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I once rudely asked my tone-deaf friend, “Does it actually sound to you like you’re hitting the notes when you sing?” To which she quipped, “I know I CAN’T sing, I just LIKE to do it! YOU may be able to carry a tune, but that DOESN’T make you a good singer.”
Ouch.
That cut ran pretty deep, mostly because it was true.
The fact of the matter is that if American Idol had been around when I was a young adult, I never would have made it past the first round – and let’s face it, my only fame would likely have been limited to those hilariously embarrassing outtakes during the audition episodes.
It seems these days though, the Internet and social media have given everyone a voice, regardless of whether they are tone-deaf, just carrying tunes or are truly singers.
This is actually one of the reasons that I talked myself out of blogging for so long. If I’m going to write, I thought, I don’t want to just carry the tune. I want to SING, to stand out as a writer who can offer different perspective and touch people’s lives.
But that field is just bursting at the seams right now.
“Isn’t it hard to break through all the clutter these days?” I asked Laura Virili , speaker, connector and coach, who is crushing it with her social media presence.
“It’s a noisy, noisy world,” she replied, “But you never know when something will resonate with someone where it hasn’t before.”
I never really looked at it that way. I had always just let those thoughts defeat me.
Think about it though. If musicians like the late David Bowie used my logic – someone’s already doing it, there’s no place for me – we would never have been blessed with “Fame,” “Changes” or “Heroes.”
I’ve just now come to remember, or rather have been reminded, that writing is where I truly do sing.
Join in if you’d like – you never know when your words will inspire the lyrics.
At home, I’ll just keep carrying a tune. To be honest, that’s really all my kids expect from me.