A useful homily. In Len Graham's excellent book about his old singing partner Joe Holmes, he relates how Joe had been put off singing in public by a teacher who told him he was tone deaf. As a result Joe confined his singing to the home and limited his public musical activities to playing the fiddle. Len realising that Joe was actually a wonderful singer with a remarkable repertoire of songs, coaxed him into singing in public.

As a result the world is richer by some eighty songs, a lot of people enjoyed Joe's singing who otherwise wouldn't have done, and I have some fabulous memories of hearing Len and Joe sing together.

In my humble opinion very few people are so devoid of any consciousness of pitch, that they couldn't be trained to sing under any circumstances.