In the late summer (August) of my life’s autumn (61 years old), I heard about a University of Virginia singing group for people who can’t sing.
A little bell rang in my heart.
“I can’t sing, and I work at the University of Virginia,” I thought, sweating my way across the Lawn, past the crop tops and tennis skirts, the backward baseball caps and butterfly tattoos, the Frisbee-catching dogs. “Maybe this group is for me!”
Like an idiot, I wrote to them:
Dear Virginia No Tones,
I can’t sing, and I’m 61, and a part-time staffer, not a student. May I sing with you?
Ha ha, and all that. No, but seriously.
Sincerely yours.
Days later my email dinged. My heart leapt. The No Tones had responded:
Salutations,
If you are receiving this email you or someone you know believes that you are a terrible singer. BUT you are in luck… The Virginia No Tones is UVA’s oldest and only a cappella group for the musically inept and you now have the chance to audition. ….Prepare a few minutes of a song (a cappella of course). Dancing is not required but encouraged…..Bring your best energy.…We look forward to being entertained.
Sincerely,
The Overlords
I took it all in. An audition. Dancing not required but encouraged.
What in the name of Lady Gaga had I done? Compelled by some force beyond my understanding, I signed up. I showed up. And dear Lord forgive me, I sang.
What
Singing with others, in a funny, friendly, low-stakes way.
Why
Because belting out Brittany Howard’s “Stay High” while cruising on 250 with the windows down makes me so damn happy that I just want more of that in my life.
How it went
Poor Hala and Christian, the No Tones Overlords who endured my 15 minutes of aca-awful in the confines of Lawn room 44.
“So I wanted to do something cool and funny and popular for you,” I said, pacing, gesticulating, and looking remarkably like Doc from Back to the Future.
They smiled expectantly.
Then I launched into “Old Town Road,” giving it my best Lil Billy Ray Nas X.
Crooning the first two stanzas, I added a cocky shuffle, as if I really were taking my horse to the Old Town Road and riding ’til I couldn’t no more. Then I forgot the words and started fake-rapping, the way my dad used to fake church-sing in the pew. “I got my horses in the back, my something in the something, uh, I don’t remember the words, but I’m singing any way-ay-ay.”
Like a wind-up doll in a horror movie, I kept going. A Shirley Temple-esque version of “This Little Light of Mine.” A Julie Andrews-sings-from-hell rendition of “I Have Confidence” (from The Sound of Music). With luck, and time, Hala and Christian will wipe the trauma from their memory.
No, I did not make the group. More than 50 people auditioned, and only 10 made the cut. The No Tones really are just for UVA students, and they really can sing, though their mission, says Hala, is simply to “Have fun and bring some joy and laughter to the community.”’
I did have fun! And I may have to crash their performances at Pancakes for Parkinson’s and Lighting of the Lawn. (Ha ha, no but seriously.)
If you, like me, long to inflict your voice on others and call it a song, please don’t bug the No Tones. They’ve been through enough.
Instead, consider any combination of the following:
- Open mic nights at The Local and Holly’s Diner
- Karaoke at Holly’s Diner, Dürty Nelly’s, or Rapture
- Singing lessons at The Front Porch
- Auditions for real, grown-up choirs
William Butler Yeats was no Lil Billy Ray Nas X, but his words are music to my tin (make that tinnitus) ears:
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and
louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress
In other words, take your voice to that Old Town Road and sing ’til you can’t no more.