For those of you with nice singing voices...

Very few people sound great singing "almost anything", OP. Even highly talented singers with well-trained voices usually have a certain style and register in which they sing the best, and they often struggle with vocals outside their comfort zone.

I have a nice enough singing voice, I can carry tune, and above all, I simply love singing. So it feels great to me when I find a song I llke that works also for my (decidedly non-professional) voice. And I know better than to try to sing something outside my range.

I have a nice range of about 3 notes and the rest of it sounds pretty awful--but I love to sing!

God's gift.

It's great. It made a huge difference in my life. It was how I made the most friends in college and after as well. Other than that, I would have only had work and that would have been horrendous.

As R1 even if you can sing, very few people can sing "almost anything" well. I can sing, but I know the scope of my talent. Average at best. Better in the lower register.

I’ve been singing since I was a kid, and have been involved in various men’s choruses over the years. I like being able to bust out my talent at karaoke or in front of new friends.

It's very satisfying, OP. Although I admit my two upper octaves probably sound a little better in an Italian mode compared to Wagnerian. My blues are exquisite, my country is overpoweringly commanding, I love how bel canto brings out my precision and hip hop conveys my wit. People have wept when I sweep through a selection from the Great American Songbook. But I personally am keen on singing counter-tenor with various of Monteverdi's arias (and duets), especially when I can follow them with a few sambas or a bit of Kissinger from "Nixon in China," as my bass timbre is Wurlitzerian.

I sound like a cat in a garbage disposal and won't even sing happy birthday. I have such anxiety over it that even if I try to sing along with a song alone at home my throat closes.

It's my one burning jealousy - people who can sing well. Not beautiful people, not brilliant people, not people with beautiful bodies or rich people. Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Fiona Apple, Ann Wilson. Hell, even Courtney Love. I would cut off one of my arms to be able to sing like that.

Pretty damn awesome.

It's weird, because you can't hear yourself as other people do, so you kind of have to take it on faith that your voice is whatever they say it is.

I'm a trained singer and it is fun to be able to hit notes other people can't hit, but singing was probably the most fun when I was trained enough to expand my range and get the breathing down, but before I became concerned with doing things perfectly (You can always improve your technique. It's never-ending)

Now, I'm older so I don't have the range and timbre I once had, but singing is good for the voice.

Also, most people sing better than they think. I've only met a couple of people ever who thought they had better voices than they did--one had a psychotic break shortly thereafter. She was seriously tone-deaf.

My cluster B sister loves singing loud and proud but her voice is freakishly bad. Tone deaf, windy and whirly, emphatic. During the annual Xmas carol singing party our family used to have, I’d have to position myself as far from her as possible.

She loves singing along to long wordy Joni Mitchell songs.

I’m ok, nothing special. Can carry a tune.

I wouldn't know anymore.

It feels great until I notice the paint peeling off the walls.

Yes, people weep when I sing.

Tallulah Bankhead was overcome with emotion when she came to see me. She was weeping so much, they had to carry her out of Carnegie Hall.

My singing, It's magic!

It feels great. I especially like the fact that my voice is so appealing to others.

I'll sing in public. I'm not chicken!

Singing is possibly the most awkward thing you can do at a gathering or in public.

What I hate are people who THINK they have great voices and sing all the time.

We had a woman at work who thought highly of her singing ability. Sure she could hit the notes, but she had such a strong vibrato that everything sounded like a gurgle. She would sing at every possible work occasion. SO happy when she retired.

R20 Was she the woman who sang at Shelby's wedding in "Steel Magnolias"?

OP, it's nice to know that when I sing, everyone in the room is envious. It's better than sex with a pirate.

R20, She may have had a good singing voice at one time, but menopause often does a major number on women's voices--holes show up in the range, the vibrato gets out of control, etc. But some women just can't let it go and drop the volume.

It's great. I'm surrounded by narcissists so it's an ego boost.

I have been singing since I was 4 and found out I can sing any style I want. I suppose I'm really a mimic. It served me well when playing in a top-40 band in the 80's and 90's. My natural voice, though, is operatic.

When I sing, I don't think about notes at all. If I know the words, somehow I get the notes I need without trying and it's like my voice is just floating on top of music, if that makes sense.

I love to sing and sing for myself, I really am not into performing any more.

Are you Florence Foster Jenkins, r25?

It's just a part of me, so I probably undervalue it. I was always picked for solos in school, and if I sing a few bars people always say, "You have a nice voice."

I did some musical theater when I first got to New York and that was the awakening of the realization that having a "nice voice" is not the same as being trained at Juilliard or somewhere. So I switched over to non-musicals.

I don't act any more, but was whistling a tune the other day and a stranger said, "I'm a music professor at Stanford," (or maybe it was Samford?) "and you have [italic]very[/italic] good pitch."

Well, that and a nickel gets you a cup of coffee, as they say. Move it along, toots!

I can sing and play piano decently. But I don't have a huge repertoire. One time I broke out at a company workshop in a nice resort that had a piano near the bar. It was the first night and for two weeks I kept getting asked to perform. I finally stopped going to happy hour.

I had a funny experience at a holiday party last year. The host's husband plays the piano as a hobby, and while he's technically fine, he played with the most rigid tempo, and no feeling at all for how the guests standing right next to him were singing. It was like singing to a soulless karaoke track.

Basically, when we hear a song, we are listening to the human voice, and there are many subtly (or dramatically) different ways to sing a song. The accompanyist really has to take their cues from the singer if there hasn't been any rehearsal.

It was the oddest sensation to be singing with the pianist just plowing ahead. It was actually disorienting. I almost wanted us to stop singing, to see if he'd even notice.

I'm a tenor male but I always wanted to sing the dramatic female pop songs. So I developed this eerie falsetto to sing like Barbra and Mariah. I've done it so much I'm pretty good.

After I got cats and spent so much time screaming at them, my range got better. I can now do Karen Carpenter songs (in the shower or elevator).

I don't have "a voice." I always sang in choir in high school and since my range is about the same as the Beatles, I can sing all their songs and sound pretty good. But that's a limited range.

The test is, can you sing the Star-spangled Banner and sound good?

[quote] The accompanyist really has to take their cues from the singer if there hasn't been any rehearsal.

Jason Bonham (drummer and son of Led Zep drummer John Bonham) would disagree. Bonham and Sebastian Bach (singer of Skid Row) were in "Supergroup," a reality show (Ted Nugent also "starred"). Bach was always struggling mightily to sing. He asked Bonham to look him in the eyes while they were on stage (to help Bach with his singing). Bonham said: "You look at me; I'm not gonna look at you." (Something like that, i.e., "that's not my job as a drummer.")

For an average person, I have a nice singing voice. My voice is kind of low. My outward appearance is kind of reserved, so people are surprised when I sing. My voice is surprisingly soulful. No, not like Al Green, but soulful in comparison to my peers.