Sing a song!

Are Italians inveterate singers?

Although Italy is worldwide known as “il paese del bel canto”, do not expect Italians to be particularly musical or to hum songs to accompany any single moment of their daily routine. It is easier to find mums in red-and-white chequered aprons singing as they bake or hang their laundry on the line, or merry masons in white vests laying bricks to the rhythm of a whistled tune in TV commercials than in backyards or on a building site. And, alas, neither jam sessions nor pub songs are part of our culture. So, when do Italians sing and what do they sing in the first place?

Chirping children vs muted teens

Well, children definitely still sing a lot at kindergarten and primary school, and are generally willing to perform complete sets of nursery rhymes at our dreaded family reunions. Soon after, at middle school, they suddenly give up singing in music classes and switch to recorders or electric keyboards. That is the end of their singing in public, with the exception of musical performances associated with worship and religious events. We rarely have school choirs in Italy, and unfortunately music is not included in the secondary school curriculum.

Karaoking adults

For lack of anything better, adult Italians end up singing mainly when they are all alone or trapped in a confined space: while having a shower, for instance, or shaving, but also when they get stuck in a traffic jam. In this particular case, they normally sing along with the car radio, and if they roll down the window, you will realise that they do not necessarily care about the exact correctness of the lyrics. More than half the music played on Italian radio is in English, and if we do not have time to understand the lyrics thoroughly or at least try to make out what they are about, we just mumble something more or less similar, let us say in terms of vowels.

Over to you

If you do not dislike singing, just turn your radio to an Italian station and discover an altogether different melodic environment. It is worth a try! Among the most played and requested songs on Italian stations, you will find a large number by artists you can trust for their musical qualities as well as their good pronunciation, such as Tiziano Ferro, Jovanotti, Elisa, Giorgia, or bands like Negrita and Modà, to name but a few. You can also watch music videos with lyrics on screen on the Internet. We suggest in particular Lyrics training: you will find a powerful and engaging game to get some practice.