I knew this guy highschool, he used to sing in the choir, and he had great range to his voice. I practiced with him a few times here and there when I was first starting out on the guitar, the great thing about him was that he could sing just about any style. But then there was this gap between us as the years progressed, I got in touch with him a few years ago, but he has taken up smoking like never before, he voice has changed as he has gotten older, and he no longer considers singing as a career. I wish he stuck with music, and continued singing, because I really feel that he had a great talent, but then again he never took the whole experience too seriously...

I guess we just tend to lose track of what we want as the years progress, with new responsibilities that we are forced to face, we kind of stop focusing on our fantasies and start focusing on reality. But with music, its a gift, and especially when you have a good comfortable singing voice, its not something you should take for granted. My voice has never been all that great, and even with voice lessons, I'm still not very comfortable. Although I never took up smoking, I'm beginning to think it wouldn't have hurt...

I think the thing is that a lot of people try too hard to be the best when it comes to singing, and its really impossible to sound as good as your favorites with little to no practice (most of your life.) What most people should concentrate on is finding their sweet spot, and the way to get to this point is by focusing on simplistic melodies, and experimenting with different voice changes. Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, hes not exactly the greatest singer, but his voice fits into the context of what hes playing. In highschool, luckily before a big show with my band we found the perfect female vocalist to fit our arrangments, you know it almost came to the point where I was gong to sing lead, thank goodness my friend shelly was around when i needed her. With a large crowd like that, I don't think I would have had enoiugh time to pull the frog out of my throat.

-Joseph