And Tonight We're Back!

Hey all!

I know it's been a while, but don't worry I've been working a ton. Tonight I'm singing at Martuni's again! Holy moly right? It's been 3 months since that awful last time (lobster claws + muscle paralysis = awesome night). Tonight we try this again.

The 4 songs I'm singing are (in order):

* When You Say Nothing At All - Alison Krauss
* Skyscraper - Demi Lovato
* Te Lo Dije (I Told You So) - Carrie Underwood
* Who You Are - Jessie J

Should be a fun 4.. a nice ramp up from a calm, sweet song to a more emotional and dramatic song, to more power ballads. 

The only issue with tonight is that I have an awful throat pain and fever, so I'll be EXTRA raspy tonight - we'll see how this goes. 

Updates and pictures soon! Wish me luck!

Best,

Missy

I Told You So X FACTOR!

Hey yall!

Working away lately.. 

I had a rough lesson with my voice teacher last week.  It seems that learning to sing with my larynx lowered took the last 6 months to figure out and NOW, I'm learning how to do that while also singing with my vocal chords together.  #NOTEASY.  I'm really hard on myself and I got really frustrated when my teacher picked me apart on a fave Kelly song when we tried applying the above technique. I'll obviously not figure this out overnight - but I still get SO discouraged when I'm not getting it. Over the weekend in the car I tried jammin to my Kelly.. and trying to sing allll of those songs that I used to hit so well with my Larynx DOWN is NOT EASY and personally, I think I sound like crap. #lifesucks.  Had another panic attack after that happened - while driving. Awesome.

X FACTOR started last week, and HECK YES I'm watching that shiz.  I get both inspired and discouraged when watching it. It makes me wonder, is that person actually good or would my voice teacher say it was terrible? I feel like my judgement on others' singing is so all over the place now.  I watch and listen to these contestants who sing pretty decently, but are THEY singing with their vocal chords together and their larynx down? NOOOO.  And they're getting all this drooling praise from the X Factor judges.. wtf, yo?  I dont know.. Could I have gotten praise like that without the crazy money i'm spending on lessons now? Who knows :(

I've been working with my family in Colombia on a Spanish translation of the Randy Travis / Carrie Underwood song "I Told You So". Now Missy-fied into "Te Lo Dije." Looks like we've finally nailed down the lyrics, and now I've FINALLY fit it to the melody.  Next steps are singing it over and over and over and OVER again till it's in my body like muscle memory.  Voice Teacher wants me to learn this, nail it, and then record it and RELEASE IT! - Cray Cray I knowowww.  We'll see if I crash and burn with this or not.  I'm trying and practicing a ton.

Technically next Wednesday,  Sept. 25th is another Group Performance night (eeeeeeeeeek!) and I have NO idea what I'm singing.

Also, Martuni's is supposed to be that following Monday, Sept. 30th OR Monday, Oct. 7th. My voice teacher wants me to perform and I'm horribly terrified. I REALLY don't want what happened in July to happen again. I've been having more and more of those stage fright panic catatonic episodes. They're happening more frequently, which is NOT good.  I really can't seem to get this under control. 

I also have NO idea what on earth I'd sing at Martuni's! I'm all over the place.. maybe.. 

* When You Say Nothing At All (sang it at group but not at Martuni's yet)
* Who You Are (have NEVER performed this one - scary?)
* Te Lo Dije (too soon?)
* Happy? (Leona Lewis - not sure about this one)
* Stay? (Rihanna, meh.. not crazy about it)
* Almost is Never Enough (Ariana Grande - people around me hate it but I really like it.. meh we'll see)

Thoughts anyone?  Please send any thoughts or ideas!

This Saturday, Sept 21st I have an extra long lesson with voice teacher.  He had brought up recording another song this time (yay!!!!).. He originally thought ADDICTED would be a good one.. but after he picked me apart on it in our last lesson, I may not go with that one.  Perhaps IMPOSSIBLE? People seem to really dig that one when I sing it.. or WHO YOU ARE? Obviouslyyyy music videos would need to be shot alongside the new recording that we pick. 

Anyway.. just getting some updates and progress down on this bad bloggy. 

It's way too late, I have an early art meeting.

Gnite yall ;)

Missy

 

Not A Happy Camper

Well.. It's been a day since last night's  performance. As this post title clearly says.. I'm not a happy camper. I'm really unhappy with myself and how I performed. 

Was I nervous and anxious? Yes. More so than last Wednesday's performance? No. One could argue less than last Wednesday. However as soon as I walked up to the mic after my name was announced, my nerves got so out of control that they triggered tears (not visible to the audience) and completely choked me up. My nerves totes bitch slapped me in the face. 

I thought starting with Clarity would be smart since it's the song I've rehearsed the most - should be easier for me to open up with that song, right? Negative. FIRST of all : the Rockstar Broadway Musical Princess of the production group ended up going first, right before me. #Awesome. Not. She was absolutely amazing, incredible, takes your breath away, as usual. Which SUCKS for me since I'm following her. She's been taking voice for decades but still - why can't I be that amazing????? :(

Anyway, back to when it was my turn. My voice is so broken and shaky when I talk that I can barely say a solid word without breaking (and that's just during my self intro). So as Clarity starts to be played.. (And yes, the correct version and melody of the song), I open my mouth to start. I'm trembling and cracking so much that I barelyyyyy croak out the first line-completely falling apart the entire first line. Like I said, my nerves totes bitch slapped me.

EUGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! (Picture Tasmanian Devil here).

The next song was I Told You So - which I think I handled slightly better than Clarity since I was a bit more comfortable at this point. I don't think I hit it quite as good as I have before but still better than how I performed Clarity. 

Next was Impossible. Still trembling at this point but the feedback I got was that I hit this one on the head. Another song that I love but was SUPER nervous to sing since since it was one that my coach and I had only minimally rehearsed. This MAY be the only one that gets uploaded to YouTube, however I still need to watch the playback :)

And finally, the last and 4th song was I Knew You Were Trouble. The one my coach and I hadn't rehearsed.. AT ALL.  I felt like I was okay on this one UNTIL i got to the bridge. My coach had added an extra measure of music and left us on 2 different points of the song - #awkward.

So we had to stop and then pick it back up. Hate that.

All in all was it horrid? Probably not. Was it perfect? Did I knock them dead? Unfortunately no. Makes me wonder if I even have what it takes to do this at all. Am I wasting my time and money??

A big thank you to all my friends that came out to support me last night :) I'm sorry for the parts where I sucked :-/.

I promise I CAN do SOOO much better. I think that's my biggest issue, is that i KNOW i can do better. I'm the one getting in my own way and it sucks.

Here's a pic from last night: 

On the bright side, the owner of the bar seemed to take to me and really encouraged me to come back to the bar's standard open mic nights and that I should work with their HOUSE pianist. He even chased me outside as I was getting in the car to introduce me to their pianist for Open Mic Night. I'm thinkin of going weekly so I can get over this annoyingly large ELEPHANT sized stage fright.

Anyway, we'll see what my voice coach says at tomorrow's group class and ad Saturday's 1:1 lesson. Hopefully he'll be gentle.

Gnite all,

Missy

2 Hours of Singing Later

Whew. Exhausted. But the good kind of exhausted. The kind of exhausted you feel when you just did good.

I just spent 2 hours singing the same 8 songs over and over again out loud. I think I'm leaning towards adding in Shontelle - Impossible, but a more slowed down acoustic version. I'm also really liking Carrie Underwood's I Told You So. My boyfriend Alex hadn't heard it and he really liked it after i sang it (which hardly happens, believe me). 

I'm hacking and coughing up a storm but this was a night well spent. 

Night darlings,

Missy