Sing Along

The playgroups I go to with Baby J are comprised entirely of women and women tend to have higher voices than men. So when we all sing along I can feel my relatively low voice standing out among the chorus of relatively high female voices. Also, most songs sung to babies are up in a range that is difficult for me to reach. I end up having to drop down an octave to hit the proper notes thus accentuating the fact that my voice doesn't quite fit. What's more, I have pretty significant hearing loss so I can't really tell if my singing is in tune or not most of the time.

But I sing along anyway.

There's a strange discouragement among adults associated with singing that I find worrisome. I partially attribute it to shows like American Idol where judges judge and contestants are lampooned mercilessly but, in reality, I know there's more to it than Simon Cowell. I would wager that most people simply don't feel comfortable singing because they feel that they aren't good enough. They won't sound like their favorite star.

I know I stick out like a musical sore thumb when I sing along at playgroup but it doesn't stop me. Baby J likes it when I sing to her and if I were to clam up because I didn't feel I was good enough, it would, over time, send a pretty repugnant message to her.