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Shut Up and Sing!

In March 2003 Natalie Maines from The Chicks, then known as the Dixie Chicks, famously criticised President George W Bush’s actions in Iraq from the stage during a concert in London. In response, the band were ‘cancelled’ and Natalie herself was subjected to death threats. In their song "Not Ready to Make Nice" (probably the classiest and most blistering “Sorry-not-sorry” takedown of keyboard warriors you’re ever likely to hear), the band details how Natalie was warned to “Shut up and sing”, or risk being killed during performance.

This story got me thinking, not least whether it was physically possible to simultaneously shut up and sing, but also how often as women we are silenced, side-lined by voices which are louder, more strident, deemed to have more important things to say. As an aside, I was once informed by an alternative therapist that the throat problems then plaguing me were caused by me physically stopping myself from speaking, literally biting back what I wanted to say.

Fear not, this is not going to become a lecture on politics or feminism. My thoughts are focused on an altogether more musical question: namely, has anyone ever told you to shut up? By which I mean, has anyone ever succeeded in actually stopping your voice?

 

When we started Dynamic Meladies in 2016 with the intention of helping women to find and develop their unique voice and experience the joy of singing, we found ourselves time and time again coming up against the same challenge: women who had been told, many at an early age, that they ‘couldn’t’ sing. Sometimes, this discouragement came from family and friends, but disconcertingly often, it originated with schoolteachers. Our hearts broke a little bit every time we heard stories of children being made to stand at the back of the choir and sing quietly, or worse yet, mime. Some were even banished from the group completely, and so began a lifetime of being a ‘Non-singer’, the one who can’t do a turn at a party, who won’t volunteer for the karaoke at the staff night out, who is way too self-conscious even to sing in the shower or the car if anyone else is around.

Here’s the thing though... Singing is the most basic and natural expression of ourselves we have as humans. And just because we are told we can’t (Literally, "shut up and don’t sing!”) doesn’t mean we don’t have the desire to create music and the right to express ourselves through it. So that’s often where we meet people at Dynamic Meladies. Ladies who have suppressed their voices for most of their lives because they felt somehow unacceptable but couldn’t totally suppress the need to sing out and let those voices be heard.

And it is a need.

Singing is so closely entwined with our physical and mental health, our emotional well-being, and our sense of self, it’s easy to see why criticism, particularly at an early age, is so damaging, and not just to your confidence.

 

At Dynamic Meladies we’re all about your unique voice. So, you don’t sound like Adele? Well, fortunately Adele’s got that one covered, so what we need in the musical universe is for you to sound like you! Everyone has their own sound (thanks to anatomy, physiology and lots of other complicated things) and that’s just perfect! Imagine the richness we would miss if everyone had to sing a certain way - distinctive voices like Bjork, Cyndi Lauper and Chrissie Hynde doomed to stand at the back of the choir, opening and closing their mouths like goldfish, uttering not a sound!

The thing most likely to make Sheena and I do a happy dance, is the moment, and there are many of them, where one of our ladies makes this discovery for herself. The first time she really hears her own voice, blending in harmony with the voices around her, and in that moment stops being a ‘Non-singer' and becomes a creator of a unique and beautiful musical sound. It rarely stops in the rehearsal room though. It’s a breakthrough that spills over into everyday life, a new confidence, an ability to push boundaries, a growing self- belief.

Everyone has the right to sing, and no one has the right to tell you otherwise.

 

We sign off all our Dynamic Meladies correspondence with two words, and they are the words I am going to leave you with...

Sing out!

Karen Coleman

 

Come along and find your unique voice at one of our Singing Sessions!