I hate singing! But I have to sing...?

Question:I have to take vocal lessons as a part of my classical piano studies. The thing is that I've been singing with a teacher for three years now still have almost no vibrato and nothing above C5. It's clear I have zero talent, but he keeps telling me that a true contralto voice like mine is rare and there would be a lot of demand if I put more effort to singing. I can't see how I could when singing is just pain and strain for me. I have a big exam in two months and I'm afraid I'll fail. What can I do?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I have to take vocal lessons as a part of my classical piano studies. The thing is that I've been singing with a teacher for three years now still have almost no vibrato and nothing above C5. It's clear I have zero talent, but he keeps telling me that a true contralto voice like mine is rare and there would be a lot of demand if I put more effort to singing. I can't see how I could when singing is just pain and strain for me. I have a big exam in two months and I'm afraid I'll fail. What can I do?

The answerer above obviously has no idea what she's talking about. I'm a classical pianist and while I did have to take some singing lessons, it was nowhere near what you have to do. Hopefully they wouldn't grade you as harshly as they would a vocal performance major. We sing as pianists, to help us understand melodic and harmonic progressions and figurations in a piece. We sing to help ourselves follow lines and phrases. If you are focusing on piano and can sing well enough to accomplish this, I don't see why being able to sing as well as a vocalist is of such a big concern to your voice teacher. Perhaps you should reiterate to your vocal teacher that you are a PIANO major, and ask him what the standards are for a non-major (in terms of singing). Trust me, singing will only aid you in your pianistic endeavors.

I would say that you probably really arent interested in going further with a singing career, so just do the best you can do for your final and you shouldnt fail if you put effort into it. Even though you cant change the way your voice sounds you can at least show that you put effort in and that will get you through your final. Then after your final, you can concentrait more on your piano :-)

All you can do, is your best. If you hate singing, why sing at all? And as a possible alternative, try rap, believe me most of those guys can't sing a note. By the way are you taking piano lessons or singing lessons? Your teacher should be able to give you some vocal exercises to do which should help you. But in all honesty, if you hate to sing, why not just play piano? It's not necessary to do both and I would just go with what I love to do, takes the stress out of learning. Piano is a truly beautiful and inspiring instrument all by itself, singing doesn't seem to me to be necessary. Anyway, hope this might help you.