Warning: This may come across as a humble brag. Please read the whole thing before judging. Or if you're not inclined to do that, don't read at all.
I hate it when people complain about my singing - not even to say that it’s bad, but to say I’m ‘showing off’ or that I ‘make them feel inferior’ about their own voice.
You have no idea how insanely hard it is for me to finally work up the courage to sing in front of people. It takes months, sometimes years, of knowing a person for me to go from mumbling along in the car to actually feeling confident enough to belt out a song. And it’s damn near impossible to get me to sing if there’s no music to sing along to, because then I can’t pretend that the other music is drowning me out.
I like my voice. I’m proud of my voice. I know it’s not perfect, but I also know that it’s pretty good. I hate that I’m always afraid of people not liking it. I hate that something I love doing, and that makes me so happy, is something I feel too scared to share with the world.
The couple of times someone has complimented my singing, I've had a brief moment of panic, of ‘oh my god you actually heard that’ but it’s also given me this warm glowing feeling inside, and helped me feel braver the next time.
But saying someone is off-key or has a bad voice is not the only way you can crush them. In fact, if I did go off-key or sing lousily, I bet no one would say anything, because that’s not the polite thing to do. I know I would never say something like that. If we’re driving along (I use that example because it’s where this sort of thing happens the most frequently) and jamming out to a song we don’t like, I don’t care if you’re Mariah Carey or William Hung, honestly I’m probably just going to have fun with you either way.
But when someone turns to me and says “Oh my god, I hate singing with you because I sound like crap and you don’t” it ironically doesn’t boost my ego. Instead, it makes me feel like by enjoying myself, and having a gift, I’ve somehow been insensitive to them. Like I need to apologize for the differences between us. I realize the other person apparently isn’t having fun, and somehow it’s my fault.
Why do I have to feel bad about being good at something just because you’re not? I’m sure you have many talents that I don’t share, but I’m proud of you and I will embrace your talents, not tell you to hide them just because I’m insecure.
And as for the 'showing off' thing, I just don't get this. I've never once entered a talent show, never once intentionally stood in front of a room full of people to sing, 'just because I could' and I thought people needed to hear it. Even that, I don't think, would be considered 'showing off', rather just 'showing'. Sometimes I like to harmonize with songs (or just sing the background vocals if the song is in two parts to begin with) simply because I think it sounds cool. My mom is very musical. I grew up listening to her harmonize with stuff on the radio, and as a result I learned to do it too. And if there are two of us singing, then why shouldn't we do a two-part harmony? That's really fun!
But when I do this and people accuse me of showing off it makes me feel bad, because what have I done wrong? What's stopping you from doing the same thing?? And if you know you just can't harmonize because you don't have the ear for it, or for whatever reason, then why the heck is it a bad thing that I can? If you enjoyed doing something, and you were really proud of it, I would never tell you you were showing off. There's nothing wrong with being proud of something you're good at. It's not egotistical to do it to the best of your ability, rather than holding back because people around you will judge you for going all-out. And considering I barely have the confidence to do it in the first place, accusing me of doing it to the point of showing off is more than a little ironic.
Now it's a whole other story if you just don't want ANYONE to sing along. Sometimes people just want to listen to music without other people singing over it. I get that and I'll respect that. It might be a force of habit to sing (or at least hum) along if I know a song really well, but if you catch me doing that and ask me to stop, I'll definitely apologize and clam up.
But please don't say I make you feel bad by being comfortable with myself. Because chances are you'll say something like that and move on, but it'll hurt and stick with me for a good long while. Obviously the last thing I want to do is make someone feel bad! But I don't understand how I can avoid that, other than stifling myself in order to make sure you don't compare us. And that's not fair.
Besides, chances are you're being too harsh on your own voice anyways.
