Voice lessons for Adults

I've been toying with the idea of taking singing lessons. The reason: My singing voice sucks, but I love music and I'd love to be able to sing.

I had a coworker who was a semi-professional singer (along with his wife). They even tried out for American Idol when the auditions came to our city. I picked his brain about learning to sing, and here's what I learned:

1) You can learn to sing well as an adult, but like playing the violin, you'll probably never become a true virtuoso unless you've been studying since childhood. Voice training involves learning to control and exercise many different muscles in your throat and chest that you normally don't use very often, and if you haven't developed good habits as a child, it can be nearly impossible to "un-ruin" your voice as an adult.

2) Men have it way harder than women. (I think it's a puberty thing.)

3) Some people are just born with bad singing voices, and there's not much that can be done to change it. With hard work they can learn to disguise the uglier facets of their voice and sing passably well (think Kevin Kline in "De-Lovely"), but there are limits. On the plus side, some really great musicians have technically bad voices (Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger), but it didn't stop them from achieving great musical success.

4) Conversely, some people have naturally beautiful singing voices and can learn to sing very will in a short period of time. Hope you're one of them.

5) And the obvious: find a good teacher. Most will be willing to work with you whether you sound like Pavarotti or a dying horse. It's all money in their pocket, and some of them enjoy a good challenge, as long as you're willing to do your share of the work.