I remember when a worship leader first told me I was singing with too much vibrato. It really hurt me, because in my heart, I was worshiping God truly with my voice. After getting over my hurt, I realized that God was giving me an opportunity to learn again and I embraced it. On the other side of it, I am glad to have had and to continue to have the opportunity to learn.

I’m hoping to share my experiences with her. But I can’t assume that dropping subtle hints will fix this issue. People are getting turned away because of the vocals at our church. The Associate Pastor won’t even invite guests because it’s so bad.

Does anyone have any tactful suggestions on how to discuss this? If my family ends up having to leave this church, they will be stuck with only a guitarist (pastor) singer (Pastor’s wife) and bassist (pastor’s daughter) - do you see another theme here?

God Bless,

That might be one of the most convicting things I have ever read given its context. I have a guy who really wants to sing, but I don’t let him. I have never told him why.

Please be careful though before communicating that someone is not gifted in music. I don’t know the author of this question or what they tried in teaching this girl so I can only respond to what I often see. Our culture is extremely quick to label someone as not gifted.

We joyfully listen to hours, weeks, months and even years of a baby’s incomprehensible babbling and get all misty eyed when we hear one ‘mama’ or ‘papa’ out of the mix. If they don’t do this in an appropriate amount of time we hire specialists. We do this because we assume that everyone can speak unless a disability interferes.

Often we listen to one child try to sing once or twice and all too quickly label them as musically challenged or ‘not gifted’ because they sing off key. Matching pitch with another is a learned skill just like talking. Sometimes a long time (by listeners standards) is needed for this skill to be mastered.

If a person can hear, understand and respond to spoken language then they are demonstrating highly skilled pitch recognition and production. If they are truly ‘tone deaf’ then it is extremely difficult to communicate in spoken language (which is just a series of pitches).

I believe that God created all of us with an inherent ability to sing. Certainly some are specifically ‘gifted’ as leaders and soloists. And certainly there can be specific physical and learning disabilities that get in the way. Just as in all kinds of learning it can be difficult to tell the difference between not knowing how to teach someone and them not being able to learn. Extremely gifted musicianship is no guarantee of an ability to teach, especially at ‘lower’ levels of learning like pitch and rhythm that most of us are not aware of having had to learn and don’t know how we did.

I would tactfully speak the truth to these parents about the vocal problems and stop putting her up front just as you suggest. Then unless the Holy Spirit prompted otherwise I would urge them to seek out gifted voice teachers who have made the art of teaching their study.

One more thing, there is a difference between voice teachers who teach the stylistic parts of music to those that can already sing, and those who really know how to teach the most basic skills. Both skills are good but relatively few voice teachers can really do the latter. If anyone has a strong desire to sing, I say to them keep seeking and praying for a teacher that can help.

Donovan

Josh

Thank you, Bob, for this thoughtful response. I am going to print this out and keep it before me. When it boils down to it, I believe you’re right. Though not harsh or brash about pride, it is easy to fall into the quieter side of pride that causes you to overlook the main issue. It would, in the end, be very self-centered to allow this to continue and not confront it in the loving fashion you have outlined. Thanks be to God for His wisdom and work.

Mike