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Besides the violin or perhaps classical piano, singing arguably has the most mystique surrounding how “difficult” it is to learn. This is perhaps one of the biggest fallacies in all of music education. Nothing could be further from the truth. Learning to sing isn’t the problem; the fact is, we all sing!

We most likely were emitting sing-song vocalizations before we can even remember, and sang along with our mothers or to cartoons as a toddler. And the majority of us have bellowed along with the radio or campfire sing-along at some point in our lives, whether or not we admit it. Or in the implausible instance that we never did, well then we could have, and still can.

The reason for this is laughably simple: it’s easy! All humans have a natural sense of pitch. Starting as small children we learned to recognize the inflection of our parents voices, because the pitch (before the words became familiar) determined mood, or approval versus reprimand.

99% of adults in society can hum or sing along with the happy birthday song, and most probably have many times.

So, the problem isn’t that you “don’t know how to sing”, it is simply that you have bought into the story that you are “just not a real singer”. This separation between “messing around” and “real singing” goes back to the societal divide between performer and audience, that began over 100 years ago in American culture with the advent of recorded music.

Somehow, in our national psyche, we took on the belief the singing around the campfire was inferior to opera, or church choir. Or that “professional” singers were better than the rest of us. We became relegated to mere Audience, and saw ourselves as different, and inferior, to the “stars” of the stage.

It’s all in our mind.

The problem with most of us who want to reclaim singing into our lives is not lack of ability, it’s just too much self-consciousness!
This sense of being overly concerned with what others may think of us limits our enjoyment of life in so many ways. It would take an entire separate chapter to analyze the reasons we feel this way, but some of the common causes are lack of self confidence, social trauma, ego, and conditioning from our childhood.
But whatever the cause, the results are the same: we are limited in our expression because of fear. Fear of “not being good enough”, or “sounding bad” and “bothering others”.

Fear of failure. Perhaps even fear of success.

While all of these fears are ultimately not helpful, and largely self created, we still need to be understanding and patient with ourselves as we work to heal these issues.

Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the trigger for our self-consciousness is usually the presence of others. If there’s no one around to hear us, most of us are far less inhibited. Who cares what we sound like, there’s nobody there to laugh at us!

With this in mind, we will explore some ways you can free up the singer within you…

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I’ll never forget Bob. He came to me some years ago to learn the banjo, and was a total beginner. He was also seventy two years old. A year later, he was playing half a dozen songs and going to bluegrass festivals every summer, and having the time of his life!

It can’t be said enough: It’s NEVER too late to learn music!!

Healing Your Musical Past – Jessica’s story

“…I’ve always wanted to sing and I remember the day that I stopped. I was about 10 and was singing my favorite Salt n’ Pepper song in the car. My brother turned around and asked “What are you doing!?” I said “Singing!” He responded with ” It sounds horrible. You have no clue how to sing. Don’t you hear yourself???” His reply broke my singing spirit and I have not belted with confidence since then. This book and what I have read on your page gets the attention of 10 year old me and thinks, “Maybe I can.”