Originally Posted By: Planobilly
I placed some ads in my local area for vocalists. One or two have responded that can not sing.

I am looking for kind ways to tell them thanks but no thanks.

Any good ideas?

All you need to say is, "Thanks for responding, but you don't have the sound I'm looking for."

If they press for details, then by all means, be honest. But that's probably not going to happen.

I was watching a video the other day , and Stan Lee was talking about how he would encounter artists at comic conventions that would show him terrible drawings and ask about getting a job as a comics artist.

He said he didn't know what to say to those people, because if you're intending to be a professional in a field, it's critical that you have the ability to evaluate how good (or not good) you were. And these people had no clue how bad they were.

So he'd end up suggesting something like "Maybe you should practice drawing shoulders a bit more" or something similarly anodyne (hey, I finally get a chance to use that word!).

Similarly, if the singer doesn't know how bad they sound, critical feedback is probably going to fall on (tone) deaf ears.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?