If you can't hear what you are singing it's very difficult to adjust the note you are singing to what you believe you should be singing. Ever notice people who have walkmans and personal cassette players who have them turned up loud, when they sing they are almost invariably badly off key, even people that would normally be able to at least sing along matching an instrument. This is partly what they are hearing is the note being produced by the recorded artist and not the one they are singing. Putting your finger in your ear seems to help you hear what you are singing and distingish it from other sounds around you. Unfortunately like everything else anything mildly different from the standardised, homogenised, media-fed/dictated idea of normal is immediately identified used as a stereotype and ridiculed. Jude