Can everyone learn how to sing?

“Can everyone learn how to sing?”

In a word, “Yes!”

 If you can talk, speak any language or repeat something back, you can be taught to sing. Much like playing a musical instrument, producing good vocal technique is an involved process that requires repetition and practice.  As string players, you learn to use your bow, we learn how to train our muscles to release the appropriate amount of tone so we don’t strain. We build muscle memory from repeating different mouth positions to shape our tone or perform music in different languages and styles, in which we study phonetics and diction. This is much like any other instrumentalist who learns different fingering patterns, bow holds, or any other technical challenges. Is singing difficult? Yes, but can everyone do it? Yup. Some people, like anything else are more anatomically inclined to have a larger sound or a more resonant sound, a high sound, a lower sound, or just plainly stated “a better singing voice”.  This is what makes us all indivuals and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Some of us can play for the NFL and some of us can sing opera. Facts of life.…. However, we can all be taught to play football, just like we can all be taught to match pitch and sing basic songs like Christmas carols or folk tunes.

I get asked this “Can we all sing” question almost everyday. The longer more scientific answer is the brain function that is involved in vocalizing is similar to the one you use to talk or speak a language. Like most things, we learn easily while we are young. We learn how to form vowel sounds and words as babies from the sounds our parents make. Therefore children who grow up in a home rich in any musical tradition, with excellent vocal models, will have an easier time singing and matching pitch. This is why it is so important to expose your child to music early on.

“But think I am tone deaf”.

“My chorus teacher told me to sing quietly in High School”

First of all who was your choir teacher and where does he or she live? I am about to ruin their retirement.  I hear this all the time as well. Your music teacher was lazy. Everyone can be taught how to sing and singing in a large group is a wonderful experience. I am sorry they never took you aside a showed you how to breathe and shape your vowels. Everyone has a different brain and a individual sound and it is our job as teachers to nurture that young sound into a confident one.

As for the tone-deaf question. You are not tone deaf. I promise. If there is nothing physically wrong with your ears, brain, or vocal function, then you are not tone deaf.  However, if you are an adult and you have trouble matching pitch, you might not have learned from an early age how to relax your voice and support it with air, or how to train your ears through sight singing or recognizing and repeating different interval patterns aurally. That’s ok! You can still learn at any age, but just like learning French at the age of 50, it will be difficult and you must immerse yourself in it to see the results. But yes, you can be taught and it is never too late.

Like anything else in life, singing is a learned behavior that can take years to master. That’s ok.  You wouldn’t want your cardiologist to just “be naturally good” at it after a few tries at heart surgery and you wouldn’t want to pay to hear a chorus or vocalist who was untrained either.  The good news is, it is relatively simple and fun to vocalize and if you stick with it the results will create that life long commitment to music that we encourage here at CYM.  I hope to hear all of your voices soon!

-Ms. Anna Elder, CYM vocal department