Rough Night - Time to Quit?

Alright.. here we go again.

Had a rough night last night and sat and typed up this post on my phone, hit "publish" and then got an error message which deleted the whole thing.  #annoying.

So.. let's try this one more time.

It's been a rough few days.. to say the least. 

Over the weekend my mom came down to visit - which means my weekend was amazing.  Love having my mom visit, it's like I have a temporary slice of home.  I thought it'd be a good idea to bring her to my 1:1 voice lesson on Saturdays with my voice coach, I thought it'd be fun for her to see all the fun technique training I do and what I am really capable of (since she hadn't been able to see any of my performances). 

Well. I was wrong. 

I'm not sure if I was particularly horrible that Saturday or if my voice coach had an off morning or what - but he really ragged on me for every.. single.. little..thing.  Literally.  Anything and everything I did was wrong and he was disappointed. And he voiced it. He even told me I regressed.. WTF??? Really? In front of my mom? I don't know - maybe I need to grow thicker skin, but as my teacher - making me want to shut down and quit after a lesson isn't ideal for your business or for your student's growth and motivation. He then told me that for my upcoming performance at Martuni's (round 2) I'm not allowed to do any of the songs I did last month - all 4 new ones. CRAP - that's in 2 weeks and i'm so NOT prepared.  

My mom walked out of that class completely dumbfounded and in shock as to how that lesson went.  I walked out of the lesson teary eyed and down.  Did I just pay $120 for that hour to get dumped on? The icing on the cake is that he finished the lesson with talking about how much he hates Kelly Clarkson's music.  #epicfail.  And yes, he does know that she's my hero. 

Fast forward to last night - I wanted to sit and practice doing a ton of songs to see which ones I'd feel comfortable choosing for Martuni's round 2.  I have to pick 4 songs and THEN learn all the lyrics, and oh yeah, sound good doing them so I don't choke again.  On top of that, my voice teacher has a billion students - and normally doesn't know any of the songs I bring to him for our class.  So when I'm up there performing, and my teacher doesn't 100% know the song, makes for an unfortunate performance.  In a backwards way, I feel like i'm set up to fail in these performances - and those are really discouraging.

Anyway, back to last night.  I wanted to practice and find 4 songs I wanted to settle with. I   practiced 10 - 13 songs on my performance mic and recorded it with MovieMaker.  I just sang on top of the song being played on YouTube.  Of course, MovieMaker only recorded my voice going into the mic, none of the actual song being played so it sounded pretty ridiculous a capella.  After trying out each song twice - I played back a few and was just.. HORRIFIED.  What the hell am I doooooooooooooooing?!?!?!?!

It's just ME in the room and I'm mortified listening to the playback - that I even tried.  It sounded so ridiculous, I was disgusted with myself.  I'm paying all this money for lessons and performances where my coach doesn't full know the song that I'm singing along to, failing, over and over again. All signs are pointing to - this is not meant for you.  You get to a point where it's not other people, it's you.  If every playback.. and every recording is this bad - I need to face the reality that you know what? Maybe this isn't meant for me to do.  I was so upset, so defeated.  Still am I guess.  I'm thinking about finishing my voice lesson with my coach through the end of this month (June - since I already paid for it), and then stopping from there.  

Anyway, I was so upset I took it out on some song writing - about how you should never chase your dreams.  The trips and falls of the journey is too painful and not worth it. Stayed up way too late with this disgust and frustration in my chest, I couldn't fall asleep.

Alex told me to sleep on it - he thinks I'm being WAY too hard on myself and need to relax.  I haven't changed my mind but we'll see how the next few days play out.

Missy

Karaoke Anyone?

Hey all,

Needless to say it's been a CRAZY few days.  Last Wednesday (6/5) was weekly singing boot camp. That was PAINFUL - i'm such a weakling. For cereal though.  Tons of planks and leg lifts while singing.  Planks and leglifts on their OWN are pretty brutal for me. I just don't have the core to do it.  Anyway.. got through that + had some singing in class.  Unfortunately the night before (last Tuesday night, 6/4) I'd had a pretty rough night.  I decided I finally wanted to play back all my singing from last Monday night @ Martuni's.  Eugh - not good.

I'll be honest, guys.. It wasn't pretty.  I sat and watched it all - and from there I buckled down in tears. I hunched over started bawling over what I had just watched and heard. I completely regretted inviting friends and felt like I had completely embarrassed myself.  Felt like I'm wasting my money and time entirely and that I've now ruined something that was so important to me. Why the hell did I get up there and do that?! I wanted to delete it all and MORESO - i'm pissed because I wanted to finally get to upload GOOD work onto YouTube.  But no. Can't upload any of that. A few things happened (that I've recapped before).. 1) My nerves got to me, my throat closed up as I teared up when standing in front of the mic and that completely stunted my performance and ability to hit the notes as good as I know I can. 2) I was shaking so much that I didn't sing on the mic, I wasn't close enough and clearly sounded off and far away.  EUGHHHHHH. 

So Mad at Myself. I really wanted to showcase and post videos of my performance but in NO way can I do that.  I need to only EVER publish my best - and that certainly wasn't it. 

Then I watched a playback of my last Wednesday performance, where the wrong song started playing and I messed up the first verse?  While yes, I messed up the first verse - the rest of it sounded awesome! I sounded like MYSELF and the way I KNOW I can hit it.  That gave me a bit more of my confidence back but not much.  

Fast forward to my 1:1 lesson with my epic voice coach this past Saturday, 6/8.  Most of the lesson was a lot more talking through my last Monday performance. Embarrassingly enough, I started crying in front of my teacher.  I told him I felt like I'd been wasting my time and that I sounded awful.  He of course told me I was being way too hard on myself and that I wasn't as bad as I am describing it.  He also told me that the way the nerves took over me was what he had expected. Boo.  Anyway, he told me in general that what people were saying was that if I got my nerves under control, I have a pretty big voice to be unleashed.. We'll see about that. 

Next up was the weekend: my boyfriend Alex, our roommate Hank, and our friend Fred and myself all went to a Karaoke Bar in San Francisco on Saturday night (Silver Clouds Karaoke).  I was really scared but they dragged me out to one at around midnight after having had a few drinks :) Luckily, the entire group there was WASTED. Literally, every person who went up to sing at the mic couldn't even get out a word without drunkenly falling over and cracking up. Hank dragged me to the DJ booth and paid CASH for me to get to get up on stage and practice! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD is all I'm thinking. They call my name and I get up there and sing the HECK out of Kelly Clarkson's "Behind These Hazel Eyes," a favorite of mine.  While I could definitely have done better - having drunk fans ask to get to touch my hand and tell me I was awesome was DEFINITELY a confidence booster.  It made me feel comfortable to practice this again.  Whew :)
See pic below:

I had a ton of fun.. as you can see below:

Next up: Voice Bootcamp tomorrow, and Martuni's Open Mic on Thursday for practice.. cross your fingers for me??


Anyway - sorry for the big post, it'd been a while so I owed you all one.

Wednesday / Thursday post to follow (hopefully).

See yaaaaaaaaaa,

Missy

Memorial Day Shopping..

Hey goofballs!

So I did a little damage yesterday.. 

I walked into Guitar Center and bought.. Everything..I think lol. Hahahahah no just kidding, although it did feel like it when I got to my mountain of goodies at the register.  I got the start of what I needed for practicing music at home. What does that mean, you ask?

- a performance microphone

- microphone cables

- microphone boom stand

- piano / keyboard (score!)

- keyboard stand

- chair for playing keyboard

- audio interface (comes with audio software for editing recorded music)

- keyboard/piano pedal

- keyboard cables

- 2 mega awesome speakers (aka monitors)

- 2 books of fun sheet music 

What's left?

I need : 

- a DESK

- a computer that allows all of the above to be RUN

Whew! 2 major questions:

1) HOW on earth do I put this all together and make it work?

2!) WHERE on earth will this fit in my San Francisco apartment??!

A really good first step but I still have a ways to go.. What I was finding is I would make great progress in my lesson but I'd be a sitting duck once I got home. I'd still practice but just to my lessons recorded and just practice my upcoming performance songs acapella. 

I realized I was handicapped. I can't perform live anywhere without being able to play an instrument (seeing as how I obviously have no band) and if I want to take my music to the next level.. Like write my own music or manipulate and change an existing released song - or perform ANY song live without help.. I need to play an instrument! 

Soooooo with that being said, I played the piano a bajillion years ago and have since stopped (and focused on dance instead).. So my job now is to rack my brain and RE-learn how to play the piano. Something that can ONLY help me..

Keep your fingers crossed for me, hopefully it comes back to me SOMEWHAT easily :)

Skip to TODAYYYY, my boo (Alex) and I met my mom in the oh so lovely Vacaville (~1 hour away from San Francisco) so we could 1) hang out and 2) so she could give me my dog back (my fluffy muffin Alfie!!!)

She watches him whenever Alex and I travel.. Which works cuz she begs for him normally :)

Hanging with my mom is my favorite, a little dose of home every time.. We shopped a bit, helped her pick a dress for an upcoming cousin's wedding and then had a little dinner and drinks (or maybe it was just me who drank.. Oh well :-p)

Pics below!

Now to focus on my performance songs this week (Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!):

- Clarity

- I Knew You Were Trouble

- Impossible

- I Told You So

My cousin Kelley (who's in an amazing band called 'Breaking Midway') called me today to tell me there's a song that could fit me really well, and that she thinks I could really rock.. Jessie J's 'Who You Are'... Do y'all know it?! I looked it up today and it's an AMAAAAAZING song! A big song, but amazing. Will be trying to check that one out as well.

Okay Luvs.. This Wednesday is the group class performance day!!! I'll be singing Clarity. A week from tonight is my debut at Martuni's! 

Holy s**t!!!

For me this week : Practice practice practice!

Until later, gnite! :)

- Missy

Weekly Singing Bootcamp

You read it right. On Wednesdays my baller voice coach has a group voice class. What does that mean you say??

I bet you'd THINK it'd be like a group choir class. Everyone trying to learn how to harmony and yadda yadda yadda..

NOOOOOOOPE!

It's a small group class, so a lot of eyes are on you. It's:

Leg lifts

Squats

Planks

Crunches

Push Ups

Wall Sits

.. ALLLLLLLLLL ENTIRELY WHILE SINGING. Yeah, that's right. And if you're like me and don't gym everrrrrr (yes for me gym is a verb) - then doing these kind  of activities (or working out at all) is already incredibly difficult. Add belting it like Mariah into that ad you've got a trembling me trying to keep up.

#noteasy

Anyway, it's every Wednesday night. 

Hopefully I'll be some sort of amazing singer one day who makes singing INCREDIBLE look super easy. 

Until later..

Missy

And p.s. yes that is the dance studio that we do these crazy workouts in..

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

What's this shiz about?

Yooo world!

(I promise this will hopefully be the only time I write this long of a post!)

So - adjusting the direction (and attention) to this blog a bit.

Originally this was going to document my efforts to get back into dance - we're shaking things up a bit.

While dance is something I've always adored since I was young, I've decided to put my funds and efforts into trying to make it in the music industry.

There have always been 3 hobbies I've split up my attention to since I was a small chik-a-dee:

• DANCE
• SINGING
• ART / PAINTING

While art / painting is something I've always wanted to improve in, it's always taken a back seat to my first 2 loves: Dancing and Singing.  I feel like I've somewhat satisfied my art itch by always working in the art world.

That leaves me with Dance and Singing - Dance I prioritized in age 3 - 22. NOW it is time to focus on music.

Not gonna lie to you - I've always kept it in the back of my mind because it's something I'm TERRIFIED of pursuing.  I'm terrified of someone telling me I suck.  My knee-jerk reaction would be "Crap, if I suck why did I even try this, what am I even doing - I'm THAT PERSON who thinks they can sing but really can't carry a tune".  

#EMBARRASSING.  #HUMILIATING.  #MYWORLDisOVER. #CRYINGaRIVERinMyPILLOW.

But I decided you know what? I need to stop living in so much fear.  If I suck, then I suck - at least I tried.  Singing is SO personal to me - and being great at it means EVERYTHING.  

So.. I enrolled in voice lessons with a rock star voice coach who is PUSHING ME to do performances.  This blog will document all of my ups and downs in that journey as well as asking for help on song choices / photos / looks etc etc - all that fun pizzazz.


SOOOOOOO...

My first performances are as follows:

• Wednesday, 5/29 @ GROUP VOICE CLASS
• (eeeek. I want to die. so scary.)
• Monday, 6/3 @ MARTUNI's PIANO BAR (San Francisco, CA)
• (above eeeek x 1 million)

Right now the song set is the following:

* I Knew You Were Trouble (Taylor Swift)
* Clarity (Acoustic - Zedd ft. Foxes)

Possibly:
* Because of You (Kelly Clarkson)
* I Told You So (Carrie Underwood)
* Todo Cambio (Camila)
* Impossible (Shontelle)

Still working with my voice coach on which 4 will be the best choices.

Thoughts anyone? Updates coming to you on Wednesday from group class day ;)

Yours,

Missy