The enormous payoff when you face your fears
I faced a fear yesterday and I am delighted that I did so. I had an individual singing lesson which felt scary as it meant having to sing solo in front of someone outside of my immediate family. VERY SCARY in fact. What made it so scary?
The only external feedback I’ve ever had on my singing is that it’s crap. From childhood onwards I’ve been told I can’t sing in tune etc including my own Dad (who has sung in choirs all his life), my kids & husband wincing & ridiculing as I attempted any singing.
And those messages have become internal ones and I would always say if the subject came up ‘Oh I can’t sing at all’ or ‘I’m crap at singing’. And despite this I love singing and have joined various fun singing groups over the years but would never sing solo and always quiet enough so that I can’t really be heard. Except for drunken karaoke of course but even that I’ve never done solo, no matter how drunk … and it’s been pretty awful it’s fair to say!!
I find it very hard to sing without someone else singing nearby but have always suspected I wasn’t entirely tone deaf, as long as I can tune into someone near me. However as I have to sing every week now as part of my ukulele class, and more recently as part of a new fun singing club that I’ve joined, I decided to face my fear and see if I am as terrible as I’ve always been told / suspected. I’ve also been paying for both of my kids to have singing lessons, which they love – as someone who has never felt confident about singing in public I wanted them to have the lifelong gift of knowing they could sing. And my new singing club is run by a lovely friend, Mel, who I trusted and felt safe enough with to be brave.
Mel came to my house and I was nervous. There aren’t that many things that make me nervous but I was proper nervous and fairly dreading it. It felt like I was going to be exposed and I felt vulnerable. Then Mel told me that so much of singing is technique and even if I was out of tune she would be able to help me correct it with different practices and ways of singing. That was a revelation. Even though I knew that only a tiny percentage of people are truly tone deaf, and I didn’t think I was one of them, I didn’t realise that everyone else in the World can sing in tune, with the right help. So we got started.
First some breathing and relaxation exercises, then some mouth warm ups & tongue twisters and then the scary bit: Mel played middle C on the piano and sang the note and I had to copy. Well knock me down with a feather but MY NOTE WAS IN TUNE!! With my confidence around singing so low it was hard for me to believe that I was singing in tune but it turned out I was. It was far from perfect but as Mel explained, because of all the unhelpful beliefs I had, I was unconsciously not letting my voice out, holding tension in the throat area etc and hence sort of ‘squishing’ the note.
The lesson carried on and we even recorded me singing along to ‘Chasing Cars’, a favourite song of mine. I have to REALLY concentrate on technique to keep in tune, and can easily lose it on higher notes but it was actually mostly in tune. Unbelievable.
Later on when Millie, my daughter, came home from school I played her the recording. She was amazed and said ‘Is that you singing?’, followed by ‘I’m so proud of you Mummy’. She said the same when I was putting her to bed later. #BestDaughterEver!
I could have spent the rest of my life believing I can’t sing and now I don’t have to. I’m going to continue my lessons, get better in my technique, stretch my voice so that I can sing higher notes more consistently and slowly build up more confidence in my singing so that I no longer have to ‘hide’ in singing groups.
Whatever you think you can’t do is very probably a load of nonsense. Yes, you too, CAN sing, CAN be brave, CAN run, CAN learn to swim, CAN do public speaking, CAN join a group, CAN try a new hobby, CAN stand up for yourself, CAN leave the job you don’t enjoy, CAN get out of your comfort zone etc etc. Face your fears lovely people, they are inevitably all in your head. Find a teacher / coach / supportive friend / mentor if you need to and break free. Thank you for reading and please share to help others, love from the new improved Singing Sue X