Lovely post, although the professional singer in me cringed at times. While many people CAN sing in their own way and in their own range there are tone deaf people out there. My wonderful mother is a great person but she cannot tell if she is anywhere even close to the correct pitch (and 99% of the time she’s not). She can choose to sing a song in a different key or octave (if you were singing along with the radio when your friend told you to sing lower you likely changed the octave, if you sang without the radio you likely changed the key, although you may have still simply shifted octaves ;) ) but she won’t even go in the right directions as she sings. -.-’

But if you aren’t tone deaf you should definitely be able to sing as long as you stay within your range and don’t try too hard to imitate a style that your voice isn’t suited for!