We all can sing, though. I tell my choirs that at the most basic level, if you can speak, then you can sing. All speech is melodic or musical in some sense. So, you have the equipment to be able to sing. But, how often do we hear people say about a friend or relative’s singing inability that he/she “just can’t sing.” I’ve stopped speaking like that. I believe it is more diagnostic to say that he/she doesn’t have the ability to mirror the sounds that they hear. Not everyone is capable of singing with a professional tone and quality. Not everyone is gifted with singing, obviously. We too often say singing is something that you are/aren’t born being able to do. So, we don’t pursue it or exhaust the possibility that this ability might just need hard practice or cultivation like playing the piano or the violin. The longstanding debate of genetics vs. environment as applied to music is hard to separate. It may be that those who sing well may have had a great environment that was saturated on many levels with music in subtle and overt ways. It may be that you need purposeful and direct saturation of music to help you. You may not have had that in your past.

Regardless, it is safe to say that more people, claiming that “they can’t sing,” could improve their singing abilities by training their ears with singing intervals and learning these patterns and structure of music. It takes a lot of repetition if you aren’t “aurally coordinated.” Just don’t be hasty to say, “I can’t sing.” You just may not have cultivated your ear and learned to work your voice accordingly. No one’s promising an opera career, but you might not be much practice away from singing in a choir at church or in your community.