Julz...
Fair enough. I know where you're coming from. I used to have the same opinion on ability myself actually. Experience has educated me otherwise. After all, I started with natural ability (in grade 6, I was slotted in with the basses for the choir but I could still sing higher than the sopranos), lost it and now rely heavily on technique. I am very interested to meet your friend cos I am willing to bet I can teach her to sing in tune (provided she doesn't have some kind of mental disability or vocal cord condition. I'm not saying that it is impossible for such people to learn. I'm saying it would likely be beyond my ability to teach them). If she's not so afflicted, I can teach her very quickly. As with my father, all it takes is finding her range. See, I believe my dad has perfect pitch in his head. However, he has an incredibly deep singing voice, so when he would try to sing along with anyone else, his vocal muscles would attempt to sing the exact notes the other singer was singing rather than adjust down several octaves to suit his. Naturally, he couldn't do it. He could whistle in tune though, so I knew he wasn't tone deaf. Also, if you take a familiar song like Happy Birthday or something and sing the completely wrong notes for a supposedly tone deaf person, they will know it's wrong which in and of itself proves they are not tone deaf.
While watching Paint Your Wagon with Dad, on came Lee Marvin singing ''Wand'rin Star'' and for the first time in his life, Dad was able to sing along in tune. He never realized he had a deep voice. He's actually down in J.D. Sumner's range (Elvis' bass backing vocalist) but has a much mellower tone. He's still hit and miss with singing but then, he has no aspirations to sing, so he doesn't practise. He merely sings along out of habit. If however, he does desire to sing along with someone and is just going all over the shop, if I sing along in his range (till I run out of puff on his low notes), he can sing along just fine.
British comedian Stephen Fry has the same trouble. He can hear the music perfectly in his head but he can't reproduce it vocally.
I think the 'natural ability' is not so much the ability to sing but rather the intensity of concentration one must apply. The 'naturals' don't have to think much at all about the notes they hit. The rest have to concentrate much harder to get it right.
Apologies for the misunderstanding re perfect pitch btw.

ceepat...
No need to apologize, silly!
I actually checked out both those versions the other day. I prefer Mario del Monaco myself.
So great that you are familiar with Ivan Rebroff though! That's one of my fave songs of his too. I used to sing it a lot (just at home, along to the CD or LP). 12 POUNDS for the one track??? Yikes! However, if that ws a karaoke track and provided the lyrics are written using English characters rather than in Russian, I would LOVE to buy that one to sing at karaoke! That'd be freaking awesome! (I can make out most of the phonetics but would really need the lyrics to be able to sing it on stage properly. Who knows? There may just be Russians in the audience and I should hate to mistakenly sing the wrong words so that the meaning changed from 'She had dark eyes' to 'Your mother sleeps with pigs' or something! lol).
I look forward to making your acquaintance at St Pats one of these days.

Billy T...
Ah! Now I think I understand. Yeah. I did make my choice - for lessons. Like I said though, I thought if one could sing opera, then one could sing anything. It is after all supposedly the most challenging genre to master so it seemed logical. I took the lessons to polish up my voice before venturing into professional singing but not in opera, in other styles. I got a lot of positives as a result of everything that transpired but when it's your dream from the age of 4 to become a household name at 19 - 21 years old as a singer and you have the overwhelming support of everyone who ever heard you sing and then you can't sing any more, well, forgive me for thinking years later (and still an unknown) that the price was too great to have paid.

Tom...
It seems to me you are transposing your own reasons for singing or mindset in general onto others. After all, if you go to sing in order to entertain others, then naturally, it goes to follow that everyone else must too. I can relate. However, is it not just as likely that others merely enjoy the emotions that well up inside them when they sing and get the same amount of enjoyment every time? If so, then what need have they to improve (in their own mindset, I mean)? It's working and if it ain't broke, why fix it? That seems to be the motto of those in perpetual mediocrity. Many comp chasers seem to do the same. They hit the point where they seem on top of their game and rather than try to get even better, they just make do with the voice they have, regardless of its quality so you see them year after year doing the same songs with no improvement. It annoys me too, Tom, believe me but that is because my philosophy is to try to be better, aim higher and always look for greener pastures. Improvement should imo be a continual process, not so much an end goal. The only excuses I wish to accept for the cessation of improvement are extreme physical damage or death but...... we have to accept that others have their own idea of what enjoyment from singing karaoke entails. I assume it's probably why the people who get on stage even when they KNOW they can't sing do it too. That emotional buzz of being the centre of attention for the duration of a song. That's only part of the equation for me and I suspect, yourself but for them, it's all that matters.
So how am I doing, Tom? Reckon there's hope for me in the field of psychology (no, not as a patient lol)?

Submitted by Johnny B on 19-06-2007

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