I don't think David can hear himself, or doesn't fully comprehend what he does hear.

I have an old friend who is very much into folk music. Plays the guitar pretty well. And he sings. But he rarely sings in front of anyone else, and on those occasions, he has to be coaxed.

It's not that he's shy, God knows! But he has had asthma since he was a child and this has a profound effect on his singing ability. He can hear melodies just fine—nothing wrong with his ear—but there is a disconnect between his ear (clear mental concept of the notes he wants to sing) and his ability to reproduce those notes with his vocal mechanism. Among other things, his restricted lung capacity prevents him from using sufficient breath support, and his vocal cords simply will not respond accurately to his will. The result is that his singing sounds breathy and a bit hoarse, and he tends to sing flat.

He knows this. He can hear it. This is why he generally confines his singing to his own home, not wanting to inflict it on others. But whenever we have a songfest, we make darned sure he gets his turns and that he takes them. He's a really fine person and he loves the songs and loves to sing them. That is, he would love to be able to sing them. So we make sure he gets in his licks along with everybody else.

It would never occur to him to put his singing on MySpace. In fact, he'd be horrified at the idea.

Don Firth