing?"

The question is simple but it deserves a long answer.  My simple answer is this; yes, almost everyone can sing, and sing with a pleasing tone that people will enjoy listening to.  Singing is a skill that can be taught, just like people can learn to play an instrument, cook, or draw a picture.  The skill might not come easy and may take time, but singing well is feasible for everyone.  Even those who come to me with REALLY raw sounds...as in, they may not be able to match pitch consistently, or have an unpleasant high voice etc...I've trained them and in just a few months they are singing well.  Truthfully, the more the student is a beginner, the more I enjoy the process of teaching because it is amazing to hear the difference over a few months.

However, "Can I Sing?" goes a bit further than that.  The reality is that what we hear internally versus the actual produced sound are VERY different.  This is why when you hear a recording of yourself, our first reaction is "That's Not Me!!!"  Due to a funny trick of acoustics, this is in fact correct.  The person singing hears a very different sound than what actually emerges.  And this causes a real conundrum... how can you learn to love your own voice if the actual product is NOTHING like what you conceived?  How would you like it if someone told you were a beautiful blonde all your life, and then found out it was a lie and you were a brunette?  The value system you constructed around being a blonde would not disappear overnight.  It would take time to adjust to being a brunette and accepting that as beautiful too.

To draw on my own experiences, I sang for years and had this singular thought: "I like to sing, and people really seem to enjoy it and I do well in competitions, but I can't stand hearing myself!"  It took YEARS for me get accustomed to how I actually sounded as opposed to what I heard in my head.  I don't know if that length of time is normal (maybe I had a lower self-esteem than others) but I do know most people need time to like their own instrument.  At its core, I think "Can I Sing," is about accepting who we are. 

DWS