I joke about massages from Helen Hunt every now and again, and I appreciate a well-formed female body as much as the next XY-chromosone’d individual, but the reality is I don’t fantasize about anyone except my wife. Sounds sappy, but it’s the simple truth.
It’d be great to win the lottery, and I’m not above toying with random ideas about what I’d do with zillions of dollars, but the reality is we’re comfortable and I don’t really have fantasies about money changing my life.
I love football season, but I never fantasize about being a winning quarterback, or, really, being anyone else at all. I like being me.
Except.
I fantasize that I can sing.
Especially in the wake of listening to the sing-along blog of Dr. Horrible, I really, REALLY wish I could sing. I can’t. I’m so bad it’s scary. People will wince and leave if I try. And what’s worse is I’m not tone deaf. Far from it. Hit a note on a piano, and I’ll tell you what it is and be right within a step either way. I know music theory. I just can’t make my lousy, traitorous voice do what my ears hear.
I have a great speaking voice. But the only way I could be in a musical would be to do the Rex Harrison talking-through-the-song trick. Or be a member of the chorus. In the back. Who moves his mouth enthusiastically but doesn’t… you know… actually make any sound.
I wish I could sing.
You lucky fuckers that can sing: I hate you all.
Only please keep singing, 'cause I love it when you do.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I once had the voice of a blessed angel, and now I can’t sing either. Since my voice broke, my singing voice is more Phil Anselmo than Placido Domingo.
I’m 6’ and 150 pounds soaking wet. Sounding like a cement mixer is great if you look like you should sound like a cement mixer. Sounding like a cement mixer when you look like you should sound like Kal Penn, not so much.
You’re almost certainly trying to sing songs out of your range or which you don’t have the training for. I’ve heard very, very, few people who really CAN’T sing. The only ones I know of which are pretty much hopeless are the tone deaf. If this is something which interests you, check out your local community college or a nearby university. Odds are they have a “vocal basics” or “chorale” group which could get you some of the training you would need. Voice coaches are far less expensive than you may think, and it may just take a professional evaluation of your vocal range and what songs are suited to you in order to get your voice in shape.
Learn to transpose a song instead of trying to copy someone else’s performance. A friend of mine(who is a true bass) has a good ear and lots of theory, and if you give him a real bass line(such as Caiphus’ from Jesus Christ Superstar, or the bass from Mozart’s Requiem) he is really good. Hearing him strain trying to sing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is pretty painful though. I transposed the song and sang it for him in a key he was comfortable with, and now we can do little duets with him singing melody and I’ll improvise some harmonies in the song’s original key to keep the “light” feel.
The voice is an instrument pretty much everyone can learn to use, and it’s a great one. If you have any specific questions, or want suggestions as to what to try to help figure out what’s comfortable for you, PM me.
First, thanks very much for your generous offer, and if, after reading this post, you still think there would be value in it, I will PM you.
But.
As a struggling college-age kid, I worked in a dinner theater (lighting and sound design). Naturally, I was around lots of vocalists, and naturally, more than once I heard a variation of what you just said: anyone can sing something, training is all that’s needed.
So after hearing that for a little bit, and being desperate in my desire to not scare neighbors and small animals if I sing, I got several recommendations for a vocal coach who, co-incidentally enough, gave a class at a local community college.
And so I visited him. In our first meeting, he said something almost identical to your comment about how there are very, very, few people who really CAN’T sing.
Sparing the details, let’s just say that in our last meeting, he said (after a very nice lead-up about how everyone has some talent and there are people that would give up their voices to be able to do things that I can do effortlessly, blah blah blah)… he said that unfortunately I was one of those very very few people.
I would certainly point out voices continue to mature well beyond the “struggling college-age kid” stage and your voice today is almost certainly not what you had when you were that age. It’s at very least worth a re-assessment if it’s something you feel strongly about.
The other sticking point where the real “CAN’T sing” can come from, if you don’t have a problem with tonality, is rhythm. Can you keep a beat without concentrating too much on it? Rhythm can be developed as well, but it can be harder for some people than learning pitches. A friend of mine has a habit of bending one knee and keeping time with her whole leg, as opposed to tapping a finger, toes, or foot. This kept her whole body in time with the music in a way which couldn’t really be ignored or become isolated muscle memory because her entire body had to work with her to keep upright and stable every beat. I found it a bit jarring to see her sway with the music when I first saw her, but she kept tempo better than most, so it worked for her.
I’m still willing to offer what advice I can. Having additional data about your personal history though, I’d suggest that if it’s important to you, get another professional evaluation. Go in with realistic expectations. You will never be a Franki Valli, just as your speaking voice can never pull off a James Earl Jones. Still, being able to use your voice to express yourself through music is a wonderful experience, and it’s worth trying again in my opinion.
Me too. And I was meant to. I memorize song lyrics, even songs I don’t understand, in 3-5 listenings. I have an incredible memory for lyrics. I can hear them in my head exactly as they play.
Then, I sing, and :(.
So I sing in my car. Loud.
ETA: And yeah, I probably could take classes…but there’s so much I want to do/learn and this is only one thing. I also want to learn to play a flute!
That is my fantasy, to be able to dance and look good doing it. I get all the steps and everything but for some reason dance is not intuitive to me. I don’t have rhythm or music, apparently, so knowing the steps doesn’t help much. I took a couple of years of dance classes and got marginally better but it wasn’t a huge difference, I just stopped having to pause and reorient myself with everyone else. Sigh.
I’d take singing or dancing or playing an instrument. Now, I think I could learn the piano decently if I put enough man-hours into it, but it would be hard slog and mechanistic learning.
I spent *years *dancing. Years and years. I started around age 10, which is actually quite late, and danced until I was twenty. I practiced every day for an hour and two hours on the weekends, and then I would go to the ashram to dance camp where I would dance about 14 or 16 hours (with breaks of course) a day for four days.
I loved it. I never got sick of it. But there’s no doubt that it’s a hell of a lot of work.
I here you… When I was a lad (way back in time,) we still had singing lessons at school. I was a big hit with my friends, but not with the teacher. I was so tone deaf, I ended up having to sit in the corner during lessons, so I wouldn’t put the others off. (These days I’d probably have rights to sue the school board for such blatant discrimination
Years later I played rugby, now apres rugby is all about singing (+ beer). Man my team had some good singers, wonderful solos, amazingly outrageously wicked good songs, renditions of Jerusalem that brings tears to the eyes Oh what I would have given to sing.
Well if we’re going all out, I wish I could play the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughn, even if only for 10 minutes. Those would be some awesome 10 minutes though…I can play the guitar pretty well, but to be able to rip off some Stevie, that would be something. I also wish I could jump motorcycles like those dudes on the X-Games.
