Singing Genes

Thank you Hank Eng , Ann Litts and Elizabeth Helmich for your responses. I just wanted to add that even though I suck at singing I did manage to master one song. I was immersed in studying Lakota spirituality around the time my daughter was just one year old. The wife of the pipe-carrier I was apprenticing under taught me an old Lakota song that was sung to make babies go to sleep. Musically, it is a very, very simple song; simple enough for me. The amazing thing is that the song really worked. When it was time for the baby’s nap I only had to sing 3 or 4 or 5 verses of the song before my baby was sound asleep. I still remember that song even though I haven’t sung it in over 30 years.

Unlike me, my daughter’s mother was an incredible singer. She once sang in a rock and roll band for a while and she had also starred in countless on-stage musicals and her singing never failed to elicit standing ovations from the audience. For Christmas I occasionally got her to sing a Christmas song or two. I, of course, never joined in because I didn’t want to ruin it. Then I would beg her to sing Patsy Cline’s I Fall to Pieces. I swear she sang that song better than Patsy did.

Sadly, our daughter did not get her mother’s incredible singing genes. Instead she got mine. Like me, she can’t sing to save her life. And her oldest daughter can’t sing either. But now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t recall ever hearing my youngest granddaughter sing so I don’t know whose genes she got. So when I go over to their house for Christmas merriment this year I think I’m going to try to get her to sing so I can find out.