I belong to a church choir to which anyone can belong, either singer or instrumentalist. I can amble in and find myself competing with piano, organ, French horn, drums, guitars, clarinet, bad singers and brash singers. One day I realized that I had no idea what sound was coming out of my own mouth. So I cupped my hand over my ear (the ear not facing the congregation), and discovered that I could indeed hear myself that way.

(Our director does draw the line somewhere. She says she will never tolerate a trap set.)

The people who ridicule the hand-behind-the-ear thing probably don't make music enough to realize what it's for. Either that, or they're so tone deaf they can't conceive of what the problem might be.