do-re-mi.

I like to sing. I listen to lots of music, and mostly enjoy the ones that I am able to sing. Sometimes it's not even in English, but as long as it's in my vocal range, I don't mind doo-dooing along.


Very few people have heard me sing, though. It's not something I do in front of others often. The only moments I choose to sing are when there's music being played. I don't ever pass up a moment to do karaoke if I know the song (But that said, I rarely do karaoke anyway). All in all, though, my vocal skills are something I like to keep to myself, and only bring out when I feel like it'll really change how people see me.

My family, for some reason, has this notion that I think my singing isn't good, and several times in my recent past, they have said something like "Matthew, you have a nice voice", even when I wasn't really trying to sound all that great. For example, my sister got my family to sing a hymn to an elderly lady she baptized in Kansas. So, much to my chagrin, I mumbled through a couple hymns with a touch of effort in an attempt to be polite. My parents commented on how well I sang, as if to say "See? you were singing. Do it more, and stop being such a stump at church." That's another part of it. I don't sing at church very much. Well, I'll put it this way, bluntly: I'll never sing when I'm with my family at church. And, to expand that, I'll never sing in front of my family in any other situation. In the LDS church, when you have a nice voice, you're expected  to contribute to sacrament meetings or that one guy's missionary CD. That's a label I never want to have placed on me.

Anyway, back to my point of "my family thinks I think I don't sing well"; that is totally not true. I sing well. And I know it. Of course, people telling others that they have confidence in their own talents usually means that person isn't that great at it. Going to Maeser, there were many kids who grew up all their lives "singing", and being praised for it. They got older, thinking the way they sang was the best and most beautiful thing anyone could ever hear, because their parents said so. They walk up to the mic, breathe in, and blare out pain to my ears. On the flip side, though, Maeser had many kids that were truly incredible singers. I have no doubt about that. Comparing myself to the people that screw up singing, and those that excel at it, I do think I sing well.

When I joined an orchestra in 7th grade, I found out that I had a sense of perfect pitch (or extremely close to it). Getting a bunch of 12-year-olds violins and slapping sheet music in front of them warrants some disgusting results. I quickly found out which notes sounded bad and which sounded good. For some, a note was a note that had 20 different variations but "they all sounded the same". During our practices, my ears were always attuned to the bad notes. They were terribly distracting.

With this advent of Autotuning in the music industry, I've felt a need to improve my vocal talents, even if I don't do it publicly. I think I have all the notes just right in my head, and if not, I'm always open to some mental tuning. The worst products of sound that come from my mouth are probably when there is no music, though. Instrumental music seems to be a nice guide-rail to how my pitch is supposed to change with the song, and I guess that can be said for a lot of other people as well. More recently, I've been attempting to develop the knack for instantaneously deciphering the harmonies that go with the melodies. It's tough, but I've narrowed some songs down pretty well (particularly Beatles songs, for obvious reasons).

So, the final message: I love to sing, and I'm good at it. I just choose not to sing around others.