I caught myself singing loudly along with something on the radio. Not a song I knew the words to so la-la-la-ing was doing the trick. I thought how good it is to be able to sing. And even better, not to care whether one’s voice is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Just singing for the pleasure of it.
When we are kids we sing a lot, We sing songs because we like to make the sounds, we sing lines we have made up between various object or toys, so a chair can sing to a table or a path can talk to a letter-box. Sometimes our songs are quenched by the adults around us but they can’t take the urge away entirely.
We sneak little songs in, sometimes quietly in our heads, sometimes out loud. At school, we sit at a desk or table, and we work, answer questions, sometimes talk, laugh, and sometimes inside we sing to keep out spirits up.
We discover other people’s songs, we start to grow likings for some songs over others. It’s a mysterious process this and there’s no telling why we like one sound better than another but we do. Or why our friends don’t happen to like the same sounds we do. They’re probably asking the same thing about us.
We discover lyrics. And we begin to realise how important they can be. So we compare and contrast and love them or not. We read them, think about them, even try to write them, or play them.
We listen to others singing but we forget to sing ourselves. Life’s too busy, our voices are raspy, we don;t feel comfortable singing with others in case they think our voice is no good. And gradually we forget to sing at all. We listen to others but we forget that we can do it too.
I was out among a crowd of people the other night and a friend came up to me to say hello. We talked about our current activities and she said she was in a choir. ‘I can’t sing now,’ she said, ‘and neither can the others, but we love singing so we get together and sing.’ I loved that.
I made a promise to myself, that whatever I sound like (and I have a damaged vocal chord so you can imagine I don’t sound great), I will still sing. If I hear a song on the radio I will sing along. If I watch a singer or musician on youtube I will sing along. And whether neither of these things happen I will still sing.
