Singing for the terminally shy

[RosaLuxOnTheBrightSideOfLife]

I need to help DD1. She has a beautiful singing voice and wants to learn to sing. She was going to singing classes with DD but quit, because the teacher is a musical theatre person and the classes were always geared to an end-of-term performance which DD2 loves but paralyses DD1 with fear. Now I can hear her singing in her bedroom using lyrics she downloads from the internet - she was singing Over the Rainbow this week and it sounded lovely -, and it makes me so sad. What can I do to help her? She plays the violin and can read music so I thought of buying her sheet music and can you get CDs with just the music on that you can sing along to? Has anyone got anything they can recommend? She is in Year Six and will go to secondary school next year so I can look into whether there are any suitable lessons there, but I can't find anything around at the moment.

Did the end of term performance involve solo singing? Or is your dd too anxious to sing publicly at all, even as part of a group? Because it may be that singing as part of a choir or group is the way forward. To do really well in that, the skill is actually to blend with everyone else - not to stand out. If she can get more confident in this way, then maybe it'll bring her singing on generally?

Well I was another one with a naturally lovely singing voice (so I'm told) who was too terrified as a child to let anyone hear it.

I started singing in a choir in Year 7 and loved it. I loved singing in harmony - it gives you quite a buzz - and I didn't get too nervous because there is safety in numbers. And you can make LOTS of noise singing in a group, which is exhilarating!

As a teenager, I still got very nervous before a concert, but I learned to deal with the nerves. By the time I was 18, I positively enjoyed performing - still in a group.

I carried on singing as an adult and eventually reached the point where I was taking lessons in solo singing, and happily singing solos in public, at the age of about 30. I've taken a break from "serious" singing while my children are small, but I lead worship at church from time to time and am totally happy singing in front of other people.

It was a long, drawn out process of learning that everyone gets nervous, but there are things you can do to keep the nerves under control and even use them to enhance your performance. I'm so glad I didn't stop. Singing has been a great confidence-building tool for me - gradually pushing my comfort zone from shy, retiring child into confident, adult.

Yes, choir at secondary school. Is there no choir at her primary school?

If there is no school choir, would you consider a church choir? (One with a decent number of girls and boys, obviously).

Of course, the Christianity comes with it, so will depend how you feel about that. But if there's a decent one near you, they can get a really good musical training, without being expected to "stick out" and perform in the way that you do with musical theatre.

There is a choir in our primary school, DD2 and 3 go and love it but not DD1
Church choir no good for two reasons - first our local church seems to have an over-60s rule for the choir and second, she is a convinced atheist (she even made me change her personal info sheet at the school to say atheist).
Maybe she will find her courage to join the choir at secondary school - she plays in an orchestra and has no problem with that, or with dancing in the dancing school's show, it is letting anyone hear her voice that is the main problem.
Thank you for sharing your experience Smithagain, I hope that she can gradually find her confidence as you have done.