Just read this whole thread. What Jack (known as Jack) said awhile back resonates with my experience: "Everyone has their own voice (or in some individual cases several voices), that they have to discover and cultivate through experimentation. I think the main barrier to fully developing ones own voice is the fear of just "letting it all hang out" until the best that you can do finds its way to the surface."

I've gone from non-singer to singer over the last few months at the age of 48/49. This is a revelation for me – something bordering on spiritual – so am a bit reluctant to post.

As a young child, I never sang because I didn't like my voice. Played folk-rock in high school, then rock in bar/dance bands. Always sang back-up harmonies, but never considered myself a "singer." Quit music for 20 years; got back into it playing guitar in an instrumental duo in the late-90s.

When the duo broke up, and I was faced with continuing as solo performer, putting a group together, etc., I actually started to learn to sing. Went solo last May – threw myself into the soup - found my voice and am still getting know it. No formal training involved, but attention to ways that singers across a range of genres use their voices. There's a confidence-building component to this, as well, as someone earlier in thread mentioned. My full-voice vocal range has expanded from low Eb - C# just above middle C to low C# - high G. On a good night, I can hit a high A or even B, but it's not consistent enuf to claim yet. So far, it's all been a process of just finding, claiming and getting inside my own voice.

With practice or performance, find that the longer I sing, the better my voice feels and sounds. Am picky about keys, arrangements, etc. that work for my voice.

During breaks and after performances, people I don't know walk up to me and tell me how much they enjoy my voice, my singing. I'm amazed and grateful. I feel like the outfielder who catches a flyball while daydreaming & scratching his head with his glove. Wish I could've figured this out when I was twenty. But, who knows? Maybe I didn't have a voice when I was twenty.

- Merritt

"It's all one big note." – Frank Zappa