Can Anybody Learn To Sing?

In a prior life, before I discovered how cool it is to play with computers, I was a music teacher - arguably a pretty darn good one. Specifically, I was a voice teacher with a masters degree in Vocal Pedagogy from New England Conservatory of Music and an undergrad in Music Education. Fresh out of school I was convinced that I could teach *anybody* to sing. I had the theory, the technique and the practical experience. That, combined with a lack of money, fueled my desire to take on any and all who would fancy themselves a singer.

Yeah, about that...

To this day, I still cannot explain why there are some people who, knowing that they can't carry a tune in a handbasket, cling to the hope that they can learn to sing as easily as learning the fingerings on a piano. To borrow a phrase, "To those that have will be given more, and those that don't have - try gardening". Ok, I'm paraphrasing.

Here are my supporting arguments:

The voice is deeply connected to a person's identity.
For a person to even stand a chance at changing the way their voice sounds, they have to be able to acknowledge that there is something that needs to be changed. Right off the bat, that eliminates most who would endeavor through voice lessons. The simple reason is the diva/divo complex that brought them there in the first place.

There is no way to directly affect the mechanism by which we sing
Let me say that again: The musculature involved in making vocal sounds, for the most part, is beyond the level of conscious control. The task of the voice teacher is to provide an environment to which the vocal apparatus will reflexively respond. Because we are talking about muscle memorization, the process can take a very long time. It has been my experience that most would-be singers don't have the patience to stick it out. This is assuming that there are no external forces that would get in their way such as smoking, drinking, pregnancy, old age. And yes, I had at least a couple of students from each of these groups. Lovely people. No chance of singing.

The human lifespan is at best 120 years.
The length of time it would take a person with no ear to learn to sing is far longer than most would stick to it. Nuff said.

Damn it Jim, I'm a voice teacher, not a doctor...
Or something like that. There are some people who have physical characteristics which make it impossible for them to produce the kind of vocal sounds that they would hope to achieve. For example, I had one gentleman who actually had a lot of musical ability being a fairly accomplished guitarist. The problem was that he was also heavily into weight lifting and, being a rather short and stocky individual, had the sort of build that made it impossible to put his arms by his side. That is to say, his arms, when at rest, were always in a position that made him look like he was getting ready for an old-style western quick-draw shoot out. Because of that, he could never seem to relax enough to allow the vocal apparatus to operate freely.

That was just one case. Others either smoked so much that they could neither breathe properly nor overcome the swelling and irritation of the vocal folds to make a focused sound. Then there was one poor woman who was pregnant. Now let me be clear. Being a man, I have no direct insight as to what she was going through. But I can only imagine the discomfort she felt when I asked her to take a deep breath, knowing full well that the tiny human in her abdomen had no intention of allowing her mom's diaphragm to descend more than a couple of inches.

I welcome any and all arguments. Even though I've moved on professionally to other things, I still find the science of vocal pedagogy fascinating and enjoy discussing it.