“Oh, but I can’t sing.”

I bet you’ve heard that once or twice. I’ve mentioned the Windward Choral Society to a lot of folks who are fun to be around, thinking they’d fit right in, and out it came, “I can’t sing” or my personal favorite, “you don’t WANT to hear me sing”.

Actually, I’d love to, even if it stinks…for now.

When I was a kid, there was a whole pack of us behind a neighbor’s house that had a two-tiered back yard. There was a gentle slope of just a couple of feet that dropped from the top tier to the bottom one. Why were we all there? We all shared something in common.

“I don’t know how to ride a bike.”

How did we fix the situation? With borrowed bikes and parental assistance, we started with little runs down the little slope. At first there was a helping hand on the seat and an encouraging voice in the ear. As things started to make more sense, the hand was removed but the encouragement continued. Every now and then there’d be a gentle >thud< when gravity won out, but you just laughed at the grass stain and went at it again. By the end of the morning we were all cruising down the little hill just fine and soon we were all proficient at our new-found means of transportation.

Singing is the same way. You place yourself near someone who can guide you with both their voice and their encouragement. Now and then something will come out that has little or nothing to do with the note you intended to sing, but you can just laugh and go at it again. Slowly you discover that you can match tones with your neighbor and, even though you may not be able to read music, you begin to blend in. At some point you’ll realize that you DO know how to sing.

And THAT is a means of transportation that can take you anywhere you want to go.