AIBU to stop singing around my family after their comments?

On holiday with my in laws they constantly sung along to every single tune on the radio, in the apartment they kept 80s hits on the TV and sang along every moment we were in. I was like a week long karaoke trip I wanted to commit murder by the end of it :)

I think your family were mean to put it as bluntly as they did. But it can’t be unsaid. I wouldn’t sing around them again but make sure you do when you’re alone. I sing too, when I’m here pottering around and in the car. It’s good for you!

I'm listening to my OH 'sing' right now. We're both WFH. He's in another room, there are two closed doors between us but I can still hear him. He's awful, it's irritating to listen to and he knows this. But he's not singing for anyone else, he's singing for himself. Sometimes I have to ask him to stop if it's really distracting me from what I'm trying to do, other times I just tolerate it! I'm a marginally better singer than him but I'm sure mine is still not pleasant - my kids are young enough to not care though and still ask me to sing nursery rhymes at bedtime. They hate it when I sing songs they don't know though!

I think it would be ridiculous for you not to sing HB to your husband - HB rarely sounds good! I think you would be taking their feedback a bit far to avoid singing then. And you shouldn't stop singing full stop, not if it makes you happy/helps you concentrate (think that's why my OH does it). Maybe just ask them to tell you when they're really not in the mood to listen to you?

And get yourself some singing lessons/join a choir if you really want to get better. I bet there are some YouTube tutorials on it too you could do at home that might help!

If you’ve been in the habit of singing in public, I can understand them. I know it’s the duty of parents to embarrass their older children, to pay them back for toddler tantrums, etc., but there are limits…

Disagree. We all have annoying things about us. I bet OPs bloke and kids are not adapting their behaviours to appease her.

How much amd how are you singing?

I'm terrible at singing but sing the odd line while cooking and me and the kids have silly kitchen parties.

But I'm also very aware that making noise encroaches on the peace of others so I would never ever ever sing properly like I was being serious and thought others might enjoy it.

So imo singing is communal fun or something to be done alone.

My husband often plays music and it's a bit annoying (and it's good music!) I just prefer peace and quiet. It would piss me right off to have someone constantly singing or humming, even if they were the best singer on the world.

There are a lot of them out there!

My own father spent what felt like many years of my childhood singing ‘Day-o! Day-o! Daylight come and me wan’ go home!’ from the Banana Boat Song, complete with what he presumably imagined to be a Caribbean accent. Over and over. Day in, day out.

It's ok he doesn't like my singing, but we've been together for 20 years and he has let me keep going with it, which is humiliating if it's true that I have a horrid voice

Don’t be silly, if you like to sing, just continue. To say I have a bad singing voice is an understatement. A disagreeable cat stuck in a drainpipe would sound better than my singing. Can’t hold a tune, tone deaf, just really really bad. But I don’t care, I sing all the time as for some reason I enjoy it. No way my DH or kids would ever tell me to stop as a) they know I know I’m bad and could not give two hoots, and b) they know I’d just tell them to wear ear plugs or make themselves scarce if it bothers them, so what would they gain?

You don't need to be a bad singer to be annoying.

I worked with a woman who used to walk into the office belting out the "Good morning! Good morning!" song from "Singing in the Rain" every day. Sometimes just the first few lines, occasionally, the whole bloody song.

She was a very good singer (she did very well as a contestant on "The Voice"), but that didn't stop her being annoying.

I bet you don't have a horrible voice OP, I bet it's just that your family get irritated by you singing around the home, especially if it's in snatches or along to the radio when they are trying to listen to it.
Maybe you should join a choir and really enjoy yourself singing.
Understandably you are hurt by what they said, but your silent response is verging on sulking! Don't refuse to sing happy birthday to DH, thereby spoiling his day and getting the attention on yourself. Tell your family now you are really hurt because you think you have quite a nice voice and didn't realise they hated it. Listen to whatever they say in response. And keep singing Happy Birthday and in church or whatever.

I see you’ve met my relative then… 🤣

I worked with a lovely woman who had a great singing voice. She sang at office parties and karaoke nights and always went down a storm. However, we were allowed a radio at work and she sang along to everything. Songs, radio jingles, adverts. EVERY-FUCKING-THING. It was infuriating and I ended up asking her to please stop before I murdered her.

So maybe that's it - your singing voice is OK, but the actual singing itself is too much?

And after the ‘Happy Birthday Raspberries’ I would stand up and belt out a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday song with a funked up funky dance. 💃

Yes, it’s like people who can’t resist doing the high descant to ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and are there in a carol service with the tendons in their necks standing out as they solo descant over the rest of the congregation. Or even worse, the ones who do harmonies to ‘Happy Birthday To You’ outside the context of an actual choir.

I can’t carry a tune, that I’m tone deaf is a running joke in my family. I sing quite regularly, very loud in my car or to the radio, around the house if I have a song in my head, or making up little ditties about what I’m doing.

It sounds horrendous, but I’m not singing for anyone’s enjoyment. I doubt DH loves it when I sing, but I’m not singing for anyone else’s enjoyment and he knows that.

Were you singing on the assumption everyone else was enjoying it? I can’t see any other reason why you’d be so hurt and petty about this. Is he really going to be devastated you don’t sing happy birthday, or just think you’re a bit weird and petty? I’m sure DH wouldn’t mind if I didn’t sing happy birthday if he got peace the rest of the time, but he’d be more perplexed that I’m not doing something that makes me happy.

My happiest memories are of my mum singing along to her favourite records, just full of unselfconscious joy.
I would feel deeply hurt by their comments.

I read about it in 'Lifting the Latch', about rural life in the early 20th century. The dairy maid singing to the cows she milked, the farmer singing in the fields, the boot maker singing in his workshop, the housewife singing in her kitchen. At one time it was just normal to sing because you felt like singing.

Even in the 1970s many of my friends would suddenly burst into song and we all enjoyed it. And in the pub at that time, an old gent would start to thump time on the table and break into song.

Randomly bursting into song IS annoying.

I have a relative with form for this. She has a great voice but you can’t listen to any music (TV, radio, etc) in peace without her warbling away. She genuinely can’t conceive that you might like to enjoy a piece of music without her spin on it. She will even sing over a preschooler doing nursery rhymes.

She also used to sing descant at school assemblies when relatives were invited, not appreciating how excruciating that is for her kids!

My voice isn't too bad - at one point, I even earned a second income from it.

This didn't just baffle my ex when he found out I had started gigging, he couldn't believe that anybody would pay to hear the sounds coming from my mouth as according to him, I was absolutely awful and there was nothing worse than coming into the house and hearing me singing, so I had been told never to do it again in case somebody walking past heard me.

What he actually had a problem with was that it meant I felt happy and free and people might like it - and worst of all, that I might be told I was good at something. Of course, he chucked in criticism of what I wore for performances and that I was clearly trying to be a teenager/did I not realise how stupid I looked.

I lost the ability to sing or listen to music when my brother died - after what, on listening back to a recording, was the best I had ever sung, it never came back. The sounds just choked and I couldn't relax, breathe or get the sounds out anymore. So he got his wish in the end.

Find somewhere you can sing without them. Don't let spiteful teenagers (who will move onto being horrified that you breathe, speak or even exist soon enough) knock you down like they do other children at the school. Don't let him bully you into silence.

Happy birthday's a shit song, anyhow. And going by what they're saying, they'd only complain if you did join in; let them get on with it.

Wow, I had no idea so many women hated the sound of their family members singing.

I'm resolving to sing less in the house from now on - yet another instance of MN sucking the joy from my life 😔

This is my question too, like in what scenarios were you singing? You mention about singing in public, when did you do this - as part of a choir or was it a verse and a chorus of Celine at the Sainsbury’s checkouts? If the latter I can understand more of their frustration! I’m just struggling to understand what it is about it that’s bothering them?

This

It would drive me nuts. Op said sometimes it's a whole song . OMG .

I don't mind snippets but not more or less constantly , I'd have to search for a shed to lock myself in 😅

Personally I would find it irritating if the people I lived with constantly broke into song regardless of whether they had a good voice or not and would absolutely ask them not to do it. Perhaps look into local choirs or singing groups if it's an activity you enjoy. There's no need to stop singing, just do it somewhere where it's appreciated. Also agree with previous posters, there is a difference between not breaking out into song and refusing to sing happy birthday to someone.

I don’t think people should be singing at work. That’s just odd?