Mini Performance Night - When You Say Nothing At All

Heyyyyyyyyyy!

Tonight was the group performance class and my awesome Tio Jorge was able to come! You'll see a full video soon but below is a link to the clip he caught after I FINISHED the song. It's me going over this one lyric that my voice teacher asked that I do with more emotion..

Check it out :)

And FINALLY! Final Four are Chosen..

Finalllllllllllllllly!!!!!!!

After a few days of endless hours of practicing a trillion billion songs, I think I figured out the final four for Martuni's in a few weeks (1 of those will be done in group performance a week from yesterday). 

Being that I had to figure out 4 new songs so quickly, I figured that I had to do a few that I REALLLLY know well.

While my coach may not be thrilled:

- The Climb (Miley Cyrus)

- Distance (Christina Perri)

- Addicted (Kelly Clarkson)

- Because of You (Kelly Clarkson)

The Climb : While this one may be corny, I'm relating to it a TON right now given my journey in music. I don't know it SUPER well so I have a lot of work here.

Distance : Yeah.. A lotttt of work for me here. I found this song 2 hours ago and reallllly liked it.

Addicted : One of KC's from her Breakaway Album, one of my faaavorites that was never a single. Figured this could be fun for maybe getting a little acting in :) The bridge in this song is where I'm struggling, I'll need to focus on that. I run out of breath really fast there.

Because of You : Another from KC's Breakaway Album, a great single that I relate to a ton. There's one line that I need to watch out for - it's pretty up there but I think I can do it.

Anyway, still a ton of work ahead of me.  While I may feel prepared by the time of the performance ( I still have a trillion lyrics to learn - crapppp ), I need to feel comfortable with the music accompaniment. That's where I'm worried.. That's where I.. Am hoping it goes well.

Anyway, it's late. And I am le' tired lol.

Gnite,

Missy

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

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