Harmonising whilst singing happy birthday

[NCParanoia]

Caveat: I know there's bigger and worse things going on in the world that I should be annoyed at, but here we are.

Does this make anyone else totally cringe? I have a family member who always harmonises when we sing happy birthday, especially the last bit. I find it so cringey.. its a bit me me me when the point of singing happy birthday is for the birthday person to be in the limelight. Also isn't it something awful we all sing just because we have to, not because we want to?

Am I alone in this? Do you harmonise when singing happy birthday? If so - why?!

(I promise I'm also a happy, fun person who likes to have a good time. I appreciate i sound like a massive birthday grinch)

[quote noodlezoodle]This thread has really cheered me up. It's also great inspiration for new usernames. Should I choose "stratospheric descant", "no one appreciates me and my ukelele", or "Julian's tiramisu"?

Also OP, while you are completely right, it could always be worse: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3636707-To-hate-it-when-people-sing[/quote]


I'm considering 'Timestep to R Kelly', with a nod of the hat to the brilliant @ShirleyPhallus

You're starting from assumptions that aren't true- that harmonising is some complex preplanned, preprepared task. It isn't. That the singer wants to impress you- well I can't speak for everyone else, but the people I know really don't. They are just adding in the other part of the music. It's a supporting part to the main song, like an instrumental line.

To the PP that commented Beyoncé's backing singers would be out of a job if they couldn't control what they sing- well, quite! I've already said, it's a real discipline that I don't have. Choir is challenging because you have to stick to your line (which in my case is never the tune).

@NotHotPot I'm starting to think the same. I was upset last night, wondering whether people have been thinking I'm attention seeking and showing off. Then I got to wondering why anyone would assume my singing is an attempt to impress them. That takes a bit of breathtaking narcissism, to believe that someone else's singing is done to impress you. It's not a performance.

Oh god this just keeps on giving

@noodlezoodle

noodlezoodle
IRL “Julian” has a much duller name with the same initial letter. It works so much better with Julian!
The tiramisu is 100% historically accurate. I wouldn’t mess with that, I’m not an animal.

Cringe. My in laws sing down the phone at people. That was a new one to me!

@NotHotPot

I’m wondering if there is some reverse snobbery on this thread.

Choral singing is very middle class, middle aged (or older) and white. Knowing what harmony is or what an alto line is are part of a body of knowledge that’s not accessible to most people, as school music lessons and services have been cut so much.

So what feels normal to someone brought up singing in parts looks like showing off their privilege to people who haven’t had that sort of opportunity. And is therefore cringey.

It's really really not.

I think it's the difference between people who think singing Happy Birthday is an appropriate outlet for choral type singing, a "musical performance", a gift of a song, and those who think it's a slightly cheesy but necessary part of a birthday celebration where the birthday girl/boy sits looking awkwardly at everyone waiting for it to be over so they can just eat their cake.

My DM used to sing the harmony to HB whenever we had a family birthday and I used to like it because it was something special like using our best tablecloth and putting milk in a jug.

There is no reverse snobbery. I have never been in an adult choir I just know I am an alto from school and never sang the melody, always the harmony. We are not a middle class family. My parents sang and played piano because they were brought up to be able to provide entertainment at family gatherings. Everybody used to do that before television, they really did. If you couldn't sing you told a joke or recited a rhyming poem. I think I am much older than many people in here and so I have relatives who used to do that. It would be considered rude, snobby or stand offish to just turn up and not do your 'party piece'

What I pick up from many people on this thread is a middle class English woman's dread of drawing attention to herself or having too much fun. I think some people have been brought up to keep quiet and in the background and perhaps with enough money to buy everything needed to celebrate.

Be quiet, be modest and consume so that you can display how rich you are. It's an alien culture to me.

@Janaih

Oh god this just keeps on giving

I honestly think that this is my favourite thread ever

@NotHotPot I was a soprano in an internationally renowned choir. We’ve won competitions everywhere, made albums, loads of tv appearances etc...
So I’m not judging someone having musical knowledge.
I hear harmonies in every bit of music I listen to.

Yet still I manage to understand that nobody wants fucking Happy Birthday enriched! 🤣

It’s not a present. It’s a quick, kind of cringey tradition that leads to cake.

It doesn’t need to be “enriched” by anyone’s amazing musical prowess (especially when their children are literally asking them not to do it!)

And sorry now but any decent singer can follow a melody. All of this ‘oh I can’t help it, I’m an alto’ is hilarious! 😂😂😂

@NotHotPot

I’m wondering if there is some reverse snobbery on this thread.

Choral singing is very middle class, middle aged (or older) and white. Knowing what harmony is or what an alto line is are part of a body of knowledge that’s not accessible to most people, as school music lessons and services have been cut so much.

So what feels normal to someone brought up singing in parts looks like showing off their privilege to people who haven’t had that sort of opportunity. And is therefore cringey.

Nope, if anything I'd say cringing at other people showing off is even more middle-class than choral singing. I'm pretty posh by most standards, I know what an alto line is and it still makes me die inside to see other people make such spectacles of themselves at a birthday party.

I think the idea that the people who dislike it must be jealous underlies a lot of the posts from people who do it. Absolutely nobody is wishing they were you when you're making a tit out of yourself by harmonising to happy birthday.

If you assume the women on this thread are representative of women in general, then women in general find you harmonising to happy birthday cringey.

I'm not sure about the other stuff, church or carols as I don't really do that but I think that sounds nice. Singing is more of the point there.

I'm certainly not well off, harmonising at any kids party I've been at at very normal community centres in the working class area I live would definitely raise eyebrows. It would.

You don't have to listen to a bunch of strangers on the Internet though.

FWIW I grew up in Wales and you still used to get older people spontaneously singing in pubs for example, all excellent singers, harmonising, the works. I would say it takes strangers by surprise but was within the social norm there. I think that's the point of whether its cringe or not.
If I was the odd one out I'd feel awkward and embarrassed but it would be my problem, not theirs.

The only reverse snobbery in this whole thread is EvaHoffman who seems to have this bizarre idea that poor people should literally sing for their supper if they don't have the money to buy gifts, and that people don't sing harmonies because they go on holiday instead.

I think harmonising at church is fine and nice if you can manage to do it at a volume that's fairly in keeping with the rest of the congregation. In my experience that's almost never the case, the people singing their own little soprano descants always do so at ear splitting volume so that everyone around can hear their solo.

Actually that's made me really miss church, at one of the last services we went to before lockdown there was someone doing this to every hymn and our whole row of seats (the row behind her) was trying not to catch each others' eyes and biting our lips, trembling with suppressed laughter; in hindsight, what a lovely moment of shared community!

Choral singing is very middle class, middle aged (or older) and white. Knowing what harmony is or what an alto line is are part of a body of knowledge that’s not accessible to most people, as school music lessons and services have been cut so much.

This is pure bollocks. Yes, I'm middle aged, which I don't apologise for given I can't help the number of years that have passed from my birth. I learned to sing at a perfectly ordinary state school where saying 'i went to state school' was not even a thing that you said because what else would people do, and nobody needs lessons to sing happy birthday anyway. My grandpa used to harmonise it and he left school at 14. Also middle class black people actually exist.

All you people who find singing happy birthday cringey are entitled to of course but for me singing it and being sung it are one of the tiny joys of life. If only people could accept different people enjoy different things. Unless singing happy birthday does kill people and I somehow haven't noticed it.

Classics classics classics!

Choral singing is very middle class, middle aged (or older) and white

God, no one tell the Welsh. Or the congregation of most evangelical churches (hint: they're not all white).

I love it when people harmonize when singing, particularly when they're in tune.

Thank you @MrsBobBlackadder

The only reverse snobbery in this whole thread is EvaHoffman who seems to have this bizarre idea that poor people should literally sing for their supper if they don't have the money to buy gifts, and that people don't sing harmonies because they go on holiday instead.

Succinctly put, @Hardbackwriter .

Be quiet, be modest and consume so that you can display how rich you are. It's an alien culture to me.

Gosh, you really do have a chip on your shoulder the size of a boulder, @EvaHoffman. I'm interested in how exactly you have constructed some (entirely) imaginary relationship between social class, wealth and singing harmonies to 'Happy Birthday'.

I'm neither British nor middle-class, and I learnt music on what was then called with charming straightforwardness a 'deprived inner-city children's programme', and ended up singing in two prestigious choirs when I was at university in the UK. Where I come from is somewhere with a strong musical culture and given to singsongs. I'm attending a family birthday party at the weekend for a very elderly woman, where there will be singing, but I guarantee you that no one will be harmonising on 'Happy Birthday'.

DHs family have a thing where they have to sing it incredibly loud and less tuneful more shouty and OTT

@Porcupineinwaiting

Choral singing is very middle class, middle aged (or older) and white

God, no one tell the Welsh. Or the congregation of most evangelical churches (hint: they're not all white).

I should have qualified that. Where I live (SE) choral singing is (from my experience of several choirs) largely middle aged and older, white and middle class. Choirs try to recruit a more diverse mix but find it hard. I think it may be because even non audition choirs that sing classical repertoire require the ability to read music, which is something that really needs formal teaching. Whereas the improvisation of harmonies in church is a skill that people can learn by hearing it done.

This made me laugh. Reminds me of an old uncle I had that I remember had the deepest gruffest singing voice and as I kid I remember him harmonising loudly at all events when there was singing involved. I remember standing in front of him at a funeral and he drowned everyone out during 'The Lord is my shepherd' hymn as he was booming it out. He was in tune ,just over the top!

My grandad was Welsh and the singing at his funeral was something else.

To be honest, I shamelessly sing soprano on the rare occasions I go to church.

I KNOW it's cringe to do so in an informal setting, but I've got a naturally pleasant but untrained soprano voice, and I lack confidence to do the whole 'bursting into song' thing others find easy unless I've got a congregation to sing with. So I just sing to enjoy myself in church (and get very sulky if I have a sore throat).

(I actually used to think I believed in God as a child because I enjoyed the singing so much, but later identified this as enjoying singing)

Hypocritically, I do find my mum's warbling in church a bit much though, and I sing things like Happy Birthday plainly.

To be honest, I shamelessly sing soprano on the rare occasions I go to church.

I KNOW it's cringe to do so in an informal setting, but I've got a naturally pleasant but untrained soprano voice, and I lack confidence to do the whole 'bursting into song' thing others find easy unless I've got a congregation to sing with. So I just sing to enjoy myself in church (and get very sulky if I have a sore throat).

But nothing at all cringeworthy about that, surely, @thecatsthecats? You're just singing collectively, and enjoying it. You're not doing a solo soprano descant while cupping your hand behind your ear to fully appreciate the wonder of your Renée Fleming-esque vocal gymnastics over the rest of the congregation who are cast as backing vocalists in your personal musical drama?

Maybe find a choir where you can sing more?