I learned to sing in my highschool choir by standing next to the best bass in the class and following along. To this day I have a real problem with starting to follow the person next to me and not being able to continue singing my part.

Well. I finally got up enough courage to sing at the local shanty gathering. I started singing "Common Sailors" and had the honor of having a very enthusiastic, off key participant next to me. I had the lyrics out and he started reading and singing along beside me. The problem was he didn't know the song and so he was slow. He didn't know the tune, and so he was off key.

I felt myself fall into this wierd out of body experience where I kept slowing down to match him, then he would slow down more, My habit took over and I kept trying to match his tune while he was trying to match mine. IT WAS THE SPIRAL OF SLOW DEATH. Finally, the song was over and I got to sit down. People smiled, said "said we almost got the tune" and then we went on to the next song.