On Singing...

One thing I neglected to mention about my rehearsal with the second drummer was that we recorded our jam session since his place is, after all, a recording studio, and his drums were already mic'ed, leaving just my vocals and keyboard to amplify. Well, as you would expect, afterwards we took a listen to what we had just done, and let me tell you...I was horrified at how my voice sounded.

In general, I didn't think I sounded bad on an average day that I sing (which is most days of the week, with my private lessons included)...in fact, I kinda thought I was doing decently. But listening back to the recording, I was ashamed at both how lackluster my tone was and how out of tune I often tended to be. Now, in my defense, the mic feed was turned really low in my headphones due to the fact that I was singing in the same room as the drums, which were overwhelming the mic, but still, I was embarrassed and fearful that I would have to give up being the singer of the band.

Since then, two big changes have happened. Firstly, to prove my theory about sucking really badly that day largely due to not being able to hear myself, I made a demo of the track in question and sung without playing an instrument at the same time, making sure that I could hear myself. Now, although I wasn't stellar, the quality of my performance was about on par with what I had previously thought myself capable of, so that was a relief.

Still, I wasn't convinced I couldn't use some true vocal lessons, so I contacted a famous rock vocals studio in town and had my first meeting with them last week (more on that soon). In addition to wanting to sound as solid as possible on stage, I decided to get lessons to show the band members that I'm serious about being the leader of this group and am willing to give up a hefty sum of my now-hard-to-come-by cash in order to make this a reality. And thus, despite years of singing in choruses and while playing piano, begins my first foray into true vocal studies. Wish me luck!