"I'm driven to the reluctant conclusion that uploading home recordings to a Web site is not going to enable me to give up my day job."

If you don't go to people's funerals, they won't go to yours.

This is not meant in reference to you, Pip, but I have watched closely over the years the number of Mudcat threads whereon people have announced a new CD release or what is to them a thrilling musical experience and the threads close--drift off the page--with about 20-30 posts. We live in a very small and viciously jealous world, and it is exemplified on Mudcat somewhat more than most places because ya'd figure if support is going to come from anywhere it would be from other musicians. Not so. IMO.

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The problem with hearing your own voice is that you have to hear it the way everyone else does, except you also have the memory of what it sounds like firmly implanted in your brain (memory). That's the biggy to deal with.

I was doing a CD in 2008 and when I heard the first cut--voice and strummed guitar track--I was nutso because at the end of stanza one (on my favourite song of the CD) I hit a note a bit flat (maybe a 1/4 tone). I recall the moment in the studio when that happened. I was wearing headphones and as the track was being recorded I heard this bloody awful 'noise' for lack of a better term, and remember saying silently to myself, "WTF was THAT?" The producer (a Mudcatter who is an incredible songwriter) listened to the take after the song was finished and said, "It's fixable." However, a month later it didn't sound fixable to me. (We ended up grabbing the same line from another stanza and it WAS fixed, but I'll always remember it, and three years later I find myself looking for that flat note whenever I listen to the take.) I say that because while my voice is not great, it is good, and I do not sing sharp or flat--I hit my notes.

I guess what I'm saying is please keep on keeping on. Whatever accolades you may get here will not be half the payment you deserve for the project. Look at it this way: you are learning lots of stuff from it, and that in itself is a good thing. Besides, most CDs take a year, anyway. Best wishes to you, whoever you are, and keep singing.