On Singing — Can everyone sing?
Can everyone sing, I mean really sing, not the bathroom abaswaram(off-tune) singing which even I can do 😃? Have you ever wondered? We all have a voice and we can speak and have normal conversations, but then why can’t we all sing.
Imagine if we all joined hands and sang a song in harmony. Would it cause the waves to dance to the music? But seriously why are only some able to sing. We all (atleast most of us) have the right tools our voice(sans the few who may have some defect), so what’s missing? Is singing related to a left brain activity? I am not so sure for some are able to just listen to a song and hum the tune. There is no creativity, it seems analytical. But then all the right brained should be able to sing, but we think that’s not true. So what is it that gives someone the ability to sing if it’s not a physical attribute or a mental ability ?
This has not been an easy thing to understand for we always confuse loudness or amplitude of the sounds we produce with the tones or frequencies of the music. When someone sings the sound produced has a loudness aspect to it. We easily recognize that and can raise or lower voices similarly. We can even listen and reproduce the words or find the lyrics online and reproduce the sound. But it’s the third aspect the melodic content which is hard to mimic.
Let’s explore why the melody in the music is a challenge to reproduce. Is it because we are not able to listen and distinguish the tones? Is it because our voice boxes do not have the ability to synthesize the tones? Or is it because we are not able to combine the different tones together in order to reproduce the song? In some sense it’s all of the above. Most of us are just able to comprehend the words and the loudness of the music we listen to. The melody or the pitch that makes the song is something we surely can hear when we listen to the song but we are unable to distinguish. This is somewhat similar to a painting or a sketch or visual that we see when we open our eyes. We can see the beauty that is depicted but we can’t put pencil or brush to paper and reproduce it.
Lets examine this further. When we see an art work we are actually able to see the melody in it — we can see the lines, the colors and the details. We just are not able to copy it exactly. In the case of music it’s a little more complex. We only hear the combination of the notes the song represents but are unable to distinguish the details that a trained listener is able to.
Is this because our auditory processing is a little more primitive than our ability to see.? Tonal differences implies a difference in the speed of the sound waves being produced and impacting our ear drums. Since this is happening continuously and not discretely our primitive sense of hearing unless trained is unable to distinguish the differences. Although we see the melody in the combination that makes the song, the individual wave forms are a stranger to our ears.
Western music with its set variation of notes with each of the 12 notes in each scale separated from the previous one by a fixed amount is easier to distinguish. But when it come to the Indian classical genre — Carnatic or Hindustani with its continuous (gamaka) variations in each scale the ability to recognize is even harder. So how does the untrained listener distinguish the patterns and lock them in our memories and then reproduce it. I think it’s possible if we can recognize this and make a concerted effort. Doing this will give every listener the notes they should reproduce to produce the song.
But knowing the notes is just the beginning we still need to vocalize this. This in my mind just requires some practice. Not everyone can be the expert singer but with a fair amount of practice we should be able to reproduce the tones whether it be Do-Re — Me or Sa-Ri-Ga.
The notion that everyone cannot sing is just a myth, I am convinced. If you are like me and have given up trying, I say give it one more try. I am sure everyone can Smule and one day we will all sing to make the waves dance in harmony to our song.
(If you liked reading my points of view, you may like to read my other recent blogs on Culture, Relationships, Prayer, Writing, Condolences, Steps)
