I used to sing jazz at bars, Tin Pan Alley, the American song book. I didn't know much about singing then. I didn't even know what keys to sing my songs in.
A friend of mine recommended a piano man named Bill to help me find my keys. Bill was a crotchety old man, but he could play any song in any key, and that's what I needed.
I met Bill at his house on a Saturday morning. He sat at the piano and we started to work. I hadn't even sung three notes when he abruptly stopped playing and said, "I know a good singing teacher."
I was offended by his comment. We hadn't even found the right key yet.
I'd pay Bill twenty bucks and leave his house with the information I needed and a cassette tape to practice to. Sometimes Bill and I would butt heads while working. We'd argue about the key to sing in.
"You can't sing it in that key! It's too low for you!"
Or too high. I'd always defer to Bill in the end. He was a better musician than I was, and I trusted his old-man judgment.
I'd pop the tape in to practice when I got home, but it was always the same. It was a strain to hit the notes. No matter how hard I tried, I never got any better. I finally got discouraged and gave up singing standards and began writing my own songs again.
Recently, I learned some of the songs that I'd sung in bars on my guitar. I played them in the same key that Bill taught me, but I still couldn't sing them. They were either too high or too low for my voice. I tried playing them in different keys to see if that helped. Bingo. I'd been singing the songs in the wrong key all along. Thanks Bill. I thought about the nights I sang in bars and how horrible it sounded. No wonder.
How many other singers did Bill mess up? Probably a lot. He was pretty busy.
