Can Anyone Sing?

     Once upon a time I saw a wonderful little movie by the name of Ratatouille. Long story short a smart rat controls a clumsy waiter to cook delightful food. A testament that anyone can cook. On the same token I get people coming in to the studio saying that anyone can sing. I have a few thoughts about this.
       I have been teaching voice lessons for several years now. I've had students wanting to learn screamo, opera, rap, country, and anything in-between. I can say that there are very few people that actually can't sing. Most students who have come to me saying that they can't sing say that for one of two main reasons. One: they haven't had a teacher patient enough or clever enough to help them find their voice. Two: they haven't chosen a genre or style suitable to their voice type.
           The only real way to literally not be able to sing is to be tone deaf. It is a very real form of deafness in which finding the correct pitch is impossible usually from a defect in the inner-ear. Now I've had a lot of students who were 'tone-illiterate' at first. It takes a lot of time and effort for these students to learn tonal centers, and that's why most of them chalk it up to them just not being able to sing at all. Using your voice correctly can fix a plethora of problems usually stemming from an incorrect breathing posture. 
         Singing is breathing in its simplest form. If you can't support you voice it really doesn't matter how pretty it could be. Like a car without gas you just won't get very far. If you're singing country or speaking rap you might be able to get by with bad support. That's because these genres don't worry too much about technique. I'm a firm believer that no matter what genre you choose you need good technique. Everybody's voice is enormously different but the underlying problems are almost all the same. Bad breathing and too much tension in the neck. 
     So can anybody sing? The short answer is no, but that's only for an incredibly low number of people. Most people can "carry a tune in a bucket," and how good they become depends a lot on the effort and overall tone quality of their voice. We may not all be to get those multi-million dollar record deals or even pack a bar on a Saturday, but we can belt in the shower with the best of them. So sing on friends, sing on.