sophie heawood

Many years ago I started having singing lessons from a wonderful kind-hearted woman. I was younger and shyer then, and was immediately attracted to her generous philosophy. She told me that everybody has a voice, everybody can sing, and if they don’t sing in tune, well, maybe they’re singing a different tune, and that’s fine. I had lessons for some time and she taught me well. Once I spent a whole weekend at her house watching her work with another student - a middle-aged man, recently divorced - to successfully turn him from tone deaf to singing in harmony.

Now that I live on the other side of the world from her, we haven’t seen each other in a long time, but we recently met up in America and went on a retreat together. At this retreat there was a creative writing teacher who was going round saying that everybody has a voice, everybody has a story to tell, and everybody can be a writer. Now that I’m a professional writer, I found myself turning my nose up at his idea, and muttering darkly to myself that everyone can’t be a writer, just as not everyone can be a pastry chef or a chemical engineer.

Later, I told my singing teacher that I had become a horrible old snob who didn’t believe that everybody could write. She said that she no longer believed that everybody could sing. “But I watched you get that man from tone deaf to singing in tune!” I reminded her. “Oh GOD, but that was SUCH hard work,” she groaned. “I’ve realised that everyone in the world can make a noise,” she continued, “but… it isn’t always pleasant to listen to.”

My dark cynical heart felt quite a lot better after that.