I can’t even explain why I’ve taken a “petite pause” (a small break). Two months ago, I laid out a schedule for recording all my songs so that I’d have something done by June. I was all ready to record after spending hours in my home studio practicing and listening to the demos of the songs I liked the most and figuring out what I needed to change for the final versions. I continued doing my video blogs on my YouTube channel and I had some plans for other songs I’d started that I’d be putting up for video blogs.

But that didn’t really happen. As much as I enjoy doing music (I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t go over to my piano and practice either one of my own songs or something from one of my many “piano anthology” books), I have had a lot of other things going on in my personal life as well as my day job.

But today I have some time set aside for my music. It’s been a while and I’ve really missed recording my songs. :)

Off to the studio now!

It’s in this simple atmosphere that most of my recent songs have been written. I sit down at my piano keyboard and practice for an hour or so every day, perfecting my playing on the famous “Moonlight Sonata” and other various classical works. In between practicing Beethoven and other composers, I like to just play whatever comes into my head, fiddling around with various chord shapes and singing whatever comes into my mind. It’s how I’ve been able to come up with a song a week for the last few months. And it’s getting easier and easier to come up with songs. Of course, with such prolific writings, some of these songs have been utter crap and haven’t made it past the rough draft stage because no matter what I do with changing the melody, something still doesn’t work. So I leave those songs behind and push on ahead. But most of them have gone farther and will end up being released in some capacity.

As I’ve been recording these songs, I’ve added a few extra instruments here and there in the form of drums and maybe some guitar and bass. But not much else. One of my recent songs, That’s Why I’m Here, I tried to transform into my usual electronic sound with lots of drums to play up the angst of the song. Upon showing this song draft to my husband, he remarked that he liked my piano/vocal version a lot better.

“Get rid of all that. It would be a lot more honest with just your voice and piano,” I remember him saying.

And that got me thinking. What if I just kept things simple with this song? So I discarded the electronics and recorded my piano and voice. I even recorded the main vocal on a particularly rough day to better capture the tiredness in the lyrics. And it was a LOT better. It was raw and emotional, the way a song like that should be.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be moving towards a simpler direction with my music, I would have thought you were crazy. A year ago, I was all about trying to be different. Why would I keep it to simple piano/vocal/drums? I’d sound just like everyone else. And I didn’t want that.

How time changes!

Now I no longer want to be the next The Dreaming era Kate Bush. I just want to be me. Simple and honest. Playing to my strengths. :)

Anyway, this all started about a month ago. One of the users, Glynda Duncan (a.k.a. glyn) from Texas, made a post asking if anyone would like to be interviewed for her Internet station Hearts of Country Radio. She’s one of the most active users on the site, not to mention a really nice person to talk to!

When I read her post, I decided to put my name in and give the interview a try. I listened to a few of her other interviews with some of the other users and I thought it’d be cool to put myself out there a little more. Basically, she messaged me with questions she usually asks and I could pick as few or as many questions as I’d like to answer. Then I recorded my answers, sent her the list of questions I answered, and she recorded her portion, then it all got put together and mastered by one of the other users on the site.

So on a dreary February afternoon in Hampton Roads, I made myself some warm tea and holed myself up in my home studio to record my portion of the interview. I pretended I was actually talking to Glyn even though we were over a thousand miles away, being my usual effervescent self and excitedly talking about my music and influences. When it was all over, I realized that I’d done most of the talking and probably rambled a bit (what can I say, I’m always excited talking about music and writing!) but I had a lot of fun doing it!

And here is the final result of that interview:

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11491392

Enjoy! :D You also hear me mention Lazy Cat Media a little bit as well. Hey, a little mention couldn’t hurt! :)

Boy was I wrong. :)

I really enjoyed seeing Imogen working on her songs: figuring out how to sing lines, working out arrangements and melodies, and of course, seeing her recording in her home studio. Of course her studio is a LOT more fancy than mine! I like seeing all that goes into making a song and seeing how someone else does it. It shows me that I’m not the only one who takes a while to record and perfect a song.

She mentioned a song called “Tidal” that really gave her problems. Throughout the hour and a half long documentary, Imogen talked about how she changed the arrangement for that song several times, not to mention melodies and lyrics. Eventually she got to the version that she released on her album, but over the course of the two or so years that she took to record her album, that song gave her the most amount of trouble.

And do I know how she feels. One of my own songs gave me such problems.

In one of my earlier video blogs, I played a French song based on a French novel called Dominique by Eugène Fromentin. The song was called “Madeleine” and was written about Dominique’s (unrequited) love for his best friend’s cousin Madeleine. Well, there was another song I wrote about that novel, this time in English. I called it Lighter Than Air and it was told through the point of view of the title character remembering his childhood.

First this song had different lyrics that were quite frankly more difficult to sing. It was the mixture of consonants right up against each other that didn’t flow together well. The melody also didn’t work. I kept trying for higher notes and instead of sounding confident, I sounded more like I was reaching for them in an effort to show off. A way of saying “look at me, I can hit a B an octave above middle C! And I couldn’t do that before I took voice lessons!” Overall, it just didn’t work. I had obviously art rock lyrics (telling the story of an obscure novel) over poppy music complete with a melody that went all over the place and didn’t have a proper hook.

I didn’t want to leave the song to languish in the depths of my hard drive never to see the light of day again. The story I was telling in the song was promising, it probably just needed to be massaged around a little bit.

So I decided to completely redo the arrangement.

I deleted all the tracks for this song that I already recorded. Vocals both background and main, gone. Piano part, gone. Drums, gone. All that remained were the cricket sounds I put in for the introduction. I didn’t delete the original lyrics, but I shortened lines, changed how I said things, and also retooled the melody. And it sounds much better now. It’s easier to sing and the melody flows much better.

As I rewrote the lyrics, I made extra sure that the lyrics not only flowed from verse to verse as I told the story of Dominique remembering his childhood in the countryside, but also I made sure that I didn’t have too many words that would be crammed together into too little space. So I took to speaking each line out loud to see how they flowed together. Do I have words with too many consonants? Does this word have too many strange vowel sounds that would be harder to sing on a particular note? I took great care with the rewritten lyrics and I love them so much better!

So here it is in piano form. It’s still not one of my most favorite songs, but I like it much better than before.

Don’t ask me what the name of that very first song was. I can’t even remember. Whatever it was, it’s probably buried somewhere in one of my many memory boxes to be dredged up for another time. Maybe for one of my future children when they too come to me and ask, just like I did my mother, how to write a song, and I can show them my first song.

Who knew that would be the beginning of a lifelong love of writing songs! Oh how I whiled away many an afternoon up in my room playing melodies on my little piano keyboard to lyrics I’d just written. My love of songwriting ebbed and flowed a lot over the years, but it was always there. I always had a melody in my head, whether it was a song I’d heard on the radio earlier that day, or a melody that I thought up myself. I’d find myself singing around the house while doing my chores, singing in the shower, singing in the car, wherever. I loved melodies.

I had a very high opinion of my songs. I truly believed that I’d become a major world superstar with the songs I was writing. I remember one song I wrote called “Cognizant,” a word I’d learned from a dictionary. Yes, I liked perusing the dictionaries at home for interesting words to use in my everyday vocabulary. I was one of those kids who liked learning new words in English class. What can I say? :) Anyway, that song had so many random images thrown together, one in particular standing out to me about someone standing in their underwear in the dead of winter, and my asking in the chorus, “Why can’t you be more cognizant,” with a melody that, in retrospect, went ALL over the place. I think the song was about two octaves with a LOT of high notes. Up and down the scales without much of a hook at all. I haven’t heard the song in years, but I remember bits and pieces of it.

Yeah, I’ll take over the world of song with something like that, suuuuuuuuuuuure.

And that gem of a song? I recorded it on my Fisher-Price tape recorder, which looked exactly like this (looking at this picture brings back SO many memories):

Oh boy, this dates me......

I even gave it some album artwork, which I still have tucked away somewhere. It’s only too bad that the tape is forever lost. Either I recorded over it (most likely) or it’s just been lost to the sands of time. Really too bad because I’m very curious to hear, as an adult, how I sounded singing back then. I did find another tape where I sang and played some Christmas carols and HOLY TOLEDO. And not in a good way. So I’m pretty sure it was absolutely horrible, but you know, what I lacked in vocal ability back then I certainly made up for in enthusiasm!

The point is that in remembering all these old songs I wrote, including the aforementioned “Cognizant,” I remember how I went ALL over the place with my melodies. It was made even more so when I started taking voice lessons in high school. I learned how to sing in a classical way, singing Italian arias and German art songs. So I tried to incorporate those kinds of classical melodies into my songwriting, to very mixed results. I’d try to do melodies with huge leaps in the vocal line so I could show off my voice, but I wondered why, when I played back my song, my songs didn’t sound as good as the songs I’d hear on the radio. And I couldn’t put my finger on it.

You might remember when I spoke in a previous post about singing classically over alternative/indie music. Well, that doesn’t work.

It’s taken me a good number of years of writing and writing and writing so many songs to really become a decent melody writer. But isn’t that like anything creative? You have to create lots and lots of utter crap in order to get better. And it’s SO TRUE. My husband tells me I’m getting better. My friends tell me I’m getting better. And some of my loyal YouTube subscribers, over the course of my filming videoblogs of songs in progress, tell me I’m getting better, especially with confidence. But that’s another post. And I know I’m getting better as well.

The songs I’ve written lately that have simple but well-written melodies are the ones that my husband and YouTube subscribers like the most. I’m realizing that a good song doesn’t have to go ALL over the scales to have a well-written and memorable melody. I don’t want to write something monotonous, but I’m realizing more and more that I want to write songs with melodies that people can easily sing along with in the car or rocking out on their iPod. And also: there’s no need to show off my vocal prowess (especially my newfound range an octave above middle C) in absolutely every single song I write. Especially if the kind of song you’re writing doesn’t call for being sung all over the place.

Keeping that in mind has made songwriting even easier for me! Every week, a song comes pouring out of me in a burst of creativity. The buzz I get from working on a new song that’s going well is something I can’t even fully describe. I feel like I’m constantly getting new songs, at least a song a week. And that’s why I started filming weekly video blogs. I wanted to show off my new songs to the world, warts and all.

And on that note, I’m off to write more of some new lyrics in French that I started last night. :D Here’s my YouTube channel with all my video blogs, by the way:

Ann Feld on YouTube

Talk to everyone later! :)

So I got caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic about a half a mile from the tunnel. I had to go from a comfortable 55 mph down to a snail’s pace for about thirty minutes. Just to go half a mile. UGH.

At least I had music to keep me company. Just in the last thirty minutes I sat crawling along the highway with all the other cars, I had two songs that randomly came up on my iPod that had to do with water and rain. “Flood” by Jars of Clay, and the obscure 80s song “Wildwood” by Trees, a song that begins with the sound of rain falling. My iPod must’ve known what the weather was like at that moment.

One song in particular really caught me amidst the random music mix. It was the song “All This Time” by Sting, a song that I enjoy very much but haven’t played as much as I’d like. Just haven’t been in much of a Sting mood lately.

Since I had nothing else to do except let off the brake every few minutes to crawl another fifty feet to the next car in front of me, I sat and listened intensely to the song. This was the first time I really listened to the lyrics and music other than just singing along to the chorus as usual. For all its peppiness, the song is actually quite thoughtful. There are different layers to the lyrics that really intrigued me. For one thing, I’d heard that the song was written about his father’s death like most of the album it was from (The Soul Cages). So there’s the element of the narrator dealing with his father’s death and wishing he could give him a simple burial at sea instead (“if I had my way, take a boat from the river and I’d bury the old man/I’d bury him at sea.”) Then there’s the obvious element of the cycle of life going on and on like the river he mentions in the song. (“And all this time, the river flowed endlessly to the sea”).

And now for the song itself:

So during the song, I began to get an idea for a song of my own.

It started with a line. In times like these, I grab my phone and type out the line before it floats away. Later that evening, I began fleshing out the idea for these new lyrics. Earlier today, I perused through Logic for any random snippets of songs that I began but never finished, and I found a song I started with a simple drum beat and piano riff, but put on the shelf for some other time.

As I played the song fragment through my tinny computer speakers, it hit me. I have to use this song background for these new lyrics. It’s pensive and thoughtful. Perfect! Even if I do have fifty thousand of these different song fragments sitting here on my hard drive, it’s a good thing I keep them all for times like this! Then came the vocal melody that I practiced while puttering around the house for about an hour, then recorded in my studio. A minute and fifty-one seconds of musical bliss, with an intro, two verses and a chorus, all recorded.

So by dinnertime tonight, I had half a new song done, when only twenty four hours before, I had nothing. Talk about creating a song out of thin air! I’d had days before when I’d record most of a song. However this was different. Not many of my other songs have ever come out this fully formed in such a short period of time. When I let my husband, who is essentially my producer, in on what I’d recorded, he told me that other than the chorus (which admittedly does need work with the melody), he absolutely loved it and I should keep going with it! He even suggested that I keep the demo vocals since they fit with the sad subject matter.

So we’ll see what happens with this one. :)

It’s a song that I played on one of my previous videoblogs, which you can view here called “That’s Why I’m Here,” which you can view here:

I was revisiting this song and when I listened to what I’d recorded, I was unsure of my vocal. I was flat on some notes in the chorus and first verses and another part sounded like I was trying to sing too many syllables in too little space. My husband was sitting next to me on his computer as I played the song and partway through the first chorus, he sat up and watched my computer screen as the Logic project played my song through my tinny laptop speakers.

He then told me that I should consider this song done and keep this song the way it is. Listening to some of my flat notes, I wasn’t so sure. I asked if he was sure and he nodded with his eyebrows raised.

“I’ll be honest. You’re not hitting every note on this song. But that’s fine because this is an emotionally raw song. You’re singing something that comes from a deep emotion, and if you hit every note, it wouldn’t sound as sincere.”

OK, perhaps not exactly those words, but that was the basics of what he told me.

Within five minutes of tweaking some EQ on my vocal (lower some of the very high frequencies and balancing the lower end) and a few other mastering tools, I had a completely new song that I was very proud of! One of my best songs too, if I do say so myself!

Hearing my husband tell me to keep my slightly imperfect performance in the song got me thinking about things. Is it better to have an emotional song sound absolutely perfect, with every note hit dead on and every bit of legato and rhythm not even a touch out of place? Or is it better to have a vocal that cracks and falls sharp or flat because of underlying emotions, so that it goes better with the subject matter?

When I think about this, I’m reminded of a very popular song that I heard a LOT on the radio as a child (and I know this dates me!). It was hard to escape Celine Dion’s version of “The Power of Love,” between my parents playing her album with that song at home and in the car (on a cassette player) and hearing it on the radio wherever I went. You know the song and if you don’t, you’d recognize it if you heard it.

“Cause I’m your laaaaadyyyyyyy, and you are my maaaaaannnnn…..”

Celine Dion was not the first person to sing that song.

The song was originally written in the early 80s and first recorded by Jennifer Rush, someone who’s not too well-known on my side of the world (strange, since she’s American; seems she had bigger success elsewhere). Then Air Supply did a version for one of their albums and was released around the same time as Jennifer’s version. Then Laura Branigan sang it.

Some years after hearing Celine Dion’s rendition, I became a fan of Laura Branigan, who sang a version of that song some five years before Celine Dion took the song to the top of the charts all over the world. Her version is not as well-known but ultimately, I think her version is the best for the sheer emotion that she shows in her voice. It was only a minor hit, I’m told, without even a music video to promote it.

I’m not denying Celine Dion’s vocal abilities (I wish I could sing like her, but then again, don’t we all?) but her version feels too polished. While she hits the notes well and belts out the higher notes with gusto, I don’t feel much emotion behind the words as they come out of her mouth. There’s no quivering of the notes to sound like she’s scared but willing to give in. I feel like it’s sung as words on a page.

“The Power of Love” is a vulnerable song. A perfect vocal performance on something like this just doesn’t feel sincere to me. Laura’s voice cracks and she’s definitely off on a few notes. Her voice quivers in fear and it sounds like she’s on the verge of tears through the latter half of the song. Her version absolutely grips me in a way that Celine’s song doesn’t.

As a side note, some years after becoming a fan of Laura, I saw her sing live at HersheyPark and I couldn’t believe how raw her voice still was. Never mind that I was one of the youngest people in attendance who was there to hear her! After the show, I had the opportunity to meet her (there’s a picture of the two of us standing together, but I unfortunately can’t find it) and even told her that I wish I could’ve heard her sing that song because it was so emotional and I loved it. She signed my CD and said, “Maybe next time.”

Of course there was no next time, since Laura Branigan died a few years later of a brain aneurysm in her sleep.

For comparison purposes, here’s Laura’s version:

And the world-famous version sung by Celine:

Back to the subject at hand.

I believe the answer to my question is that it depends on the song. Light and happy songs should be as perfect as they can be because the sour notes would ruin the song and mood. But for songs with emotional and pleading lyrics, like The Power of Love, an imperfect main vocal is more sincere and fits the song better. Singing is more than just stringing together notes. Singing is about telling the story of the song, like playing the part of a character in a movie or play. You want the audience to feel what you are singing about and to get into your song.

Take another one of my own songs called “Harbor.” That song came to me from a deep place through constant soul-searching and looking for God. For years I’d been on the edge of becoming a Christian but never went fully over the edge into it. I wasn’t ready to completely give myself up to God and Jesus. Then I came to a dark time in my life a few years ago where I realized that I needed something else in my life, something to show that I wasn’t the only one alone in this universe and that someone was looking out for me besides my family and friends.

I had tears coming down my cheeks as I sang that song in my home studio. And I know because of that, I went flat on some of the notes. When I played it back, I almost deleted those takes with my voice cracking and falling off the notes in places. But I didn’t delete them. Instead, I left them in. And I think it sounds all the better for it. My imperfect vocal take fit the subject matter, where the narrator is at first scared but finally gives in. Giving yourself up and placing your trust in God, or anyone for that matter, is a difficult thing to do, after all.

Well, this post ended up being longer than I anticipated. Almost 1300 words!

More Happy New Year wishes to everyone, by the way! :)

About a year ago for fun, I recorded and mixed my own cover of one of her b-sides, a self-penned song in French called Ne t’enfuis pas, meaning Don’t Fly Away in French. Despite the dated production, I enjoy the melody and the mysterious lyrics of the song. Yesterday afternoon I went hunting for more Kate Bush song that I hadn’t heard before when I found a fan-made video for the “original mix” of Ne t’enfuis pas.”

For once, something of Kate’s that I HADN’T heard before!

This original mix made its way onto her single There Goes a Tenner back in the early 80s and apparently was remixed with new vocals a few years later. That new vocal version is the one I’m most familiar with.

All I can say is that it’s no wonder this original mix was later redone. You can barely hear her main vocal!! Were the producers and engineers on this song deaf? Did Kate, the notorious perfectionist, let that flaw slip through so that she could meet the record company’s deadline for releasing a single and she couldn’t spend more time on it?

Take a listen here. This video has embedding disabled so you have to click the link to watch it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2qN9HmPo-E

And for comparison purposes, here’s the remixed version with supposed new vocals:

She still sounds a little forced vocally like she’s trying too hard (the vibrato is a bit much in places) but at least you can hear her in this one! I’m surprised that Kate would’ve let that first version through.

Just hearing that Kate Bush song reminded me of how important volume is to a song. Being able to hear the star of the show over the background music. Having everything balanced so that one instrument doesn’t overwhelm the main vocals and everything else.

Earlier yesterday I played around with a new song I’m recording. I finally turned the vocal tracks down to a nice volume so that it would blend with the music, only to have my husband, who listen to everything I do to give me feedback, tell me the vocals were still too loud and my voice was overwhelming the music.

This wasn’t the first time this has happened. Truth is that I’m not the best judge of hearing. I never have been.

That’s because I only hear 40% in my left ear.

I was diagnosed as hard of hearing while I was in elementary school and as soon as the audiologists discovered my deficiency, it came as a relief to my teachers and my parents. It explained why I didn’t pay attention in class (because I couldn’t hear the teacher) and perhaps why I was a bit socially maladjusted (because I couldn’t hear social cues). Though I was probably socially awkward more because of my attitude that I would act however I wanted to like wearing biker shorts, which got me a lot of flack from the other kids because I wasn’t wearing what was “cool,” and listening to classical music instead, than by poor hearing. But I digress.

I never let my poor hearing stop me though. If anything, it made me work harder. I took French all through high school and aced every listening activity that was required of me, much to my counselor’s dismay. She repeatedly told me I shouldn’t take French because it requires listening activities and therefore I wouldn’t do well with it.

Guess which was my favorite subject in school though. French all around. Listening activities never bothered me and I always did well. I was determined to do well because of what my counselor has said. I wanted to show her that I COULD do it.

I suppose then that it’s strange for someone like me to thus enjoy recording and writing music. After all, my lack of hearing no doubt distorts the way I hear sound. I have mixed some songs that I thought sounded balanced and great, only to have my husband tell me that my vocal was too loud or everything is out of balance. That’s why I consider my husband my second set of ears when it comes to mixing my music. In fact, as I type this, my husband is equalizing the mix for a new song.

So why do I record songs if I have such bad hearing?

Because sitting up there in my little home studio creating a song from scratch and fragments of ideas makes me feel happy and accomplished.

Because I constantly get new ideas for my writing, from conversations, from listening to favorite artists, from movies, and I can’t just keep it all inside. I was the kind of kid who was perfectly happy sitting at her computer for hours typing stories into Ami Pro (Ami Pro, boy does that date me!). If I got bored in class, I’d write a poem. If I heard an interesting turn of phrase in a conversation, I’d scramble for a piece of paper to write it down to use for later (nowadays, I reach for my phone instead). And I’d write a poem after something major happened to me so I could get out my feelings.

Because I am a creative soul.

Everyone has their strengths. Mine is in creating.

And most of all, because I don’t let my hearing get me down and stop me from doing what I love. Everything else about me works. I’m perfectly healthy in so many ways. So what if one thing doesn’t really work the way it should?

So I’ve just learned to accept that’s how I am and have compensated for it. I can’t do anything to change it (though it would be nice!), so I have learned to live with my poor hearing. I make sure friends and family tap me on the shoulder when we’re in a crowded room and they need my attention. I always walk on people’s left sides so I can hear them through my good (right) ear. I hold the phone to my right ear instead. I’ve learned to sing well through years of practice and hours of voice lessons and feedback from teachers. As for making songs, I have my husband to help me with mixing and equalizing and he doesn’t mind at all helping me achieve my creative goals. And I do the same for him.

This year promises to be a great one for creating. I have half an album completed with new songs constantly being written every day. I’m a creator, it’s what I do.

Speaking of new years, Happy New Year 2012!

And I’m off now to go work on part of a song that I started last night. Always creating!

So some thoughts came to me as I’ve been writing more and more songs for my next album.

So far this is turning into a very piano-driven project, more so than I ever thought. And I’m loving it! I’ve really taken to the piano this last year and a half. And all of it has been self-taught. I already knew how to read and write music. It was just putting both my melodies and piano playing at the same time that I needed to work on. And I’m still working on it. I’m no Tori, though I’m not set out to become the next Tori by any stretch of the imagination.

Overall, I’m finding that songwriting and singing while playing is far easier with my keyboard than it ever was with my guitar. All the keys are laid out there for me to play with. For chords on the guitar, you have to have a certain fingering for them or you don’t have the correct chord. All of the notes are not easily laid out for you in the same way as piano, if that makes any sense.

It’s interesting to see this new direction. When I began taking songwriting seriously, I started off on guitar. I liked the ease of carrying it around with me. That’s not really something you can easily do with a keyboard. I also loved the sound as I strummed the strings and fingerpicked an accompaniment. I also liked that I was setting myself apart from other female singer/songwriters. I wanted to be different. I didn’t see many women out there rockin’ on the guitar. I wanted to be KT Tunstall more than A Fine Frenzy.

So buying my keyboard was a complete impulse buy. Before I went to BJ’s for groceries with my husband one weekend, I had no intention of coming out with a $200 Yamaha keyboard. But one stroll through the electronics section made me decide to just go for it. I’d always wanted to take up the piano for real and learn to play things beyond just Chopsticks or the bassline and melody for Heart and Soul. Since then, I’ve written countless songs on that keyboard and can even play the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Pretty good for a year and a half of teaching myself!

I’ll never get rid of my guitars, but I don’t intend to play them very often. I’ll still take them out every so often to tune and strum them, but I just haven’t taken to it like I have with piano. My fingers don’t hurt after playing piano for hours like they did with guitar. At least pressing down on the keys doesn’t cause calluses to form after a while on my fingers.

So I’ve found a new favorite instrument. And that’s fine. My husband has been talking about wanting to learn guitar for ages, so I’ll keep my guitar around. And for future children too. With a musical mommy, they certainly will learn all about music!

Being that most of my songs these days are becoming more piano-driven, this also means my music is becoming a little more simple. Beforehand I was content with creating complex soundscapes that couldn’t be easily replicated on a piano live. That’s why some of my earlier Ustream shows were just me singing to a backing track.

But I’m starting to like simplicity. Why go for huge sound atmospheres when the song’s emotion doesn’t really require it? When I over think things, I tend to lose sight of the song’s emotion. I don’t let the song just breathe. Instead I try to suffocate it under layers of synthesizers and wonder why it sounds cold and soulless in the end.

Artists usually start off simple before going weird and experimental. I seem to be doing the opposite!

Speaking of simplicity, here’s a demo of a song I’m working on. I’ve recorded a very good demo of this already and it sounds not too different from what you hear here:

So now I’m off to hit the hay and do some more piano playing tomorrow. Woot! :D

Confidence.

I’ve always been a strange one when it comes to confidence. Then again, I suppose everyone is. For instance, as a teen and young adult, I had no problems going up to a guy I liked and asking him out. After all, that’s how I ended up getting my husband! I was bold and unafraid. And on a different side of the coin, I certainly didn’t mind making a fool of myself in front of my students when I was a teacher for a few years. You have to be with the young (we’re talking 1st through 5th graders) students I had. And as a child, I had no problems getting up in front of people and singing my heart out. I have a vague memory of trying to imitate opera singers I heard on TV and singing so loudly that my parents came upstairs to see what I was doing.

I discovered early on that I loved singing and I’d do it every chance I could: singing along with the radio, writing my own little songs and recording them on my Fisher-Price recorder. In 6th grade I wanted to sing “I Love You Always Forever” at a talent recital. And was told by the teachers that it was too mature for a little 12 year old to be singing. Looking back on it, yeah, it probably was. Though by today’s standards, the lyrics of that song are pretty tame! Eventually I joined the choir in high school. Not middle school because that was reserved for band. Probably a good thing I didn’t join my middle school choir because I used to hear that the teacher was a real bitch. So I stuck with the band.

I was in the clarinet section, for the record.

Then something happened along the way.

I became more self-conscious.

I’d go to open my mouth in front of people to sing and I wouldn’t sound nearly as sure of myself as I did when I was completely alone.

As I reflect on it, I think it was a combination of hearing that I shouldn’t try to be like Celine Dion or Whitney Houston because I didn’t have the voice for it as well as listening to all the adult contemporary music my parents would play at home and wishing I sounded as good as what I’d hear on the radio. So I became quieter and didn’t sing out nearly as much. In choir, I’d sing just loud enough to blend in with the rest of the members, and I never tried out for solos. You could also forget about going out with friends to sing karaoke. I would’ve never done that because I was way too self-conscious of how I sounded. Why even try if I can’t sound nearly as good as the pros?

Voice lessons helped a little bit, but I still had problems. I was classically trained, so my classical voice over pop and rock music sounded awful. Honestly, the only time that classical singing sounds good over anything but classical music is in metal, with groups like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica and (some) Lacuna Coil (husband helped me out with some of those names since I’m not a metal listener). So when I’d go to sing my own music, I’d sing it with my classical style and playing it back, it would sound bad but I couldn’t pinpoint why. After all, I’d been taught the proper way to sing, so if I was singing properly, why didn’t it sound very good? Gee, I must not be very good at all then, I’d think to myself.

And further down the hole I’d go.

Only after my husband gently told me that it was in the way I was singing, did I start to change my style of singing and then like what I was hearing. I realized there is a time and place for classical singing and that it doesn’t work all the time. Don’t believe me? Try singing something like Katy Perry’s “Hot and Cold” with veeerrry well-raaaaahhhooounded vowels and you’ll see what I mean.

“Yoooou’re haaaaht thayn yooou’re cooohld, yooooou’re yaysss thayn yoooou’re nooooh……”

Or how about “Born This Way”?

“Ahm ohn the raaht traahck, bay-beee ah waaahs booohrn thees waaaaay….”

You try doing it without laughing. If you can, I’ll give you a copy of my upcoming album for free when it’s released. Shoot me an e-mail.

But you see what I mean? It just doesn’t sound good. It sounds too proper. And pop music is all about…. well, not being proper. It’s about letting go and just singing the blasted words. Why does it work over loud metal guitars? It’s the contrast of hard music and beautiful singing. It’s one of those things that just works.

As for me…..

I’m just now beginning to see the sky as I climb out of that hole.

It’s taken years of undoing but I’m able to sing in a more pop style than I could’ve done as a teen taking classical voice lessons. So I’m now enjoying what I hear when I play back my songs on my computer. I will give that there are some valuable lessons I got from those classical lessons such as breath support and warm-ups. You’ll never see me launch right into singing for one of my online concerts without doing some scales on “loooo” or “laaah” first. Runners always warm up their muscles before launching themselves onto the track for a race. So it is with singers.

I also began taking voice lessons again about a year and a half ago so I could improve my range and confidence. And that has been helping a lot! I realized that I was singing lower than I should’ve been. I can almost hit a C two octaves above middle C on the piano and can go as low as F# below middle C. So that’s almost a two and a half octave range. Not bad! Though sometimes I can even hit a D almost one octave below middle C after I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate; can you tell I’ve tried that? :P :) I know I still have a ways to go with improving my voice and music, but I have the raw talent to make it work.

It also helps to have encouragement from friends and family. My husband is my biggest fan and critic. When I’m working on a song, I let him take a listen and he tells me in brutal honesty what I should work on and what I should omit. He’s not Simon Cowell but he’s honest without being rude. At first I was terrible about taking criticism, but I’m getting a HELL of a lot better about it.

It’s about letting go and enjoying singing. I finally did karaoke one night a few months ago and realized that I really enjoyed it! I’d forgotten how much I truly enjoyed singing. Which led me to joining SingSnap and becoming a member so I can do karaoke all the time! Though I still prefer to focus on my own original songs. :)

All of this to say that it’s been a long journey… And I’ve realized the more you practice, the better you become. You write and write so you can become a better writer because not every piece you write is going to be the greatest. And you sing and sing so you can become a better singer. I highly doubt that Florence of Florence + the Machine records her first take of singing a song for the very first time (after never hearing the song before going into that big, expensive studio) and says, “All right I’m done.”

No. It doesn’t work like that. It takes practice. Hours and hours of singing the same part over and over again until you almost want to shoot yourself if you have to hear that song again. At which point, you take a break from it and come back to it with fresh ears and eyes. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to do that with a song.

And I’ll end it here for the night and go get some ice cream. Or play some more piano. Whichever I feel like doing. :D

Till next time….