You Hum It, I’ll Sing It

Editor’s note: The article you are about to read was originally written by my mum, the person who inspired me to write all those years ago. Today would have been her birthday, so, to celebrate, we are publishing this article, originally written in 2008. Mum was the best person in the entire world, and it pains me that she is no longer with us. I hope you enjoy this snippet of my mum’s insanity.

You hum it, son, and I’ll play it

I am not a musical person, and it is much to my distress – and everyone else’s – when I open my mouth to sing that the notes don’t necessarily come out in the pitch, tune or order that the composer intended. It is similar to the sound of several cats fighting in a bag or the machinations of a particularly noisy washing machine or, on a good day, a horrifying combination of both.

When you have no talent for singing, as long as you warn any potential audience or passers-by of the impending damaging that may occur, you never have to apologies for polluting the air with your offensive warblings. Some polite onlookers may stick around, perhaps with a discreet application of ear plugs so as not to offend your delicate artistic sensibilities. I find, however, that once my audience start to climb the walls or run for the exits it is a good time to call it a day. Possibly forever, depending on the degree of psychological damage.

Now, as you have probably deduced, I am fully aware of my limitations in the vocal department. Some people, however, are not. Competitors on such grimace-fests as X Factor and the like, for example. It breaks my heart – and my ears – to watch and unfortunately listen to these hopeless cat-stranglers giving it their all while breaking the windows and removing the plaster from the walls. I actually feel extremely sad for them because some one, somewhere has exacted an appalling, evil confidence trick upon them by telling them that they can sing when nothing could be further from the truth and actively encouraged them to audition for our amusement but their eternal humiliation. I suppose my sympathy must end when you realise that unless they are deaf, they can actually hear what emanates from them and should therefore be able to deduce for themselves that they could cause some real damage with those pipes and perhaps for all our sakes call it a day. The drive to be famous – even for only 15 minutes – seems to overpower rational thought, the sense of ones own limitations and the ability to hear properly.

Folk singers are the same. With added hey, nonny nonny, apparently. It’s when the finger goes in the ear and they amazingly become even more out of tune than they were before that has me rolling in the aisles but I am sure that’s not the intention. As I understand it, if you put your finger in your ear you can hear your own voice over the other racket and so can deduce if you are hitting the right notes at roughly the right time. If you get seven or eight of them together in the same place, fingers in ears, it resembles a fancy dress party where everyone has come as a teapot. Perhaps singing out of tune is traditional seeing as folk music supposedly comes from a time in British history when we were all oppressed by evil land owners, living in mud and straw hovels, dodging highwaymen and saying “ooh arr” to each other so perhaps singing in tune was the least of our worries. Of course, I am not taking a swipe at all folk singers, some of whom I imagine are very good, but please don’t do the finger thing – it doesn’t work and you look very silly indeed.

In my very limited experience of such things, rappers appear to be very good at recognising their singing abilities, or lack thereof, and generally if they can’t sing they very thoughtfully draft in someone who can. But they only get to sing the chorus, while the rest of the song is taken up with a delightful fellow from the ‘hood going “uh” and then “uh” again and then something unintelligible and then “uh” again followed by a strange kind of dance move that involves him repeatedly grabbing his penis. This last part is a mystery to me and the only possible explanation that I can deduce is that it is the rap version of the finger in the ear, but I am not sure that I am overly keen to find out the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of this particular method of vocal tuning. All the same, even with the visual entertainment on display, it hardly lifts my soul or makes my spirits soar.

I could try opera but I don’t think my brain is tuned in to the correct upper/upper middle class frequency to appreciate it as anything other than a very expensive shrieking contest in silly hats. On top of that, they sing in French, Italian or German. I mean, come on – you are hardly making it accessible to the masses. Even if you say, ‘well the tune is pretty’, it is insisted upon you that you can’t possibly fully appreciate the complexity and nuance of the piece if you don’t follow what they are saying. I can only name a handful of operas which is probably a blessing for me personally, but if you enjoy 4 hours of wailing that has cost you £250 then good luck to you. The most enjoyable bit of opera I have ever seen is Wagner’s Ring Cycle condensed into 4½ minutes and performed by Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

“Oh Bwoonhilde, you’re so wuvwy…”…now that’s art and don’t try and tell me otherwise.

I think in the end, rock music is probably my thing. You don’t need to be able to sing well because you are generally, or hopefully, drowned out by screaming guitars and thumping bass. Prog rock is great because they were generally so off their faces that an hour seemed like 3 minutes, so when they had finished a drum solo, the audiences’ hair may have grown by up to 4 inches. A particularly good one could take up huge spans of time familiar only to paleoclimatologists who are used to counting things in ice ages. Neil Peart, drummer with the mighty and anthem-tastic Canadian band Rush can knock out solos that will make your nose bleed, and you can’t complain about value for money if their concerts last a fortnight. Rock musician’s lifestyles are also legendarily raucous and excessive thus adding to the fun and kudos, providing, of course, that you can stay alive long enough to appreciate it.

So, there you have a total demolition of music in it’s entirety from someone who can’t sing one note in tune without surgical intervention. But that is the joy of a free press – anyone can spout off ill informed opinions on anything at all without redress or recrimination. Rock on, dude.