I believe every one can find their voice given enough wanting to do it. Whether anyone else would want to listen to it is quite a different matter. Everyone has a different agenda, so it is not for others to judge whether it is worth it or not, unless public money is involved. I have a great variety of students, from working professionals to those who have no voice and are finding their way back to some sort of vocal health, for whatever reason.


WHY SINGING?

'Where is the island of Kokovoko ?…….it is not down in any map. True  places never are……….'                                             Ishmael  from 'Moby Dick'.

'Wildness is an energy which blows through ones being, causing the self to shift into new patterns, opening up alternative perceptions of life'.  Macfarlane  Wild Places

Singing provides a path along which the unexpressed can travel into the light of day.               
                                                                                             Milner    Resurgence                                                                                                            
         
'Au fond de l'inconnu pour trouver du nouveau'      (Through the unknown we will find the new)                                                                               Baudelaire

'We should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile, and that there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the poetic imagination'.     
                                                           Will Ladislaw  Middlemarch George Eliot.


The question 'why singing' is the most interesting question of all as far as I am concerned. The idea of 'not knowing' is very important to human learning as it allows the possibility of things being unexpectedly revealed. You try to do something without success, and then suddenly, it works. In other words, it is important to understand that 'will' is not in control. You cannot make yourself sing. This is exactly the same as a sailor having to work in harmony with the wind in order to cross the sea. He cannot make the wind go in a different direction.
However wanting to sing is what drives you so the issue is to join with the wind and have fun together, to be in harmony. The only thing that makes sense is that there is something inside you which requires that you get in touch with it and when you are there it lets you know. The wind, your breath.  Other people also know, because they tell you….. 'that’s right'. In other words, learning to sing is about the voice teaching you what it wants you to do, and you learning to co-operate with it, whatever your opinions might be.
What might this wind be?  It seems to be the autonomic systems of the body which live beyond conscious control, such as the breathing that keeps you alive while sleeping. Unless the singer learns to work with these systems human history tells us that vocal damage follows on. You can do whatever you like, but if it is against nature, there comes a point where the voice simply will not work any more. That is when you loose your voice or at worse, develop nodules. This is natures way of telling you that you have messed up. No more singing.