Singing

Hiiii everyone!! I hope you're all having a lovely day. Who else hates April Fools Day?? My phone decided to play a prank on me and not charge no matter what plug, cable or outlet I used. Luckily I restarted it and it is charging. Hahaha...fuck you phone. The only thing I enjoy about April Fools Day: Adult Swim's pranks. For those that don't know, Adult Swim (the adult programming on Cartoon Network at night) does a prank every year. Last night they did a coin hunt game with their show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It was pretty funny! I don't know which character won, but I was rooting for Meatwad. I remember one year on a saturday night (when Adult Swim shows/showed anime) they inserted fart noises into every show. I was practically dying watching Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell with fart noises. It was my first time seeing Ghost in the Shell and I legit thought that a character had a gas problem! XD. And of course, who could forget the infamous Toonami prank that got us our beloved block back.


 Anyway (Heather shut up and get to the point), yes another music post so soon! I had a sudden streak of inspiration. Truth be told I'm having the hardest time trying to think of good music related topics to discuss and I figured I would get this one out before I forgot to write it.

Those of you that follow me on twitter probably know that I'm a singer. I know I talk about recording and singing a lot. I don't claim to be the best singer but a lot of people enjoy my voice and I have a huge passion of singing so I record songs. I know that maybe 1 or 2 people listen to my songs, but they are a lot of fun to do and I'm grateful that even that few amount of people take the time to listen to them.

I am considered a trained singer. I took choral classes for 6 years, in middle school and high school. I practically begged my parents to let me take the classes in middle school, as they were considered an elective and you had to put extra time into them. My middle school chorus teacher taught me most of the things that I know about singing. She taught me a lot of the basics such as how to breathe, breath control and pitch. Truth be told, I can not read sheet music but I can identify some things on it. All because of the things she taught. If I could go back and thank her for everything she taught me, I absolutely would. She even provided extra attention to those of us that wanted it, holding extra practices during study hall where we would individually go over songs for our concerts with her.

My high school chorus teacher didn't really teach much of anything, but I did learn a lot. I had his classes every single day. Though I didn't particularly like him, I loved these classes. He expected people to learn as we went, for which I was thankful for my previous classes. I was one of the few people that took the class seriously. Most people were there for an easy credit but I worked fairly hard. Compared to middle school, we had far more challenging and a number more songs to learn. I loved the challenge. We sang the Hallelujah Chorus for one of our holiday concerts and I was doing the super high notes which took a lot of work to hit (I miss having that range ;___;) .

This class what where I started learning to hone my voice. Everyone was placed in groups according to vocal range. I was in the higher ranged soprano group. And I was often one of the louder people in my section. I was always involved with the music department.

Amy Lee from Evanescence was also a huge role in me learning to sing. She's my idol and inspiration. Her voice is so beautiful and I always wanted to sound like her. Listening to her albums growing up pushed me to want to learn to sing and also to start a band (this was before I realize I have a horrible case of stage fright). I would sit in my room with lyrics and sing along with her songs.

Singing properly isn't as simple as most people think. Sure, it is simple but there's a lot to it. One of the most important things is to warm up. You can't just dive into a challenging song, unless you want to hurt your vocal chords or your voice to die. You also won't be able to keep your voice going for long. A good warmup session is a must. There are also proper ways to breathe. Yes, to sing properly you need to breathe a proper way! Otherwise your notes will not have proper support. When I first started learning to sing, I had the hardest time learning to breathe! But now it's just second nature to me. Breathing from your diaphragm is important. Also pushing out as you breathe in.

Having a proper knowledge of vocal dynamics is important too. You need to know if your notes are too sharp, too pitchy or flat otherwise your songs will not sound good. You need to know what your vocal range is. If you push yourself to sing too high or too low ranges all the time you will damage your voice.
I was taught to sing loud and project my voice so that a room full of people can hear. That is a big problem when I record my songs. I don't use any sort of fancy equipment. Just a crappy microphone on an ipod touch. This microphone will pick up on any sort of sound. Often times when I sing loudly, it does not sound right on the recording. So I have the most difficult time with that, often needing to place the device across the room.

There are also SO many different vocal styles from Broadway to pop or rock. I have sort of an odd voice. I have the hardest time singing most songs. But I don't have much difficulty with Broadway type or Evanescence songs.

I haven't had any sort of music/singing/chorus classes for 4 years now, so my voice has gotten extremely rusty. I went from being used to singing every day and pushing my range higher to not doing so. As a result I lost some of my high range and my voice for a long time didn't sound as it used to.
In middle school, I used to record what I called at the time my "demos" which is what I do now - record myself singing. I thought it was cool and fun but sadly all of my friends thought they were stupid. I posted one online and someone said it was horrible. So I gave up on that until recently.

Now I know that this is going to sound cheesy and lame as all hell. One of my favorite movies is Phantom of the Opera. It's based on the Broadway musical. In the movie, the main character Christine's father passes away. As he died, her father (a famous violinist) promised to send her the angel of music. Being so in love with this movie, after my dad died I was asking where is my angel of music???? And as Christine did...I truly dreamed of something fantastic music related happening.

Since I started doing these recordings again, I feel like I have finally been visited by my angel of music so to speak. My voice sounds better now than it ever has before. Since I started posting my songs for others to hear, I never thought that I would get the responses that I have. I thought it would be yet another fiasco...people telling me how horrible my voice is (which I truly feel at times). But to my surprise people love my songs! I would have felt joyed by just 1 person telling me truthfully that my singing is good...but I have had a bunch tell me and even ask me for more songs.

So I work very hard on my songs. Often staying up half the night working on some songs for months. I push myself until I feel it is somewhat decent to share. Every single song I do, I record in 1 take. So it can get rather tedious singing the same song until I get it right. Every single song is raw as well. I don't add anything or do anything to them. I simply upload them from my ipod, to my computer and then to my Soundcloud.
So yes, I thought I would discuss my background in music, what I do and a little bit about singing. Sure, singing to the radio is easy and fun. But to sing professionally or seriously...even as someone like Katy Perry can be difficult! And if you don't take proper care of your voice the results can be disastrous.

For those that have never heard my music, here is my latest cover of Lithium by Evanescence. I have never worked so hard on a song before. This song took me 2-3 months of trying until I could get it. The higher notes at the end took so much time to nail. Truthfully I haven't been able to hit that note for years...and have been trying for years! I am extremely self conscious about my voice. So if you don't like it and think I suck, that's cool! But please don't be rude to me about it. It took me a long time to get the confidence just to share a link of it on twitter let alone on here where people can always find it.


[I tried to embed the link above, in case you cant's see it/are mobile here's the link:https://soundcloud.com/sailorkahleesi/lithium-evanescence-cover/s-Tuq3o ]

If anyone has any post suggestions/ideas feel free to comment! I'm always glad to have suggestions, though I think Neo (Hiiiiiii Neo!! :D ) is the only person that gives suggestions ;___; .

Xoxo
Moon prism power makeup!