Are you from a musical/singing family?

Just an interesting thought...

I wouldn't say my family is especially musical, or at least, not like those performing families you sometimes see on TV and stuff...lol

But my dad has (had *sigh*) a really beautiful voice (what's the lowest, bass or baritone? He's the 2nd lowest, whichever one that is).

His sister (my aunt) has a fantastic voice and used to sing in night clubs and do gigs and also came 2nd on the grand final of one of those talent shows in the 70s...

Both her daughters (my cousins) are/were singers (the better singing one died at 15 of a heroin overdose sadly). Katherine is the one I once posted a thread about on here, with a link to her Myspace Music page. She is still trying to get a record deal in America, but is back in Australia now due to money and Visa issues.

My mum's always had a nice nice...and my cousin on that side is also a singer, and used to busk and perform in various choirs around the country and world.

Soooo...then there's me. Hmm. lol

I'm from an entirely unmusical family. No one plays anything or sings or anything.

LOL GOODO! lol

My mum also was a piano prodigy when she was a child. Performed all over the place.

I feel I'm a disappointment...like the familial musical talent ended with me. lol

My mom took piano when she was a kid but never owned one and I've never seen her play so that makes me the only one in my family that plays or sings. None of my relatives do either....

My Dad was a violinist with Symphonic orchestras and smaller ensembles, all over the world. God bless him...

your father would a baritone, if hes 2nd to last, i think thats what id be considered too, im not entirely sure. also im very sorry to hear of your cousin, 15 is a ridiculously young age to be fooling with drugs, and you have my condolences.

the only person who had any musical talent in my family was my father. my mom revealed to me a few months back that he sang in his garage band in high school, and was also pretty good at drums, and it definitely motivated me knowing that he did that. it makes me feel pretty good following in his footsteps, im pretty sure thats how my parents met actually, at one of his gigs, but i could be wrong

Thanks re my cousin. It was ages ago. I was 18, she was 15. Now I'm 31 so you get the picture. She was troubled in certain ways and was on the streets (voluntarily) and on drugs, into prostitution, etc. So...yeah. Very sad. She was a REALLY good singer and was in a few bands and tried to stay there and do well but just couldn't focus and kept leaving and stuff...

Anyway, yeah, my dad's a baritone...or he was before his vocal cords were paralysed. Hopefully his voice will come back...sometimes they do. *sigh*

vocal cord paralysis? i never even knew you could do that...how did that end up happening?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: My parents LOVE music, and it was always on when I was a kid, but I don't believe a single person on either side of my family tree going up was much of a musician. Some played in band in school, but that ended when school ended - no one kept playing. I think my great-grandmother could bang out some songs on the piano, but I never knew her, she died more than a decade before I was born. So not really.

Then I came along and dragged everyone into it. All my brothers play at least a little (my brother Rob being the most proficient, with his twin brother Billy being second), my cousin Ryan plays guitar and bass, and my dad has entertained the notion of learning guitar (but still hasn't done it). I married a woman with a beautiful voice who can play some piano and violin and has a mother who was a professional opera singer.

So I guess I've turned my non-musical family into a musical one. My kids are definitely growing up in a musical family.

I mean, damn, I would be a hell of a lot better if I had the access to instruments that my kids have. I always wanted to make music, but we never had a piano except for one broken one in our garage in Massachusetts (I lived there when I was 6 and 7, for about 18 months) that my dad would occasionally let me mess with. I was in band in 4th and 5th grade (clarinet - but it was a rental), and in 6th grade my mom took all our birthday money and bought a cornet that no one really ended up playing (music teacher at my elementary school was a DICK!).

I got a little Casio MT-100 keyboard in 1986, a bigger CT-450 in 1988, and at my urging to my mother (and a few years of complaining from my brother), my brother Rob got a guitar that Christmas and promptly ignored it (so I started playing it)...and it was all over. I was hooked.

I didn't start singing on a regular basis until many years later, even though I did weasel my way into (not having the prerequisite) and through a voice class in college in 1994, singing Mozart and Negro spiritual stuff (which was weird, singing that stuff for my black voice professor). He loved me, though - I got an A. It made me want to be a "real" singer, because before that I never believed I could really do it...

Sorry for drifting off into a bio there.

Brian V.

Short answer: not really.

The longer answer: My immediate 'close' family has no true musical background (minus some "band" stuff back in highschool.)

I do, however, have cousins who have their own band, and are touring right now and will be touring internationally this summer. I don't consider them family as we aren't all really connected.

I'm the first in my "family" to pickup a guitar and start playing and to tackle vocals. Which is really a pain, since my family doesn't careless and whenever I'm attempting to practice, it becomes a major inconvenience to their television-watching quiet time.

I'm the only one of 6 siblings who is/was musical. My baby sister and a younger brother are creative, in dance and visual arts, but not musical. Well, baby sis DJ's, too. Neither Mon or Dad played music when we were kids, but both played some before- dad-trumpet in HS, mom- ukulele in HS and college.

I also was the ONLY one who showed interest in vocal/choral music, but I made up for the rest of 'em- sang in choirs from age 8, on, including several "honors" and by-audition choirs.

We have no idea. He's had SO many tests (blood tests, CT scan, throat things, gastroscopy, etc) but...they just don't know. The docs are very intrigued but we just want him to be ok again. He feels fine otherwise. But he has to have thickeners in all his drinks to be able to swallow them or else he chokes (cause the vocal cords can't close to block off the airway when swallowing things that go down really fast, like normal liquids)...

He's only 61. It's not like he's 80 or something...*sigh*

wow im real sorry to hear that...it must be so frustrating not knowing why this is happening and more importantly how to stop it. i hope he gets better one day and stays better...dont think i could imagine life without my voice

Yeah, my dad had such a lovely speaking and singing voice...it's such a shame. I may have said before - if I'd known this was going to happen, I'd have recorded our last phone conversation (we live in different states, my parents and I, and the phone and visits is all we have)...it's really sad. Not the end of the world - it could be a lot worse - but still sad.

again, im real sorry. however, and i know this is random, but i didnt know australia had states. like i know its divided in some parts, but do you guys really call them states?

Feels like a unique perspective on what you want your music to say...seeing first hand what it's like to not be able to say it. I truly do hope your dad gets better soon...but until then what amazing inspiration.

About the family...

My dad can/could sing beautifully...my mom too..but nothing creative. Sing-a-long to cd's and such. No real musicians in my extended family either...that leaves me. It was great growing up because they were so genuinely impressed with anything I played and sang that it encouraged me to continue. It just makes me want to be that musical inspiration for my new baby niece...hopefully the music won't stop with me.

Actually, thank you Chase...that's a really positive and heartfelt way to view this whole difficult and unfortunate situation with my dad...I'd already been thinking about how I'd keep on singing, sort of "for" him, but I didn't really think of actually using it for an inspiration for a song...but I think I will, and then dedicate it to him.

Fotown, oh yeah, we've got states. lol. Nowhere near as many as you guys, but our states are Victoria (capital city Melbourne, where I'm from originally and lived from birth until age 25), New South Wales (capital city Sydney, which you've probably heard of above all other cities in Australia I'd guess), Queensland (capital city Brisbane, which I don't live in but am about an hour or so south of...I live on the Gold Coast, which is VERY similar to Miami and other places in Florida. It's the "early bird dinner" retiree capital of the country, has beautiful beaches, people walk around barefoot, all the main theme parks are here, it's all palm trees and there are very rich areas here, and it's very tourist-oriented. But there's also this seedy sort of night club underground type thing...so yeah, lol), then there's South Australia (capital city Adelaide), then Western Australia (capital city Perth, I've never been there), and then there's Tasmania which is the little thing right down the bottom and it's an island really, and then there are 2 territories, which for some reason, I don't even know why, are not called states. The Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (which is where Canberra, the capital city of Australia, sort of like Washington DC sort of thing)is.

So there's your boring Australian geography lesson!!!! lol

Not my immediate family. Quite a few cousins play and my cousin's daughter-in-law plays violin for the Seattle symphony. My Great Uncle Allen built violins for a hobby(?). He was a barber by trade and was quoted in the 1930s of complaining that Hitler was making it difficult to get properly dried German hard woods for his instruments. My middle name came from him. Understand that I rarely saw anyone play an instrument, because we rarely saw the cousins. (Only visited my Great Uncle Allen once in my life, but his violin shop had about 20 instruments in various stages of construction.) My Mother had a few piano lessons when young and in 1960 my parents bought a piano for the house we just moved into. Less than 6 months later the piano was destroyed by a fire and never replaced. (My older Brother was the only one taking lessons.) So there's really not a very good reason for me having gotten here.

Motorcycling in Australia. That would be a serious vacation! I think their largest State is bigger than Texas. Got a Cousin and Aunt in New Zealand. The Aunt won't be coming back to the USA. My Cousin, who I have seen three times in my life, is a Minister and still travels from time to time. Last time I saw her was in a 40 minute layover at Denver International Airport.

yea grace, (i actually doubt your real names grace, unless you really are the chick from jefferson airplane/starship lol), i had always just figured they were called territories, like i know Canada has 4 or 5 of them, and they are all called territories, i figured it was the same for Australia for some reason

thats funny that you compare gold coast to florida, me and my one friend were talking about how nothing but old people and aligators live there

Geography FAIL.

Canada has PROVINCES, mostly. 10 of them, actually. But it's true that they do have three territories (Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut), way up north where almost no one lives...

Only in parts of Florida...if you go someplace like Orlando, Tallahassee or Jacksonville, it's a lot different.

Brian V.

LMAO, we don't have aligators here though. But yes, lots and lotsa old people! I don't mind. Apparently we're the only state left in Australia to still have a Sizzler. It's right here, the early bird dinner capital!!! lol.

Lots of white shoes, lawn bowls, wrinkled brown prune-people on the beach, as well as a heap of annoying young idiots...especially recent school leavers. In America, they go to Florida for Spring Break, right? Here there's something called Schoolies and all the kids who've just graduated from school descend upon us and go insane, get drunk, go wild, etc. lol Fun for the locals.

I've got a friend who lives in Jacksonville. She sent me a pic of a place nearish to where she lives, and it's SO similar to where I live. It's creepy. lol.

Oh, and no, my name's not Grace. lol. I also use the web-pseudonym Eunice Hairburger and that's certainly not my name either! (thank god. No offence to anyone who really is named Eunice. Or with the DELIGHTFUL last name of hairburger) *snort*

Actually, here's some pics of where I live...for fun and interest. lol

1. This is a view of one of the many canals and stuff around the place, just in-land from the beach...

2. This is an aerial view of my old apartment, where we lived for 5 years. 5-6 houses from the beautiful beach! I miss it a lot.

3. Night time aerial view

4. These 2 are just views of Surfers Paradise, the main part of the Gold Coast (not the best part, but the main part). The second one's a view from a bridge from where I live over to Surfers Paradise.

Oops, I don't know how that last one got in there! HEHEH. lol

Oh what a stunning place to live, Grace! I'm jealous! lol

My family isn't musical in the "hey we are a musical family" sort of sense LOL but my mother has played flute in an orchestra and plays alright piano and is somewhat knowledgeable about music theory. My father is a closet singer meaning he isn't performing or at all serious about it but you can see he is into it singing all the time and he could have developed it further in his younger years lol, he has a really nice deep tone and good natural quality to his voice. I suggested he took some singing lessons but he is 60 and isn't keen on trying something new which is a shame. My parents generally love music.

That's about it for the musicality in my family, I guess my parents had an impact on me becoming a music enthusiatic and a lover of singing.