Thank you for the music...

I love nothing more than to open up my lungs and belt out a song or two!  Singing is a wonderful mood lifter.  Well it is for me.  For those around me it is not.  I love to sing.  I sing in the shower, around the house, in the car,and even when wandering around the supermarket or shops if i hear a song i like.  However, there is a problem.  Unfortunately for the listening pleasure of the general public, i am tone deaf! I cannot sing.  Despite years of being in school choirs, years of practice, years of thinking i sound okay. I don't.  I sound terrible.  I remember auditioning for the school choir in year 7 and the school had a policy of inclusion.  Don't know why they audtioned anyone but they did.  So after i "sang" my piece, i eagerly asked was a soprano or alto.  Mr Coad looked at me and said quite seriously "Neither. You're back row." I must have improved however because by the end of the year i was in the front row by speech night.  Mind you that could be because i was one of the few in full school uniform!! I stayed in the choir right throughout highschool.  i was also in the school band, playing flute, oboe and piccolo.  Mastered none of those but they all looked good. Got out of a lot of school for various performances in the community.  I knew what i was doing! 

Over the years tho i really did wish i could sing.  I went to church youth group activities and you do an awful lot of singing at church so i'd join in singing as loud as i wanted, thinking that church goers would be nice forgiving folk.  Several times i was asked to tone it down a little and once was asked to move to the back whilst they were recording the service and singing!! Then along came Deli.  I'd sing to her in my belly when she was all squirmy and kicking me heaps.  Didn't really seem to calm her much but a friend of mine who sang in a band used to be able to calm her just by speaking.  i played his music a lot.  Tim Slater.  The Talk. Wonder whatever happened to them? 
After Adele was born i used to sing to her all the time until one day when she was about 2 and she could finally talk properly.  We were in the car with my mum and i was singing away and Deli had her hands over her ears and yelled out "Mummy NO MORE. You are hurting my ears!!"  I was crushed.  Mortally wounded. If my 2 yo could tell that i couldn't sing then i was really bad.

I still love to sing but now its confined to the house when i'm home alone.  Or the car.  I play Singstar occasionally with close friends who are brave enough to put up with my Blondie impersonation and my version of ABBA.  I'm not too bad at ABBA.  I've been singing their songs since i was 10.  In fact for years i thought Napoleon wore suspenders, when really he did surrender in Waterloo!  Thanks Singstar for clearing that up!!! So if you ever meet me, we have a couple of drinks and i suggest karaoke or Singstar then you accept at your peril.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Oh and if you come to a musical with me ...... :-D