Some excellent advice above. Definitely agree never to pass first time round on a singaround as it gets harder the longer you leave it.

I only started singing a couple of years ago after the best part of 50 years of being too nervous to do it in public. I thought I'd comment on your "What if it is a disaster?" question.

After I had been singing a bit for a while in our local singaround I decided to go and try and play elsewhere and went to a club near Whitby. Came the end of the evening I decided to give it a go. Unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. Firstly I had probably had too much to drink. Secondly I picked a song that I didn't know well enough. I then forgot most of the words. Then forgot most of the guitar part. Then lost the plot totally and gave up - probably feeling as acutely embarrassed as I could feel in front of a bunch of strangers.

But I'm still alive and still sing and in a strange way always look back on that as a huge turning point. People were very sweet about it - noone laughed (outwardly at least :)!), people were supportive and I realised the next day that however bad that was I had survived it and it couldn't be that bad ever again. And it hasn't been. I'm even quite calm when I forget the first line to songs which is a new knack that I seem recently to specialise in.

These days I still get nervous but try to sing as early as possible in the evening as I can and then thoroughly enjoy myself. I hope you do too.

Good luck.


PS "It seems weird to not let anyone else listen to what I've done, like writing something and not letting anyone read it."

Is this a bit like the tree falling in the forest and noone hearing it thing? Or the associated one of 'If a man speaks and there is no woman round to hear him is he still wrong?'