It’s been said on ABC Classic FM radio so many times recently but if I hear this one more time I’m going to explode: “Everyone can sing.”

Every time they say it, saying it as if it were incontrovertible truth, it must be like a dagger to the heart of so many who can’t sing. It’s become so common to say that every child and every adult can sing. Please, please, stop it!

Some won’t believe it but there really are a few people, even among those who play musical instruments, who cannot hold a tune to save their lives. Yes, they probably can learn to sing, but they might need special tuition.

Where is the scientific research to back up the bold claim that everyone can already sing? It’s all anecdotal and self-selecting. “Everyone who came to our school choir could sing, therefore every child can sing.” It would be so easy to prove the opposite.

I speak from considerable experience having taught singing to perhaps a thousand individuals. Decades ago I worked with about twenty adults who could be called ‘tone deaf’, ‘tone deaf drones,’ or ‘monotones.’ Believe me, they are not mythical. They really exist and I can only imagine every time their experience is denied it must be a little like denying LGBTI people exist.

Can you imagine how devastating it must be to have a teacher tell you ‘everyone can sing’ when you already know you can’t sing? Some know they can’t sing the right note and they know they can’t even tell if it’s right or wrong.

Frequently I hear adults tell me tales of woe about singing in schools. Sometimes they actually can sing very well but were actively discouraged, or just needed a bit of encouragement or a bit more confidence.

But suppose a child proudly rocks up to the first choir try-out having been told ‘everyone can sing’ only to discover they seem to be the one person in the whole world (or school) who actually can’t. For a rare few no amount of relaxing, jumping, yelling, deep breathing, sirening, shouting or confidence boosting makes any difference.

One can only imagine the psychological damage this could do to children.

Let me explain. In 1989 I founded my first adult community choir, the Perth Discovery Choir, which I conducted for five years. BTW, PDC will have their 30th anniversary next year. In early rehearsals I noticed one of the basses could not sing in tune. I was already a singing teacher but knew nothing about drones except for what passes as accepted wisdom ie garbage.

So, following accepted wisdom, I thought to myself ‘give him a chance, let him grow into it, eventually he’ll find his voice.’ Well, that didn’t work so I took him out of the choir and tutored him one-on-one. It took considerable dedication over several months but eventually he could hold tunes like Good King Wenceslas and Ode to Joy, in a recognisable fashion. As a by product he also learnt to sight-sing simple tunes, though that was not the principal aim.

You may rightly ask how was this achieved? Well, I’m not entirely sure but I had guessed a working theory and it got results. Over about a decade I had maybe twenty adults (including one female teenager) with exactly the same need. By using the same procedures they all got the same wonderful results except for one. So that’s about a 95% success rate.

Every time I get a phone enquiry for beginner singing lessons and someone says they’re tone deaf I take that statement with a pinch of salt. At least nine times out of ten they are NOT tone deaf at all, just inexperienced, lacking technique and perhaps have vocal health issues (including poor vocal habits). Some merely have weak pitch and need ear-training which soon produces a big improvement. Some self-professed drones turn out to have excellent singing pitch, indicating that the term ‘tone deaf’ is not well-understood.

Of course, for the rare new student who is genuinely tone deaf I now have ways to help them. They learn to hear when they are or are not singing in unison (ie on the same note with an instrument or other voice), which genuine drones can’t do to save their lives at first. They learn to sing the correct note after it’s played for them. They learn to sing short scales and broken chords (triads), and how to sing against other notes.

This takes a lot of dedication and not a little bit of trust. Trust because the results may not show for months.

One caveat: the genuine tone deaf drones who achieved their aim of holding a tune would likely still not be able to sing in some choirs. But the sense of achievement and relief is palpable.

Learning to sing of course deepens anyone’s enjoyment and engagement with music. Anyone who develops their voice, whether starting as a drone or not, can also look forward to making lots of music using an instrument. Perhaps clarinet, or guitar/vocal?

It’s not entirely false to say ‘everyone can sing.’ With dedication and very special one-on-one tuition over several months even tone deaf drones can learn to sing. But I hope people will stop suggesting that everyone just needs a bit more confidence. That’s how you set people up for a huge fail.

I wish music educators would get to grips with the reality of this issue and develop a working solution instead of glossing over it.

One day I will have to codify all this and publish a method but I have a lot of original music to publish first.

Mx Margaret D. Jones
MusB(UWA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA
Associate composer, AMC
www.mixmargaret.com