Let Me Sing

Ever wonder how I got the title “Let Me Sing” for this blog? Well, the title of my blog came from a very particular song. Back when I was 11, my voice teacher (who was Dan Whitley at the time) assigned me to sing a song that he said would challenge me.  One of the Jackson family (as in Michael Jackson) wrote it according to him, though I’m not quite sure who.  I wish I did know though because I feel like I owe them so much.  This song is like my anthem!  Sad part is, I haven’t sung it in about 5 years.  The tape that the song was on remained lost among my plethora of voice lesson tapes.  Fear not… after a long time of searching and longing to hear the song again, tonight I found the tape! I did a little leap for joy if you can imagine that.

Here are the lyrics that have inspired me for the last ten years~

Let me sing
Let me fill the air with sound
Hear the music all around
I’m waiting to be found

Let me sing
Let me warm your heart with song
In this moment I belong
I’m ready for the dawn
When I sing, let my simple song float free
To carry me on wings of melody

Let me sing
Let me set your spirit free
Let me whisper tenderly
Things I hold inside of me
When I sing, my heart is in my song
I sing of things that eyes can never see

Let me sing
Let me fill the air with sound
Hear the music all around
I am ready to be found
When I sing, let my simple song float free
Let me sing, oh let me sing
Let me sing

Let me sing
Let me warm your heart with song
In this moment, I belong
Let me sing out clear and strong
When I sing, forever let my song float free
To carry me on wings of melody
Let me sing
Oh
Let me sing

The melody is even more beautiful!  Whitley assigned it to me to challenge me… and let me say this, this song still challenges me to this day!  It’s an incredibly difficult song that sits almost right along my passegiatta, or vocal break.

When my jaw locked in the summer of ‘08, I was devastated. The only thing that was running through my mind was, “Please make it so I can still sing… Singing’s my life. I’d die without it.”  And the title of my blog, “Let Me Sing”, was like a plea during that particularly horrifying struggle in my life.  My jaw is still locked unfortunately, but guess what? I’m able to sing whatever I want, whenever I want, however long I want!  Granted my jaw doesn’t kill me which it rarely ever does anymore.

I sang this song tonight and it’s reminded me of how much I miss performing live.  I remember when I used to be in some sort of show like a musical, play, opera, or even Clayton Productions (my old singing and dancing group) every year from the time I was 8 until I was 18.  To think that I haven’t been in a production since then is more than a little painful.

What the hell happened to me? College took a front seat and it thoroughly pisses me off. Hirers don’t care if you learn, they only care if you get a degree. Like I said in my last post, I want to make music my priority again, truly. I just wish there was a way I could “rearrange” my life, so to speak.

I will say this though… These past couple days, I have been on a creativity high. Three song ideas have come to me, both lyrics and music.  Plus I’ve started writing a historical fiction project that I’m really enthusiastic about.

Great… now onto homework.  Can’t I just be put into a creative coma until I graduate?  Please?!

Stuck

One thing I hate is when people ask me what I’m going to do with an English degree.  A lot of people assume that an English majors end up teaching and it’s simply not true.  In fact, your major doesn’t always define what your career will be (the other day I met a Massage Therapist who had a degree in English!). For example, right now I’m working in Information Technology while I’m majoring in English but my dream career is Performing.  Yes, I’m all over the board. 

Another thing I hate is looking through music and play auditions and thinking that I have too much on my plate as a student so I don’t end up submitting myself to them.  I have responded a couple times but it usually turns out that I can’t do it because of my current obligations… And that utterly kills me.  Hell, I’d give anything to work on my songwriting 24/7 so I can produce a CD of my own creations.  I’m an artist and currently a very deprived one at that.  If I had my way, I’d be in a musical right now and school would be on the back-burner. 

A degree is better than nothing, but right now I’m getting so sick of school taking such a high priority in my life.  I love learning, but school doesn’t do it for me.  It’s messed up, I know.  It’s just that I prefer learning by doing, not sitting in a lecture or discussion course. 

There are so many things I want to do and I feel like there is no time!  Only a year and a half left of college.  Seems like an eternity.  And what aggravates me is that if it weren’t for the stupid foreign language requirement, I could be done with college this Spring!  Do you have any idea how infuriating that is?

People say college is supposed to be the time of your life.  Such is the case if you actually live on campus.  I don’t live on campus, thus I don’t really participate in school other than commuting to class Monday through Thursday.  However, I’m going to my first ever college football game this weekend so that ought to be fun. But that’s beside the point.  I don’t feel like I’m having the time of my life.  Cambridge has been the ultimate highlight of my college career!  It got me out of Utah to study… Maybe if I’d gone out-of-state for college, I’d have more fun.  But no, I stayed instate to keep costs down in a college that is still fairly reputable.  It’ll give me my degree.

I’m stuck here… in Utah, at school, doing things that are so mundane that I’m exhausted of doing them for so long. I need something fresh, something that will motivate me to be better than I am, and teach me things that engage my mind and body.  I want music to be my top priority again… it hasn’t been since my freshman year of college. Then my jaw locked.  Perhaps that’s the reason behind all of this.  My jaw is stuck so I’m trapped… Interesting metaphor and it even fits! 

But I want to break it.

The Child In Me

This post will not be like any of the ones I have previously posted… I need to do it to get my excitement off my chest so I can do my homework and be focused.

You may think this is childish, that this is really stupid… but quite honestly– I don’t care!  A little back story, if you please.

When I was nine, on some crazy whim, my mom bought me a color gameboy and a video game known as Pokemon Blue to keep me occupied during some long California trip we were doing.  Let this be said–the only other video games I had touched were Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Paper Boy and Dark Rift.  So when I started up the Pokemon Blue RPG game, let’s just say I was completely clueless. After watching my brother play his Pokemon Red, I think I got the jist.

And I LOVED it!  Ever since, Pokemon has been my game of choice.  And it must be said: I’m a Pokemon Master when it comes to these games.  After Blue, I acquired Pokemon Trading Card Game, Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Puzzle League, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Red, and Sapphire, as well as Hey You Pikachu!, Pokemon Stadium & Pokemon Stadium 2 on Nintendo 64.  My Gold version had been my main focus: I beat it completely, with all 252 pokemon. Took me a long time, let me tell you.

BUT… like a dummy, I listened to my mom when she said it was getting rather childish of me to continue playing these games.  She offered up the idea that my Aunt wanted to buy my games for my cousins for $100 (except my N64 ones).  And I did it… Like a dumb-a, I sold my favorite games. About three months later, when I was over at my cousins house, I asked if I could play them only to find that my Aunt had sold the games to the game store! My 252 pokemon collection on Gold was GONE along with the rest of my beloved games.  This may sound pathetic, but I cried that night. Yes, I was that attached to those games.

So with the help of my brother, who no longer played his Pokemon games, these past 4 years I have been rebuilding my pokemon game collection and then some.  Currently, I own:

• Pokemon Trading Card Game (which I found on eBay for 3 bucks!)
• Pokemon Ranger
• Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen
• Pokemon Red, Blue, & Yellow
• Pokemon Silver, Gold, & Crystal
• Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, & Emerald
• Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum.

And I want to say I have a Pokemon Pinball around here somewhere. ALL those and my N64 games.  I love these games so much that I tend to buy whatever portable console is required to play the new ones (as was the case with Diamond/Pearl with the Nintendo DS).  I was even been tempted to buy the lame-o Gamecube just to play Colosseum. But now that we have a Wii, I may have to check out what Pokemon has come out for that!

However, I’m not much of a fan of the new Mystery Dungeon stuff… So not as good as the original gameplay.  Ranger isn’t bad, but I miss the battling aspect and raising pokemon.  God, I sound like I’m talking about real animals!

Of course, these days my time is consumed with other things like school, work, friends, and music so I don’t get to play as often as I would like. But back in the day… You couldn’t find me without my gameboy at hand. I even took it to school to play at recess. The boys in my class would always ask to either battle me or trade pokemon/pokemon cards with them (yes, I was into those for a period of time too but that’s over and done).

Ok onto the big Pokemon story of the moment… Next spring, there is a scheduled release of new pokemon games: HeartGold & SoulSilver!! I just watched the trailer and I about died hyperventilating from excitement.  Of the games, the Johto region themed Gold/Silver/Crystal have always been my favorite. Crystal is my crutch when I need a pokemon fix these days. But to see them so graphically amazing, and with your starter pokemon following you… you might as well sell me the games now!   I simply cannot wait until next spring to play these games! They look amazing!  Let’s hope they are just as cool as the original Johto region games…

Wow that was a lot of build up for one measly paragraph of a story. Eh oh well… thought it needed an introduction.

So yes! I love playing Pokemon games and have for years. Judge me if you want… But it’s what I like to do for fun!  To each his own. Talking about this has put me in the mood to restart one of my games

Oh yeah… I’m home!

Yes, I’ve been home for about six weeks now.  Time is seriously just flashing by my eyes and it’s freaking me out!  I’m six weeks into my junior year of college but I just want it all to be done.  Either that, or I want to be back in Cambridge.  I really miss it horribly… I’ve been thinking about it and I would totally live in England given the chance (and the funds as it is rather expensive).  Maybe one day if I’m good enough to be on the London stage

Haven’t been able to do a lot of recording lately, which I miss.  But last night, I did start making progress on my Christmas CD for this year (when I should have been doing homework… tells you a lot about my priorities!).  I’m making my own instrumental tracks if I can which is what I did.  I finished instrumental tracks for “Still, Still, Still” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?”… Here’s hoping this turns out well!  I know the theme of the CD and have a few other songs planned out so we’ll see how that goes. 

Oh, story time!  This is a story from my Ireland experience that I’m going to quote from my abroad blog:

Now probably for one of the highlights of my entire Ireland trip, the Irish Music Pub Crawl.  It was hosted by two Irish musicians who played traditional Irish music for us all night at four different pubs.  It was so much fun!  One played an accordion looking thing and the other played the guitar and sung.  I got to talk to them while we walked around the city and I ended up telling them that I was a musician myself.  They both told me that I should sing for them later when they called for people on the walk to come entertain.  I got nervous!  I never get nervous!  [...] So I ended up singing How Do I Live for everyone when no one else volunteered to “entertain”.  When I finished, one of the tour guides said, “We forgot one rule: don’t show up the professionals!”  I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a really good time and the musicians rocked my socks (they loved me and I loved them too!).  But after I sang, no one else had the balls to stand up and entertain us, saying “Who wants to follow that?”  I felt bad but I still had fun!

Yes, you read correctly! I sang in an Irish pub!  I won’t lie, it was very fun… I wish other people had done something to entertain though after me so I wouldn’t have felt so “on-the-spot.”  I loved meeting the Irish musicians… they were pretty much awesome in my book. I recieved a free CD from John, who even said that he expected me to make it big.  Here’s hoping!

England: Here I Come!

A new chapter of my life is about to unfold.  A chapter that was hidden until last summer, but will be an adventure all in itself.  A chapter where anything can happen.  A chapter that may change the entire course of my journey here on Earth.  I’m anxious.  I’m excited.  I’m nervous.  I’m happy!  And I’m scared out of my mind.  It’s hard to know what to expect… You know that feeling where something is going to happen in your life but you can’t imagine it and think you’ll die before it happens because you don’t know what to expect therefore your strange foresight fails?  That’s how I feel in a nutshell.  And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I may just be weird.

If you have not heard by now, I’m studying abroad at Cambridge University at their International Summer School for the greater part of my summer.  The departure date is July 1^st and I come back home on August 22.  That is nearly two months in England!  Having never been there before, I’m really excited to experience a new country and culture completely different from my own.  Not to mention the fact that over 30 nationalities will be participating in the summer school.  Talk about a cultural blast!  One of my favorite things is to meet people from various backgrounds and this is going to be a prime opportunity to do just that… While getting an education at one of the most highly acclaimed universities the world has ever known.  However, the school part doesn’t start until July 6 and it goes until August 15 for me since I am participating in two terms.  Meaning I’ll have a few days on either side of my Cambridge adventures to explore wherever I darn well please.

The first few days I am there, I’m staying in a darling little bed and breakfast in central London. It’s literally a block away from the closest tube station!  While staying there, I’m planning on filling my days with the London Walks tours as well as seeing a play, indulging myself in English food, and hopefully getting a chance to blog about my London adventures.  Then I’ll hop on over to Kings Cross and take a train up to Cambridge.  And after I finish with the schooling, I have no idea what will happen.  Maybe I’ll find a friend to explore Ireland with me.  Perhaps I’ll ride a train to France or pop a flight to Italy.  Maybe I’ll coast on up to Scotland.  Perhaps I’ll head to various cities in England like Hartlepool (where my grandfather lived as a child before moving to the states), Southampton, or Portsmouth.  This all will probably depend on funding… All the while, hoping to document what I do with pictures and tales of grand measure!

Yes, this is not a temporary good bye blog…  This is my introduction post to my new blog—Kel In Cambridge.  Nice ring to it right?  Chances are I won’t blog anywhere else while I’m gone due to the time I’ll want to spend absorbing all I can of England and the countless people I’ll meet.  I do want some sort of documentation so I feel a blog will be a nice way to do that but a new one is necessary so it is separate from my others.  I hope you join me on my new blog next week when I fly out of Utah, into Minneapolis, then to the heart of London, England.

Tally-ho!

Something Is Missing!

So check this out… It has been 3 weeks since I recorded anything! In fact, my recording and mixing programs have not been open in even longer!  I only did a couple live things that aren’t really post-worthy a couple weeks ago.  One of the songs I covered came on a few minutes ago on my shuffle and made me realize that I haven’t done anything like that in a really long time… What is wrong with me?

Actually nothing is wrong.  I’ve been making myself busy.  I’ve hung out more with friends in these last few weeks (minus the week I was in California) then I did during this whole last semester.  That’s kind of sad, but it’s been amazing to catch up with my buddies.  Plus, I’ve been reading more, catching up on Grey’s Anatomy (new fave show!), and spending more time AWAY from the computer which I think is a good thing.  Well, at home anyways.  For work, I’m on a computer all day so that may influence why I don’t get on very much during my time off.  Ok, that is all a huge lie! It’s like I’m never off the computer!  I forgot about the fact that my mom started her own business and I am her Webmaster and Designer.  I love it!  But I miss recording

When I get home tonight, no matter what I need to record something or else my withdrawal symptoms will get progressively worse.  Don’t know what yet… Maybe something I have already done just for fun or something.  Maybe I’ll post it. 

Better yet, song writing anyone?

Finals Stress

I’m on my lunch break at work right now, so I thought I’d update a little…

I’m still in shock at how quickly this semester has flown by… and I’m so not ready for it to end even though I’ve been impatiently waiting for it’s demise all because of one stupid class. Luckily, that class is giving out a take-home final so that should help me a little.  Studying is going to be taking up much of my time for the next couple weeks, unfortunately, so I can catch up on everything and prepare for my three finals. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but one of the classes requires so much reading that I’m worried I may not finish in time.  This is when I miss being a Music major because everything came to me easy there… Then again, that’s one of the reasons why I changed my major.  I prefer challenges but still!  A little warning would have been nice…

And of course, because of this sudden stress my jaw has been giving me a little bit of trouble along with my neck and mouth. Seriously, what is going on? The back of my upper jaw is really sore, and the gland running from my throat to my chin is swollen and sore and has been for a couple weeks.  This cannot be from stress, there is just no way!

Well, my lunch break is coming to a close, so wish me luck on my finals!  Probably won’t be posting much here or on YouTube for the next little bit unfortunately.  Twitter is quick and easy, so if you want updates follow me there– It’s so easy to update right from my phone! 

Take care!

Breathless – Aladdin & Jasmine

Original Video – More videos at TinyPic

All rights for Aladdin belong to Disney.  Breathless is by the Corrs. They own the rights… not me. I claim only my imagination Enjoy!

Live Songs

Last night, I went a little crazy with recording songs live with my webcam.  It was nice to find out that my microphone, when plugged in, works just as it should with my webcam as well as my recording programs!  I’m amazed that some of the songs turned out really well too.  Once I post them all and on different days, people may wonder why I’m wearing the same shirt in most of them.  A couple are definitely post-worthy for YouTube. 

Dude, I need a new alarm clock!  Mine is over twenty minutes fast, and it doesn’t matter whether I set it to the correct time or not… It will speed itself up on its own just to annoy me and throw me off in the morning.  But I want one that can play my iPod but those are quite expensive.  I may just have to make do with my external iPod speakers for now until I can afford a new alarm clock. 

Well, my Apple session is about to begin! Yay for Final Cut Express! Ta-ta for now!

Revamped

Well, what do you think?

I’m quite pleased with this layout change… I borrowed the picture from japan.deviantart.com

With a revamped layout, being back in voice lessons, and taking charge of my life in several ways, I feel practically like a new person!  Oh and did I ever mention I got a new microphone back before the start of the new year?  Because I did. It’s the Samson CO1U usb condenser mic. Now I can produce high quality recordings from the comfort of my own room provided that my family doesn’t yell at me while I’m recording.  It’s actually quite funny… during a voice-over recording a couple weeks ago, while re-listening to what I recorded, I noticed that after a particularly high volume part my brother can be heard yelling, “What is wrong with your daughter?” from down stairs. It was great fun and it made me laugh.

As of right now, I just finished mixing my cover of “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan.  I have a wicked idea for an AMV with this song with the movie Rent. So stay tuned to my Youtube channel if you want to see that.  Or any of my other videos for that matter

Peace!