Gearoid,

The part of our brain that alcohol first puts to sleep is the part that carries our inhibition and judgment. This is what made "the cocktail" party famous and is why alcohol is made available in so many social situations. Of course, too much loss of inhibition and judgment and we get in difficulty (but that's another story}. The former is what accounts for your experience. The message that alcohol is giving is: you are being too judgmental with yourself and too inhibited. You have been given several suggestions above that should prove helpful.

Alcohol is hard on the voice because it does dry the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat, but a drink to start may continue to help. If you use alcohol as a tool for this purpose, I would suggest a quick shot of whiskey rather than a beer. The beer prolongs your throat's exposure to the "drying" effects of the alcohol. More than a shot and you may begin to have problems focussing on the task at hand.

I believe you can train your voice. I come from a family where my two older sisters loved to sing and were quite good at it. I, too, loved to sing, but I could not carry a tune in a bucket. I was often embarassed to sing with my sisters when we worked together.

But I loved to sing! So I kept on singing. By high school, my voice was tolerable. By the age of 21, I had developed a good singing voice. Now, at the age of 52, many people tell me they love my voice; "a baritone as smooth as good brandy" says one admirer.

So, keep at it. A voice teacher should be helpful if s/he is more supportive than critical.

I have a group of friends who get together to sing once a month. Some of them cannot carry a tune with certainty, but they enjoy singing and you can hear that joy in their song. And the group loves them.

Roger in Baltimore