Let me start off with a confession: One thing that I always wanted to be, was a professional singer. I remember visualizing it since I was a child but for some reason, those dreams of stardom would not be reached. What is the reason? I just never sounded good enough. Hey, I even took part in those high school competitions without any luck.
I remember seeing people competing and doing very well in these competitions. And they were not always singers, I remember seeing a lot of great dancers and musicians take the win. I enjoyed singing karaoke with my friends. I would say my performances were OK. I would really focus on singing the best I could, and it ended up sounding just OK. Then, there would be other people who looked like they were not even trying as hard and would sound great.
After that, I resorted to be a bathroom singer. I thought I sounded great with the acoustics the bathroom provides, this would fade off when my father would come up knocking at the door and ask me to keep it down and hurry up. One thing that I could never do was perform in front of a crowd. And having familiar faces in the crowd would not make it easier, either.
The minute I saw some of my friends at the karaoke place or party, I would freeze and not a single note would come out of me. Maybe I thought that I would make a mistake and sound so bad that I would get booed, and that was a risk I would not be willing to take. One of my friends who had gone to music school saw that I would get so mortified whenever I would get handed the microphone that he decided to give me singing lessons.
I’ll be honest with you, it took me a long time and countless hours of practice, but I finally managed to gain enough confidence to stop shying away from singing in front of people. I have always admired people who are not afraid of doing things. They are real warriors in the sense that they don’t mind tackling something, even when some people tell them it can’t be done.
One of these people is the one in the following video. She surprised dozens of shoppers at a local Sam’s Club in New York. Christina Kokonis-Viggers was bored when she saw a karaoke machine sitting on the shelf and decided to give it a try. I can safely say that many of the people there were greatly surprised at hearing the classic hit ‘Maybe This Time’, and so will you!
