Can Anyone Sing?

By Ginny Kopf

            I truly believe anyone who WANTS to sing can learn how to sing.  I also truly believe that if your soul wants to sing, you SHOULD and NEED be singing.  You probably aren’t “tone deaf,” though you may think you are (or a third grade choral teacher said, “Oooo, honey, you can’t sing,” and you believed the label all these years.)  The number of people who are “tone deaf” (can’t hit a note if they tried) is ridiculously low, like .1% of the population.  The few who are tone deaf (or “hopeless”) probably never aspire to sing or want to sing.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way….with some training.

            Through my 25+ years as a singing teacher, I’ve helped many, many people who thought they couldn’t sing (or were told they couldn’t sing), and showed them that indeed they can!  You are trainable.  Your “ear” to hear the right notes can be developed.

You can also be taught how to feel the vibrations going through your chest and neck and face and head and out your mouth.  And if you are a visual learner, using the hand to go up or down the scale, and other visualizations like tossing a baseball or going up stairs, will help you hit the right pitches.           

            “Singing” is just sustained talking, or what I show people as “calling,” like when you call out across a lake or field with a big open throat, “Heyyyyy!   We’re going to the beach…want to come????!”  First I get people to forget about “singing a note,” and just do some calling.  They aim a call to an imaginary someone who is out in a boat in the lake they see outside the sliding glass doors of my home studio, where I give lessons.  I have them call out “Heys” and hold out a soulful “No-o-o-o-o-o-o” or moan a long “Why-y-y-y-y-y” until they feel the vibrations in their throat and head.  We go up the “scale” by just making it more and more urgent and emotional.  They pump right from the gut (the diaphragm), making it IMPORTANT, like, “I just HAVE to tell you!!!”

This gets the whole body involved, like how any song has to really engage the singer and the listener.

            Developing the ear (to be on the right pitch) is a matter of concentration, and concentration can definitely be learned.  You can learn how to listen, and mimic what you hear. It may take weeks, maybe months, but I’m telling you, it IS possible in most cases.  So with patience, people can do this at home, using a training CD.  Now you can buy one of these “Ear Training” CDs and do it alone, without a vocal coach, but this would be almost impossible because in the beginning you won’t know exactly if you are on or off the right pitch—if you’re sharp or flat, way off, or close.   A good vocal coach will help you learn HOW to listen to yourself and how to become self-monitoring.  You’ll soon be recording yourself and listening back to judge whether you are right on the pitch.  A coach will show you how to practice daily, (and it does have to be daily) and will give you tips that will fit how you learn, and will also encourage you.  

            One of the important things to do while you are training, is to pick the right song.  Don’t start with songs from divas like Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, or even Kelly Clarkson.  Don’t reach for the moon right off.  Pick songs in a narrower range, like maybe “Mr. Cellophane” from Chicago, or an easy folk song.  And get some help in finding songs that are more character songs, like the funny villain, Fagan’s, “Pick a Pocket or Two” from Oliver.  Or the nasty Miss Hannigan’s “Little Girls” from Annie.  Then you can act the heck out of the song to sell it at the audition.  Really get into the character and sell the character.  Don’t try to do something like “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera.  How about something from Shrek—I bet he doesn’t have to sound “pretty” in that musical.

            Being “a little pitchy, dog” is heard on “American Idol” all the time, and the earliest bad auditions are quickly slam-dunked by Simon Cowell, with “You’ll never be a singer—this isn’t for you” even when someone has vowed that everyone in their family “loves their voice.”  It’s easy to get a complex about our own talent, when some of those auditioners are so, so confident—and so, so bad!   But, take heart.  You are very trainable.  If you want to sing, you can learn.

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Need some help getting started? 

Call Ginny Kopf www.voiceandspeechtraining.com  gkvoice@cfl.rr.com 407-381-5275

Ginny has been a voice, dialect, and speech trainer for over 25 years, has 2 Master’s Degrees in Voice, teaches courses at Valencia and Seminole State and Valencia Community College, and does private lessons and workshops.