College Ruined Singing For Me

To be fair to everyone who complimented you before college, a kid having a pretty singing voice is very different than a potential professional with actual training. You could be good at singing by church standards but not musical theater standards. They're really different things.

As an undiagnosed autistic child, I wish I had known that singing all the time was a form of stimming; something I *needed*. I stopped after hearing a judgy "why are you singing all the time?", and life was just that bit tougher without that happy, regulating outlet. I hope you get your joy of singing back soon. 💜

You addressed the fact that you've recovered some of your ability to just sing constantly as you go through your life, but you never addressed the fact that the people who'd been telling child and teenage you that you were a good singer weren't lying or sugar coating (except the 3hrs singing instructor who, as you mentioned, had both training and a specific reason not to crush your hopes and dreams) your perceived singing talent but genuinely perceived your singing as good, in a way that a classically trained singing instructor couldn't? A hothouse long stem rose is a thing of beauty but so is a wild rose with only five petals, growing in a hedge. And wild roses smell amazing.

Had a friend in college…amazing folk voice. He actually sang at our wedding. Anyway, I asked him why he didn’t major in music. He said because then it would be a “job” and he enjoyed it too much to make it work.

Girl!!! I spent 7 years.. yes.. SEVEN YEARS studying cinema only to realize that I liked watching movies not making them... it took a while to find my calling in web development, did that for 15 years and now I'm moving on to management... we grow, we change, we adapt.. 😁

Dating a car guy in college, driving around, I started singing to the radio. Guy asks, who sings this, I say [insert artist here] and Guy says Then let them sing it. Yeah, we broke up.

As a voice teacher, I apologize for my peers who seem to enjoy making students feel bad about their voices. I did my Bachelor's in opera and then stopped performing for like... 5-7 years because I stopped enjoying it as much. The academic burnout is REAL. I can totally relate to feeling better when in head voice - I'm AuDHD and had a teacher tell me it was safer to sing in head voice, so I sang EVERYTHING in head voice (like down to E3). For what it's worth, (now being an MT pedagogue) I think you have a lovely voice and I'm happy that you enjoy spontaneously singing again!

that sounds more like cruelty than honesty. you were clearly good enough to get into the program despite having any real formal training. it breaks my heart that you stopped doing something you loved for years because of the words of one man who should have known better.

I've always tried to be honest to my kids about their abilities. Not cruel, just honest. So when they went out into the world they weren't taken aback by someone else's honesty.

I love your honesty. I had an high school art teacher that didn’t like my art. She thought I was very ordinary. I didn’t realize I had any artistic talent-until I was in my 50’s. Because I believed (due to her lack of encouragement) that I had no artistic ability. She was wrong. It took me signing up for an art class (via Zoom) a few years ago to realize I have a bunch of artistic abilities. It’s funny what you can find out, when you attempt things with no expectations of being any good. Now I let the joy of the process guide me and I’m always surprised by what I can do!

Charlie, you’re such a good storyteller ❤️👍

When I was in art school, art for art's sake drove me crazy. I hated it. Now I'm all about art for art's sake because that is the joy of creating art without worrying about what anyone says. Music for the love of music is a magical thing.

I've realized over the past couple of years that I'm really grateful that my husband isn't bothered by me singing around the house. He's a very serious person and a lot of things I do annoy him, but I can sing my silly songs and almost never hear about it. Singing is a human thing! It's joyous and fun and ties us into our community. I'm so sad to hear that your relationship with singing was hurt in university, but I believe that singing, like making art, is something that everyone can and should do whether they're "good" at it or not. These things get ruined in our minds because we're "amateurs" but they serve an important purpose of self-realization and it's a shame that we can be shamed out of engaging with those creative outlets.

I only did the plays in at my high school because I knew I wasn't a very good singer, but the play we did my senior year had a couple of songs in it (no solos or anything, just the whole cast singing). I didn't realize I wasn't hitting the right note, because it sounded right in my head but not out loud. Instead of trying to help me learn, our music director just told me to stop singing. I already thought I wasn't a good singer, so that broke me. It made me feel like I shouldn't ever sing in front of people again and that my singing was beyond hope, so I almost never sing in front of other people, including my partner, and I will NEVER do karaoke.

Hey charlie, I come from one of those musical families you mentioned. Everyone plays instruments and sings. None truly professionally. I'm glad you found your purpose even in a season of disappointment and dismay. And honestly, it's so good that that person was honest with you and you didn't waste thousands of dollars doing something you might never have truly been successful at. You found your niche and you're rocking it!

I had a similar experience when I went to college the first time for music education. My flute professor broke me and I quit the program. It also felt like a part of my personality had just died. Thank you for sharing! I’m eagerly awaiting the next episode.

This was always my fear. I adore singing and I'd rather adore singing as an amateur than have singing ruined for me by trying to do something with it outside of a tipsy karaoke performance.

My mom and I make up goofy songs to sing all the time but to the tune of popular songs, sort of like a parody. For example, we recently had to take my cat on a trip with us and on the way to the car, I started singing "I'm too fluffy for my carrier" to her. I'm not super aware of how much I do it, it just happens. My husband (when we were still dating) just accepted this as one of my quirks. Then when he got to meet my family for the first time, my mom started singing one of her made up songs and he just went "oh no, there's two of them"

Honestly the most surprising part of all this to me is that a Baptist college had a musical theater program. I was raised Southern Baptist and it would have been unthinkable among those I was around. 😂

I have a good giggle every time you reference Phineas and Ferb. Glad it's not just me. I got my degree in Forensic Science but, thankfully, quickly realized that getting an actual job in the field would have sucked all of my enjoyment away. Instead, I prefer to be an armchair CSI & shout at the TV when no one wears gloves, or photographs a scene before collecting evidence, or lets the profilers enter with SWAT for REASONS, I guess. 😂