MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So, Steve, I've sat next to you long enough to know that you like to sing.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Sure.
MARTIN: But do you think you are a good singer?
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: I think I'm an enthusiastic singer.
MARTIN: Well said. But even if you don't think of yourself as choir-level, there are clubs for people who want to sing like no one is listening.
NADINE COOPER: They call me Mama Tuneless.
INSKEEP: Nadine Cooper founded the Tuneless Choir organization in the U.K. (laughter). A tunless choir. She loved singing as a child, which might not have always been appreciated.
COOPER: I was in a music classroom, and the music teacher had a few of us up each time to piano, singing. And when it was my turn, he put his hand on my arm and said, please stop singing. You're spoiling it for everyone else.
INSKEEP: Ow.
MARTIN: Ooh. Brutal. Cooper still wanted to sing, and as an adult, she read about studies that found music improves your health. It can relieve stress and even improve your lung capacity.
COOPER: I always thought, oh, there should be somewhere for people like me to just go and be able to sing without being judged.
INSKEEP: So Cooper and her friend launched the first Tuneless Choir 10 years ago. Their first song was a Bon Jovi classic.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TUNELESS CHOIR: (Singing) Whoa, we're halfway there. Whoa, living on a prayer.
COOPER: It tends to attract lovely people who all understand the benefits of singing and just get together, and we just laugh at how bad we are.
MARTIN: They even started getting gigs. Here they are performing at the Cornbury Music Festival in Oxfordshire, England.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TUNELESS CHOIR: (Singing) We are the champions, my friends.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TUNELESS CHOIR: (Singing) And we'll keep on singing till the end.
INSKEEP: (Singing) Tuneless choirs.
Sharon Marnell just started two of them on Canada's Vancouver Island.
SHARON MARNELL: Vancouver Island - and all the islands, actually, here off the coast in Canada - are highly artistic. I was expecting maybe 50 or 60 people. I didn't think it was topping 100.
MARTIN: Marnell says there's no words to learn, parts to sing or harmonies - only unintentional ones.
MARNELL: It actually doesn't matter whether you can sing or whether you sound like a dying walrus or a cat stuck in a vacuum cleaner. Come along and sing anyway because it's the singing that matters.
INSKEEP: A dying walrus?
MARTIN: I wouldn't go that far.
INSKEEP: (Singing) The dying walrus.
Anyway, there's hope for me after all if I can just find 99 more people to join in. Michel?
MARTIN: No comment.
INSKEEP: No?
MARTIN: No comment.
INSKEEP: All right.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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