Miracles come in all sizes. I witnessed one several nights ago during a session of Singing for People Who Believe They Can’t.
One of the participants, a lovely woman in her mid-eighties, told me she was sure she couldn’t sing. “Our family just don’t sing,” she said.
I suggested that a “wait and see” approach might be more helpful. For the first few weeks, she seemed to confirm her own belief. But I could also see that she was making singing much harder than it needed to be.
When a Belief Gets in the Way
I could see exactly what she was doing. Having no experience with singing, she assumed it was something you do with thought rather than with the body. As she tried to sing, her thinking mind was practically burning rubber.
Singing is primarily a physical act, not an intellectual one. By trying to make singing into a mental exercise, she was stopping herself before she ever got going. Like many of us, she also tended to be hard on herself whenever she got something “wrong.” The truth is, the only way to learn to sing is to be willing to get plenty of notes wrong. It’s simply part of the process.
The clue was simple. Every time she inhaled to sing, instead of letting the sound ride on the breath, she held it. I could see the fierce concentration in her face. Then she would stop herself, take another breath, and repeat the whole process without ever getting anywhere.
A Miracle Unfolding Before My Eyes
That night, as we worked together individually, I had her sing a very short phrase immediately after I sang it. Each time she tried, I saw her hesitate and then stop herself. She was still trying to think her way into singing.
So I asked her to sing the phrase with no pause at all after I finished. It took a couple of tries, but then I saw the muscles in her face relax. She sang the phrase perfectly. Every interval was right. Every note was in tune.
That moment was a miracle.
I almost went crazy with delight! Watching someone do something they were convinced they couldn’t do is a gift I’m lucky enough to witness from time to time. It’s a miracle that never gets old. Few things give me more pleasure.
The first words out of my mouth were something like, “I guess you’ll have to retire the idea that you can’t sing. You just did—and you did it perfectly.”
When a Lifelong Belief Falls Away
The moment she stopped trying to think her way into singing, everything fell into place. Most people who believe they can’t sing miss an essential truth: singing isn’t a special gift; it’s part of being human. When they stop fighting themselves, they almost always discover they can sing.
For more than eighty years, she had lived with a story about herself: “I can’t sing.” It had become part of her identity. In less than a minute, reality replaced that story.
She had been living inside an idea of herself that was too small to contain who she really was. There’s a world of difference between “I can’t” and “I haven’t yet.” That night, I think she caught her first glimpse of the difference.
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