I Can’t Sing - But That’s Never Stopped Me

This might come as a surprise.....
But I can’t sing.
No, really. I sound like a frog who’s just stubbed his toe and is trying to croak out a sad ballad about it.
And yet… I love to sing. I love music. I grew up with it. My grandma was an actual, real-life, honest-to-Pavarotti coloratura soprano. She hit high notes like most of us hit snooze buttons—effortlessly and often. She sang in opera houses. People clapped. She wore fabulous dresses. She was a diva in the best sense of the word.
And then there’s me.
Genetics skipped a beat. I didn’t get a drop of that vocal magic. But I did inherit the passion. So, like any slightly embarrassed, secretly hopeful person, I sang quietly in the car. In the shower. Alone in the house. Sometimes into my dog’s ears (she forgave me).
But here’s the kicker—I became a writer. And then I did the unthinkable: I started recording my own audiobooks.
Why? Because I’m either very brave or very foolish. Possibly both.
Now, recording audiobooks isn’t just reading out loud with feeling. Oh no. It’s voice acting. It's stamina. It’s figuring out what to do with your face so your nose doesn’t whistle into the mic. There’s breath control, pacing, tone... and most terrifying of all: vocal warmups.
They tell you to do tongue twisters. (Hard pass. Peter Piper can go pick something else.)
They suggest lip trills. (Okay, but I sound like a baby trying to blow bubbles in applesauce.)
They say to hum. Or sing.
Sing? Um. Excuse me, we’ve been over this. I don’t sing.
But then came a breakthrough.
I realized… no one has to listen. No one’s grading my warmups. There’s no American Idol judge in my closet. Just me, my microphone, and my Papillon giving me side-eye.
So I put on my giant DJ headphones—you know, the ones that make you look like you're about to drop a club beat—and I sang. Badly. Loudly. Joyfully. My dog left the room. I kept going.
And here’s the thing: It worked.
My voice warmed up. My narration improved. And something else happened too—I felt happy. Like, dopamine-rush, sing-like-no-one’s-listening, maybe-I-am-a-star happy.
That tiny reframe—“No one’s listening, this is just for me”—made all the difference.
Now I look forward to warmups. I have to set a timer or I’ll end up belting through the whole Hamilton soundtrack before I remember I’m supposed to be reading a murder mystery.
So here’s my question for you, friend:
What’s something you’ve been avoiding because you think you’re bad at it?
What if you reframed it—not as a test or performance—but as joy?
Because sometimes the best parts of life sound like a frog’s last aria. And that’s still worth singing.

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