My neighbour loves to sing

Which is laudable, at least from the point of view that singing is an inherently Good Thing.

You can set your clock by him at the weekend.

First comes the vocal 'exercises,' going doh-mi-soh-doh'-soh-mi-doh, but never quite managing to get the octave (high doh) in tune.

Then comes some wailing and drumming, to help loosen everything up.

No breath control exercises, however.  Clearly this guy doesn't need to work on his support (much).  Actually, you can hear him expelling the left-over air at the end of every phrase -- a series of oomphahs to punctuate his "repertoire."

There are a few other things that bother me about this guy's approach to his voice.  His exercises are performed at a uniform dynamic -- shouting.  He clearly doesn't listen to his own sound (surely it's bouncing off the walls at him???).  There's no mid-way point where he could actually work on his tone.  He doesn't sing vowels so much as a series of increasingly complicated diphthongs; let's not worry about his bizarre approach to consonants (mostly consists of shutting his mouth hard).

The whole voice gets squashed into a very narrow space, which is a common fault among pop-inspired amateurs.  He has little sense of the potential of his vocal colour, again, probably a result of lack of proper training.  What strikes me most of all is just the sheer lack of originality, summed up in the sentimental trash he sings: a long series of stomach-churning ballads, most of them involving some character called yeeeeew and aaaaaaah and mayeeee.

I came home from a trip to the local cafes to hear this guy in full flight...from about 200 metres away, clearly audible over traffic on a busy road.  Given that he lives on the top floor of a three-storey building, this sort of carrying power is helped, but only a little!

While I'm glad he enjoys singing and wouldn't for a moment discourage him, the quality of this guy's voice could best be compared to standing next to an oil drill.  It's loud, brassy and carries across a great distance, but the same could be said for the bagpipes.  Carrying power can't disguise the fact that it's simply not an interesting voice under present uses.  Really interesting vocal colour is sacrificed to producing a very constipated rather plagiarized saccharine-pop sound.  If he was in a choir with me, I'd be putting some pretty drastic remedial measures into action.  Being an amateur doesn't excuse sloppy technique and bad tone; rather, if you really love singing, you ought to strive to be better at it.


Nobody deserves a front-row seat for the sort of punishment my neighbour visits on his voice.  It's a pity he seems not to realize...