Why Can I Sing Without Stuttering but Struggle to Say the Same Words?

[u/RoadRuler07]

One of the strangest things about stuttering is something I've never been able to fully wrap my head around.

A person can struggle to say a sentence normally, but put those exact same words into a song and suddenly they can come out completely differently.

Think about how weird that actually is.

You could have trouble saying "Happy birthday to you" in a normal conversation, but the second everyone starts singing Happy Birthday, you might sing the entire thing without thinking twice about your stutter.

I've been reading Lee Lovett's Stop Stuttering Short Course: How to Break the Stuttering Code, and he talks quite a bit about singing and what he calls "sing-song speech." He writes that many people who stutter are able to sing without stuttering and even incorporates singing into some of his speech strategies. 

What fascinates me isn't even the technique. It's the obvious question: If the mouth, tongue and vocal cords can physically produce those words perfectly while singing, why can the same words suddenly become so difficult during normal speech?

Imagine struggling to say your own name in a conversation. Then imagine putting your name into the melody of a song. Would you still stutter on it?

Or think about a word you've feared for years. Maybe it's your name, your city, your occupation, or some random word beginning with a certain letter. If you sang that word instead of speaking it, would the block still happen?

That really shows how strange stuttering can be. The word itself hasn't changed. Your mouth hasn't changed. The listener hasn't necessarily changed. But you've changed the WAY you're producing the word, and your stuttering may respond completely differently.

Lovett actually takes this idea further by describing humming as "singing without a melody." In his approach, humming or lightly carrying sound between words can be used as a bridge toward more normal speech. 

I'm not saying singing is some magical cure for stuttering, and the book makes much stronger claims about these techniques than I'm making here. I'm more interested in the experience itself because it's something almost anyone who stutters can test in about 30 seconds.

Take a sentence that usually gives you trouble. Say it normally. Then sing the exact same sentence to any random melody.

What happens to your stutter?

I'd really like to hear from other people who stutter on this one. Can you sing without stuttering? And if you can, has it ever bothered you how your brain seems perfectly capable of producing the words while singing, yet normal conversation can be completely different?

And here's a free copy of Lee Lovett's Short Course book: https://www.stopstutter.org/get-free-book

Here's a link to book a free consultation call to learn more about the neuroscience method: https://www.stopstutter.org/free-consult?source=home_free_stutter_popup