"When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing"
About this Quote
Sixteen is a hinge between childhood experiment and adult intention. For Tommy Shaw, the moment he began thinking seriously about singing signals a recognizably human shift: from playing around with sound to cultivating a voice. A guitarist from Montgomery, Alabama who would become the soaring tenor behind Styx anthems like Renegade and Blue Collar Man, he points to an age when raw musical curiosity turns into daily work, self-critique, and the discipline of craft.
Serious thought about singing means more than liking how a melody feels. It implies scales and breath control, learning blend and harmony, holding pitch under stage lights, and building the stamina to carry a set night after night. It also means a new kind of courage. Singing puts the self on the line more directly than playing an instrument; the body is the instrument. At sixteen, when a male voice settles and identity is in flux, deciding to step forward to the mic is both a technical and an existential choice.
Shaw is often praised as a guitarist-singer, and that duality underscores the impact of his teenage decision. Embracing voice widened his range as a songwriter and performer, letting him channel narrative, vulnerability, and urgency in ways a guitar alone could not. The bar-band circuits of the South and Midwest, the nightly repetition of learning other people’s songs by ear, the need to connect with distracted roomfuls of strangers — all of it becomes training ground once singing is treated as a discipline rather than a lark.
There is humility in the phrasing: thinking seriously, not dreaming of stardom. That interior shift, quietly made in adolescence, laid the foundation for the control and clarity heard later in arena-filling performances and hits with Styx and Damn Yankees like High Enough. The path begins not with spectacle but with a private commitment to become better, one rehearsal, one breath, one note at a time.
Serious thought about singing means more than liking how a melody feels. It implies scales and breath control, learning blend and harmony, holding pitch under stage lights, and building the stamina to carry a set night after night. It also means a new kind of courage. Singing puts the self on the line more directly than playing an instrument; the body is the instrument. At sixteen, when a male voice settles and identity is in flux, deciding to step forward to the mic is both a technical and an existential choice.
Shaw is often praised as a guitarist-singer, and that duality underscores the impact of his teenage decision. Embracing voice widened his range as a songwriter and performer, letting him channel narrative, vulnerability, and urgency in ways a guitar alone could not. The bar-band circuits of the South and Midwest, the nightly repetition of learning other people’s songs by ear, the need to connect with distracted roomfuls of strangers — all of it becomes training ground once singing is treated as a discipline rather than a lark.
There is humility in the phrasing: thinking seriously, not dreaming of stardom. That interior shift, quietly made in adolescence, laid the foundation for the control and clarity heard later in arena-filling performances and hits with Styx and Damn Yankees like High Enough. The path begins not with spectacle but with a private commitment to become better, one rehearsal, one breath, one note at a time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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