My cow-orker thinks she can’t sing at all. This is not true. She can carry a tune. Gingerly, but she can carry it. But for some reason that I can’t yet fathom, she feels compelled to make an effort to sing badly. She wails, purposely goes off key, uses a “retarded” voice (I’m serious; I’ve heard her say, “I wetawded”) and gets loud.
I can’t think of a way to tell her to stop this. I never want to be presumptious and tell someone to stop what they’re doing just because it bothers me. But this is way too obnoxious to ignore. Usually when someone gets under my nerves, I do a cleansing breath (like with the “wazzzuppp?” guy, but nothing will defuse this.
At odd moments, usually when she’s concentrating too hard to do the act, I’ve heard her sing for real, and there’s nothing annoying about it. This schtick, however, is as intrusive as if she were touching me. It’s right there, and nothing will block it out.
Or maybe she doesn’t want to reveal her secret identity as “Song Girl”, the super-sexy crimefighting heroine who battles the forces of Dr. Ophkie. Maybe the whole “I can’t sing!” thing is just a ruse to disguise her alter-ego, much like how Superman relied on glasses to hide his alter-ego.
Well, it’s a shield, of course. By deliberately singing exaggeratedly bad, she’s shielded against feeling embarassed by accidental wanderings of tune, off notes, and whatnot.
I think I do this myself, actually. I’ve said a thousand times at a thousand auditions that I couldn’t carry a tune with a gun to my head, and basically have resigned myself to the fact that I can’t sing because I had a vocal trainer who lied and said she was moving out of town when really she just wanted me off her student list.
It was kind of crushing actually…
So now I purposely sing very loud, and inappropriately when out with friends… I’ll sing “Nookie” in opera style, or some such shit, because I don’t want to risk being criticized again.
My husband insists that when I’m home alone, in the shower, I sing ‘very well’ (and he’s a singer himself), so I guess I just need a self esteem boost.
Just curious though…why does it bother you so much? So she thinks she can’t sing…what’s the biggie? If she’s singing off key too loud for you ,tell her to clam up, if not, let her labour under her illusion. imho, of course.
