Wendyl Nissen: Just duet

The family who sings together ... exists mostly in movie musicals. Photo / Supplied

I'm not sure which part of my voting paper I was supposed to tick to prevent my new council from singing.

Apparently there was a special section that Rodney Hide snuck in for his own amusement which said "please tick this box if you require your elected officials to sing for their supper".

Which is why I was forced to listen to our new councillors singing on TV's 6pm news.

"But they can't sing," I commented to my youngest daughter, who was the only one left in the room after the others fled in disgust.

"Hilarious!" she guffawed, before penning something witty and disruptive on her Facebook page.

"For many people, singing is a very connecting thing to do," said my other daughter, who had wandered in to see what the council was proposing to do about the transport system. "Unlike this house, other families sing to and with each other a lot."

She is at university. She is studying a lot. Which can be the only explanation for her sudden outburst.

On further investigation, she appears to be correct. Other families trill out their own renditions of favourite hits from years gone by and no one blinks an eyelid.

"Sing away, sing for joy, sing your heart out," those families say. "Singing is good for the soul."

In my house nobody sings.

"Stop!" someone will shout on the rare occasion that a sense of overwhelming happiness and joy forces me to sing a few bars of Hey Jude.

"Someone stop her!" shouts someone else if I fail to desist.

"I used to sing in the school choir I'll have you know!" I say in my defence. "I can even harmonise."

The problem seems to be not so much that I can't sing, but that I can never remember the words.

"Hey Jude," I'll begin confidently. "Mm la la down, take a la la mm la la something or other."

Or "Wake me up before you go go, mm la something do da yo yo."

Or: "You are the sunshine of my life, forever do do something la la."

Unlike the rest of the family, my ability to remember lyrics of popular songs is non-existent. I'm sure it's on the same strand in the same brain lobe that prevents me from remembering entire movies until I get to the end and realise I've seen it before and whole books until I am halfway through and find the words vaguely familiar.

I am also not allowed to sing along to songs. Particularly the ones I used to harmonise to in my childhood days sitting around the campfire (well, it was the 70s).

"I can't live, if living is without you," I sing, before leaping a few notes higher into what I think is a very complementary harmonisation, only to hear that familiar protest - "Stop!" - coming from the kitchen.

That's not to say we don't have music in the house. If my husband had his way we would be tuned into Obscure Operas of the World from dawn until dusk. Instead, we have the iPod on shuffle, which throws up any number of musical extravaganzas recorded in basements.

Apparently, music made by people like Bob Dylan and Lou Reed with dodgy recording equipment and sounding like Dracula sucking his first victim of the night is far superior to my singing.

We even have musical children, two of whom perform in bands. Yet they were raised ina house where no song can be sung. "I'm going to sing a song a day," I announced to the family after doing some research which told me of the power of song to heal.

"When singing, your body is taking in more oxygen, increasing lung capacity, toning abdominal muscles, tightening the diaphragm, and improves circulation," I read. "Who knew that a song, often sung out of tune, could give so many benefits? Even if you feel you don't sing well, do it anyway!"

I looked across the room at my husband, who was doing a very good impression of John Banks on election night. The children left the room one by one, backing away slowly, as they do when they sense imminent danger.

And as I launched into my first healing song of the day, so did he. Two middle-aged people singing their hearts out, connecting and healing.

It was the first and last time a song was sung in my house.