Day 23: "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey

Hey everyone, It's been so long since I've written an actual post! Well, it's good to be back. I've found myself with a bit more time on my hands than before (I'm sure I'll rue those words) so for the time being, I'm going to try to put up a few more videos. Today was my division's holiday party, and it got me in the holiday spirit, hence my inspiration for this song. This is certainly an ambitious choice for a comeback, especially after 6 performances last week (ah!), but I at least have more of a voice than I did last week. As usual, I made the mistake of recording too late at night, an especially bad idea when you're singing a song that's a marathon like this one. (When do you breathe? Swallow? You can't!) Sure, the riffs aren't perfect, but I don't have a sound engineer to "punch" parts that sound bad. Maybe someday! And after months without a video, I wasn't going to wait until I had perfection. Just one take, and we're done!

Much has changed since last I wrote! I can't cover everything now, but I'll just do a quick YouTube update: I now have 32 subscribers, and almost 3000 views. Good stuff! That means I'm averaging more than 100 views per video (and I don't even have any Mets videos on this account!) My most viewed video is currently "Rehab." I'm glad I've gotten such positive feedback on the Amy Winehouse videos. It's nice to not have to worry about vocal acrobatics (*irony*) and just rest on good timbre every now and again.

Alright, it's almost 1am. Hope I don't have any typos here. Thanks for reading/watching! More to come!

Day 22: "Empire State of Mind Pt. II" by Alicia Keys

10 years...never forget.

All kinds of updates...

Hi all, You may have noticed there hasn't been a blog post in a while. This has been for a few reasons, the main ones being:

1) I've been *really* busy with my singing competitions
2) Trying to balance the competitions/gigs with my blog has really been putting a strain on my voice
3) Add work to the equation and...unfortunately the blog has had to take a backseat.

Realistically, there will not be 100 songs in 100 days. But I hope to have 100 songs up here by the end of the calendar year. For me to foolishly assume upfront that I would ever accept quantity over quality was ridiculous. Even when I'm not doing a video every day, it's still hard to accept the quality level of the videos, because I know they're not what they "could" be if I were really focusing on them. But staying within the general spirit of the exercise, and now actually knowing what I got myself into, I'd like to have 100 videos up by the end of 2011. It'll still be a great learning exercise even if they're not all perfect. This should give me enough time to rest my voice in between videos *and* to think about things other than this blog. When you're doing a video a day, or even a few videos a week, it can be *really* time-consuming.

So...right now I'm actually without a singing voice. At all. It hurts to talk. (This is mainly because I'm sick, but singing only exacerbates the issue.) So while I couldn't sing to you if I wanted to, let me update you on the statuses of my various competitions:

-Claremont: The karaoke finals were Friday and I won!!!!! Soooo exciting!!! Quite honestly, I have only won one other singing competition in my life of the MANY I have participated in, so that was fantastic. My inability to win singing competitions has sort of become a running joke in my family. In case you were wondering, the one thing I won in the past was Collis Idol, my sophomore summer. (Yea!) Past failures...I'm sorry, non-successes...include: every school talent show ever, Dartmouth Idol (twice), and multiple casting processes throughout my life, if that counts. (And if it does, then I guess I have a few more "successes" than I named.) We can throw in the American Idol and Voice auditions too but those don't *really* count.

The best part of winning this contest was not just the cash prize (which was fabulous!), but I *may* have gotten a gig out of this as well, which is really exciting. The event itself was also a fundraiser for the Claremont Soup Kitchen, which was nice. I decided in advance that if I won the $500, I’d give $100 to the soup kitchen. You better believe that when my name was announced, $100 made its way over to the donation pile! (I’ve got too many competitions left, I can’t be greedy! I need some good karma!)

I have to say, everyone in the contest was *so* nice, which was refreshing. Also, a shoutout to Sal and Courtney Cania for driving down to Claremont and being supportive!

-Z Factor: is going swimmingly!!! Scores were made public after week 3 and I’m in 2nd place! Hopefully all will go well for the next two weeks (crossing my fingers that I can pull through this week), and then I just have to pull out all the stops for the finals. What that means, I don’t know. But I have a few weeks. I’m sure I’ll think of something. =)
(I have to repeat my sentiments from Claremont: the Z Factor people are awesome too. I’m loving that people aren’t being catty/ridiculous. I guess I should have more faith when not in NY. hahah)

-Country Showdown: performances are this Wednesday and Saturday. This is making me nervous. I’m just praying my voice is functioning on both days so I have a fair shot. I’ve also never competed in the Showdown before, just watched at Tunbridge. On a side note, I need to send in my app for the Froggy Country Throwdown soon, since *that* will be the show at Tunbridge this year instead of the Showdown.

I think that’s about it for now. Now I just have to finish my 5th cup of tea for the day before hopefully getting more than 3.5 hours of sleep, which is what I got last night, since apparently I couldn’t breathe and sleep at the same time. Good thing I had the foresight to take Monday-Wednesday off for vacation (I *only* get sick during planned vacations. Such a mess.)

Thanks for reading, and I may have some more non-vocal posts over the next few days/weeks as my voice mends!

Day 21: "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks

More country!!! For a period of time here, it may be about 50/50 country and other music as I sort out my Country Showdown selections. A short time ago I never would've thought that in a period of a little over a month I'd (if all goes well) perform competitively 11 times. I'd say I should rest up those vocal cords but...oh wait, I'm singing every waking second because of this blog. oops. I'm taking my rest where I can get it, and the blog can always wait a few days! Wish me luck at Z Factor tomorrow! ;)

Day 20: "Who Knew" by Pink

"Who Knew"...that I'd be at over 1500 views today?! (WOOHOO!)

But all joking aside, this song is amazing. I'm sure everyone who has heard it has cried *at least* once while listening. It's impressive how deep Pink is with so many of her songs. There's not a lot of fluff in her catalogue. Hopefully later this week I'll be uploading "Perfect"...another gem! Enjoy. =)

Day 19: "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green

In the intro to Cee Lo's album The Lady Killer, he says, "I'm often asked what do I do for a living? And I answer...I do what I want."

In recording this video, I asked myself, "WWCLD?" (What would Cee Lo do...if he were a woman singing "Forget You"?)

Answer: Clearly peacock it up with all kinds of ridiculous jewelry and the requisite suit jacket and sunglasses. End scene.

Day 18: "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood

Alright, since last we spoke, I've had a crazy week for singing!!! On Tuesday, I went to Rutland for Z Factor. I thought people were going to be eliminated each week (which I believe was the original plan based on what the rules say), but we're all going to perform for 5 weeks, and then the top 12 will be moving on to the finals at the VT State Fair. Fingers are crossed for that one!

On Wednesday, I went to Claremont for another karaoke contest. The format of this one is that for five weeks people compete to get a spot in the finals, and the top four from each week get in. The grand prize is $500. I got into the finals!!! They're on 8/19, and I'm psyched!

Then on Thursday I found out that I've been picked as a finalist in a local round of the Texaco Country Showdown!!! The show's later this month. And so with this song I celebrate. I have a feeling I'm going to be performing a *lot* of country within the next month or so, so I'll be practicing it right here on my blog! Please help me figure out what works and what doesn't. ;)

Day 17: "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc

This song is fantastic. The first time I heard it, I could've sworn it was a '70s song being performed by Bill Withers, but ce n'est pas le cas. Also, the title made me laugh out loud. After a little digging, I realized this was in fact the artist of a song I'd heard playing on "Mob Wives" (yes, I've watched Mob Wives. get over it.) and thought "Wow! This guy's awesome! He sounds like a '70s singer, but he's a current artist! I should look him up!" Being on an elliptical at the time, I promptly forgot to do this. But I'm glad I found him again!

The song's way low in my range, but it's an awesome blues song, and I got to have fun bopping around while recording it. Let's talk about some upgrades in my videos as of late:

-I've moved my studio out of the bathroom for the time being! (We're movin' on up, mooovin' on up!)
-Guess who learned how to fade to black and isn't afraid to use it?
-I'm finally getting used to mic input levels and trying to get better at picking one that suits the song.

As my little sister Courtney (future video participant) might say: "Get on my level."

Thanks for watching! I'm glad I had such a productive night!!! (And since I'll be at the contest tomorrow, no video tomorrow, but hopefully there'll be something up Wednesday.)

Day 16: "Just Tonight" by The Pretty Reckless

Tonight's 2nd song is "Just Tonight" by The Pretty Reckless. Great song. I love rock songs with a sick female vocal. The first time I heard it on the radio I was like, "...is that Pink? No...the voice is a little different." (Teaser: there will probably be some Pink songs up here in the next week or so.) I was *very* surprised to find out that a 17 year old recorded the original track. Cindy Lou Who no less...

It's occurred to me that I never properly celebrated hitting 1000 views on YouTube. I'd like to take the opportunity to do that now. And so: YAYYYYYYYYYY 1000 VIEWS!!! I'm actually at 1,258, and I largely have the Amy Winehouse videos to thank for the sudden spike in viewership. "Rehab" got 23 views in the past hour. I've had videos that have gone a WEEK without that kind of popularity. I think what's more exciting is that initially I had more hits on my blog than YouTube, and now it's the opposite. This means I went from mainly having friends/family viewing my music to having outside people watch my performances. Exciting!!!

Speaking of outside people watching my performances, tomorrow I will compete in Z97.1's The Z Factor competition!!! After work, I will schlep over an hour to Rutland and *hopefully* make it through this round and compete again next week. There are elimination rounds every week and the finals are at the Vermont State Fair next month with the grand prize being $971. Wish me luck!!! =)

Day 15: "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse

After the unexpected success of "Back to Black", the song that started it all..."Rehab"! More videos to come very soon!

Day 14: "Back to Black" by Amy Winehouse

Performing this song for the obvious reason, and because it was actually suggested by two people when I first started the blog. It's too bad I don't have a black hat with a veil and that I'm not bold enough to attempt stylized runny mascara....yet. RIP Ms. Winehouse. Stay off the drugs kiddos!

Day 13: "You and I" by Lady Gaga

Kaitlyn does Gaga doing Elton John/4 Non-Blondes/Queen! What could be better? I love this song. It's rock and blues and just delicious. Long live the power ballad.

Day 12: "Turn on the Radio" by Reba McEntire

Hi all, Today's video will be the first of several country songs on here that I'm trying out for when I compete in the Country Showdown later this summer! Today's main lesson is "know the song you're singing" (the words, the timing, etc.). I think my vocal sounded okay, but I look really confused in the video because I'm looking to the side/down for my lyrics and vaguely worried about getting the timing of certain things right. In any case, I got through it on my first take, so I decided to not tempt fate, and just go with it. I'm really surprised at how quickly I can get these done now! *knock on wood*

Next steps: get better at playing with the color in the videos, get the video quality right, and really work on not maxing out the mic. I can't see my mic input levels when I record video at the same time, so I'm just going to have to work on it! In the meantime, enjoy!

Day 11: Plainview-Old Bethpage 9/11 Memorial Park Dedication (7/10/11)

Hi all, So this post is about a week delayed in coming, but I had to upload the videos from my Flip camera and edit them together. (It's a little choppy, sorry! Rendering it in high quality adds about an hour to the uploading process! On a side note, I'm proud of myself for figuring out how to add title slides in between videos!)

On 7/10, I was fortunate to be home in Plainview-Old Bethpage, performing at the dedication of a 9/11 Memorial Park. I was honored to be a part of this ceremony honoring those who lost their lives on that day, as well as the first responders who were there helping out in any way they could. It's been almost a decade since this horrific event, but the memories and emotions of that day and the ensuing weeks are still as clear as ever. A special thank you goes out to Carol Meschkow and the Concerned Citizens of Plainview-Old Bethpage for putting together this wonderful event. You can read more about the event here.

Day 10: Sol Food with special guest Joe Bowie at Tupelo Hall!!!

Hi all, Yesterday, I had the privilege of performing with the funk/jazz/nawlins/latin/you-name-it-we-play-it Upper Valley SENSATION Sol Food (like us on Facebook!) and special guest, just in from Europe, Joe Bowie! We played at Tupelo Hall in White River Junction and I hear we're only the second local group to play there (Hi Chloe Brisson, lucky #1! haha). It was a long day but sooo much fun. ...And so I will upload six videos from the show. Enjoy!

*Filming courtesy of Rodrigo Ramirez.
*Colorful commentary courtesy of Rodrigo Ramirez and Jen Murray.
*Sweet dance moves courtesy of the fine people of the Upper Valley. You make these gigs what they are.

Duet with Joe!


Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" (or, for the younger crowd, "that song that 'Wild Wild West' samples")


Mercy!


"It's All Over Now" (a New Orleans song)


"You Don't Know" with Joe <--this song is the theme song of a show in Holland!

My world premiere on the guiro! haha (no vocals)


The vocals aren't perfect on everything but that's what happens when you're live! Thanks for watching!

Day 9: "Don't Rain On My Parade" from Funny Girl

Another day, another infuriating video-making experience!

So I heard Funny Girl was casting. While I'm pretty convinced my theater days are over, at least for the time being, it would be my mother's dream for me to audition, so why not?

I thought I'd make the video yesterday, but upon coming home from work, I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 11:30pm. Not wanting to annoy the neighbors (I live in an apartment), I thought I'd save the video for today.

I've noticed that between this blog and my upcoming gig I've been singing a lot and it's starting to take a toll on my voice. My throat was a little sore even before I started singing today, so I just wanted to get the video over with. I set up my camera, checked that the audio was set to the right microphone (since I made that mistake the other day!), and went to record. It was a *BROADWAY!* performance. I was really proud of myself for hitting all of the high belts. Imagine my chagrin when I played the recording back and heard....well, I heard nothing. It recorded without sound and I couldn't tell you why. The mic was plugged in and on. I restarted the webcam, did a test video, and this time the sound worked. When I went for my next take I made it *almost* all the way to the end...but my voice cracked. In the next take, all was well until I slightly flubbed the words. Not a big mixup, but you don't want to mix up words to a well known song in an audition. The next take was...not as good as the first, didn't go for the really high belts, and my voice was WAY tired, but hey! I made it through the song! (Rodrigo actually joked that I should post my outtakes, because they consist of me making rapid transitions between full Broadway mode (=D!) and shouting/muttering expletives. For professional reasons, I thought that might not be the best move. haha)

So I go to the casting website..."You can't audition for this role – it's closed to audition. Audition deadline: 15 July 2011 21:00 UTC (?)"

(I enjoy the question mark next to UTC. What is that?!?! Oh...same as GMT?...well, that's helpful, for a show that will run in NEW YORK.)

Well, that was disheartening.

As the song says, "I guess I didn't make it..."

But not about to waste a video, I'm posting it here. I don't care that I don't quite have the resonance in my voice I might have during a "solid" performance. (p.s. YouTube once again suggested "african american" as a tag. I don't care if there's an actual reason or not, I'm just loving this and take it as a compliment to my voice.)

Speaking of videos and online contests, this is the 2nd contest this week that hasn't worked out, in that I made a video and *literally* could not enter the competition. The other contest is the one I referenced on Day 8 of posting. For whatever reason the site wouldn't let me upload my video. The site said to e-mail an account if you can't get it to upload and I did but...no response. I'm sure others were having the same problem and they were inundated. I take this to mean that singing isn't supposed to take off for me right now and that GREAT things are going to happen at work (YEA!). Let's then consider this the countdown until I'm the CEO of something. (Companies I create count! Not that I'd create a company to be the boss, I'd create a company if I felt there was a market and that it enhanced society in some way.)

Okay so since every video comes with lessons, here are things I learned today:
-Don't just check the settings to see if sound is recording, actually make a test video.
-My Flip MinoHD is way too HD for what I'm prepared to deal with. Sorry Mr. DeMille, I am *not* ready for my closeup.
-Recording a cappella through my computer doesn't slow the computer down as much, so maybe if I play my karaoke tracks on my iPod when recording, the video won't be as choppy!
-Always check deadlines. No really.

And while I'm typing I novel, I just wanted to make a note that the day # I post is really just the # of the song. It's the # of videomaking experiences I have. There have been and will be days without videos, and there will be days with multiple videos. It'll just depend on my schedule and my health. I can't destroy my voice or sacrifice my productivity at work for this! I'm also going to start posting gig performances soon! And on that note...

***COME SEE SOL FOOD AND JOE BOWIE AT TUPELO HALL IN WHITE RIVER JUNCTION TOMORROW AT 8PM!!! $15 FOR TICKETS AND IT'S BYOB!!!***

Thanks for watching/reading. =)

Day 8: "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5

So, as discussed with my publicist (hehe), this is 100 Days, 100 Songs, not 1 song every day for 100 days. We'll get to 100 in time, I promise! Right now I'm in a rehearsal process for a concert on Saturday at Tupelo Hall in White River Junction, VT with Sol Food and special guest Joe Bowie! (***Tickets are only $15!!! You should come!!!***) After singing really hard at rehearsal last night, I knew I had to take the night off from recording. Today however, I recorded two songs *and* went to rehearsal. But only one will be posted here.

As you can see, the video I posted is Maroon 5's "Harder to Breathe." I think it's their best song, and I'd sort of forgotten about it, so when I thought to listen to it again, I remembered just how great it is. This will be part of my plan to sing songs by all of the "Voice" judges before my audition on 7/23 (AHHH!!!). The other day I found out the auditions will be at the Izod Center, which gave me American Idol PTSD, but I believe they're structuring it as a rolling cattle call, which makes it slightly better than a plain ol' cattle call. I just hope their casting process doesn't turn out to be like that of American Idol, and that they really keep it a *singing* competition and not a "I'm good looking, don't have a real job, and have a sob story" competition. The only judge whose repertoire I'm not sure I can sing a song from is Blake...because he never likes it when people sing his songs or Miranda Lambert's songs. Not that I'm planning on Blake Shelton actually viewing my blog. I'm jussayin.

Back to the videos, I think the recording quality came out better than usual today. Couldn't tell you why. I played with the color settings to make the colors brighter, and I think it worked!

So the second song I recorded, that won't be posted here, is "Sweet Thing" by Mary J. Blige/Chaka Khan. It's for a contest, and if you win regionally you get to open at a concert where Jill Scott is the headliner. The recording wasn't so terrible that I wouldn't submit it, but it's not at the level I'd like things on my blog to be. I learned the song specifically to make the recording, so I struggled with my knowledge of the song in certain places.

Well the good news is I have no evening commitments tomorrow, so it may be a two-song night! (Maybe even a two-song night where both are *postable*!) Or, I could just, you know, go to sleep at a normal hour. That's an option too. Enjoy today's video, it was fun to record!

Day 7: "Rolling in the Deep" by Adele

By popular demand..."Rolling in the Deep" on Day Lucky Number 7!!! It's *so* much fun to be doing this song. I've wanted to do it since the beginning of this blog (well, actually long before that of course), but I didn't want to use up a good song too soon. I'm sure that there will be many more Adele songs to follow, including songs on her new album that might not be singles yet but are just awesome.

I actually posted my video as a video response to Adele's
video, so let's see if that generates any traffic to my page! (Granted, people cover this song every 5 minutes, so it won't be on the main page for long.)

Also, if you haven't heard it before, check out John Legend's cover of this song. It's amazing.

Alright, notes from today:
-I got my mic stand today! yay! Now I can have my mic in front of me, at a normal height, while I sing. I don't have to awkwardly perch it on my laptop, sing sideways, and hope it doesn't fall!
-I recorded earlier in the day today which made ALL the difference for my voice. I recorded around 8pm, and I've been recording after 10pm lately. That's a mistake! Voices don't like late nights! (Unless you're living the true musician's life and sleeping until the afternoon, in which case midnight feels like 4 in the afternoon.)
-Today's big lesson: breathing! I probably should've practiced my breathing on this song more before recording it. If I were an editing whiz, I'd edit it what I missed/messed up but...I'm not there yet, nor do I think I will be within the 100 days.
-Sidebar: It was sooo hard to not clap during the southern break-it-down bridge, but my mic was in the way and clapping directly into my mic would've just been a bad idea. This just shows the importance of preparing yourself for blocking!
-The video lag is still driving me nuts. I actually sped up the video slightly and it sort of helped but it's just...off, so tomorrow I'm going to try recording on my Flip camera (speaking of which, its Gorillapod arrived today! I love presents to myself!)

Well that's all for now, because I once again find myself blogging after 1am. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to blog about my recent and upcoming gigs!

Day 6: "Price Tag" by Jessie J (acoustic)

Hi all, So despite going back and forth between NH and Long Island over the course of two days, Day 5 and Day 6 both had videos! Yesterday I found an acoustic karaoke version of "Price Tag" online and thought it would be fun to do. Maybe I should have stuck with my instinct the first time I heard the original song, which was "...cheesy!!!" But yea, it's probably one of those songs that works better in live performance.

Things I've learned today:

-Doing a gig, being on the road for 5 hours, and then attempting a video is a bad idea.
-While filming, if I look at myself onscreen instead of into the camera, my eyes look half-closed and I look like I'm falling asleep.
-My computer honestly can't handle recording video and sound at the same time. It starts off together and gradually drifts apart. I might have to start using an external camera and then line it up in my video editing program.
-I wish the video program I got had fun easy presets like the program I used yesterday (PhotoBooth), so I can have "instant fun!" in the video. It would require actual skill for me to create those on the program I have, and I just don't have the time to develop that skill currently.
-Even if the song suggests it: don't "look to the left" and subsequently "look to the right" if your microphone is to the right. Chaos (or a bad recording) may ensue.

The whole quantity over quality thing is really starting to get to me. My perfectionistic tendencies don't like it, and I'm literally losing sleep in order to complete these videos, even though they're not all going to be winners. Once these 100 days are over, I will only accept quality!!!

Okay, I need to go to sleep now (it's after 1am and I have work tomorrow), but tomorrow's video is going to be awesome *and* I'm also going to post a little bit about my performance in NY this weekend. See you tomorrow!

Day 5: "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles with special guest Jaclyn Sheehan!!!

Hi all, Welcome to Day 5! Today I'm at home in NY, and as such, I thought I'd incorporate my sisters into my blog! Fortunately my sister Jackie was around and we recorded a duet of "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles. Today is great because I went from thinking I wouldn't be able to record in NY to fulfilling 3 of my goals: doing an upbeat song, utilizing color, and singing with my sisters! (Well, at least one. Courtney, watch out, I *will* get you on this blog.) The song was a lot of fun to record! It was 2am when we recorded, so even though our harmonies might not have been perfect, we were having too much fun to care. We'll have to do this more often. Enjoy! =)

Day 4: "Soulmate" by Natasha Bedingfield

Hi all, Happy Day 4! Okay, so I came into today with very clear goals and expectations...and completely did the opposite. I was planning on doing something a little lighter/happier today after last night's song. I actually spent all day thinking I'd do "Dog Days Are Over" and then came home from work to discover that I really only knew the chorus of the song. Rather than taking that opportunity to actually learn the rest of the song, I proceeded to listen/sing to about 30 other songs. At around 10-something I started panicking, and a little after 11, out of the blue, I recorded "Soulmate" by Natasha Bedingfield (yes, another beautiful but depressing song). But I love it so much, so it just came to me. Unfortunately, it came to me too strongly, and I maxed out the vocal input, which distorts the sound. I re-recorded in a way that didn't max out at all but it sounded too...boring, so in the end I went with the distorted version. It kind of sounds like I recorded it on a cassette tape, but that's okay. It's retro! (Side note: I really need to learn how to use Audacity. Right now the only features I've been using are "record" and "stop.")

I then went and added a karaoke track to the background for good measure. By the time that was done, it was a little after 1. Ah yes, time to record the video! I recorded the video in color, no glasses, hair down. And then when I went to save, my recording program crashed and I lost the video I'd just made. Forced to rerecord using a different program, I decided to take a different tactic. Alright, it's in black and white again. Sorry, I'll try to use some more color going forward. *But* I also put on my glasses and pulled my hair back. I thought it fit in well with the "nice girl who just can't find a nice guy" theme of the song. Unfortunately, as you'll see in the video, a few overdramatic head shakes in, my nice hairdo falls out. But no big deal! At least the saved. It's almost 3am and I'm happy to be done. This whole process feels very much like "Julie & Julia"....definitely a labor of love, and it will all be worth it in the end.

In other news, my video software came today, and I'm psyched to learn how to use it! I think it's definitely resulted in a higher quality video already and I haven't even tried anything fancy yet. The only downside I've found is that it takes ~15 minutes to turn the project into a "movie" and then about 15 minutes to upload to YouTube. hmm. (...and that's why it's almost 4am now. not pleased.)

In unrelated news, today the Red Bulls sent me a DVD of my performance from last week! I thought that was so nice of them!!! (...and in semi-related news, Amazon continues to directly receive the better part of my disposable income for music-related items. I'm officially cutting myself off, at least for a few days.)

See you tomorrow...with a happier song! I promise!

Day 3: "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri

Here we are at Day 3. Yesterday was a little disheartening, what with the editing fiasco. You'll be glad to know that Amazon is making a killing, preying on my insecurities. Immediately after uploading last night's video, I spent ~$50 on video editing software. It's cheaper than buying a Mac so I can have iMovie though, right?! And this is why I work full time and sing on the side, otherwise I'd have no money with which to buy a laptop to record on, a mic, mic stand, video editing software, etc. Today, for good measure, I bought a music stand, floor protectors for the music stand, and a keyboard bench...just because. Maybe I'm getting a little spend-happy. Oops!

On another note, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my de facto publicist, Jen Murray, for all of her help so far. Unfortunately she works on commission and we're about -$200 right now, with no prayer for future income. (Sorry Jen! haha) She has so many great ideas and I hope I can incorporate most of them! In fact, the inspiration for today's song came from a site she sent me, http://wearehunted.com/. Very cool!

One idea was to make sure I have my name/the name of the blog in the videos themselves. Thanks to YouTube annotations...done!

So let's talk about today's adventure: "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri. Love love love that song. So today I set up my laptop, set up the mic, all with more ease than before, because hey, it's Day 3! Tell me why then I didn't check to confirm my recording input before starting...I recorded the whole song using the mic from my computer while I had my good mic right in front of my face. But not about to emote a second time, I decided this would be a good time to just re-record the vocals. I didn't feel like getting crazy and recording just vocals and mixing that with a karaoke mp3 and then putting that over the video, so I figured I'd record the vocals and background track together. And honestly, for what I'm using it for, the sound quality is just fine. My only notes on the sound are: I put the mic input too high (because it was recording really softly, as you'll hear), and so I maxed out the input in a few places, but it's not too terrible. Also, I hit a bad note. oops. not re-recording. not worth it.

So I have audio and video (with bad audio). I mute one audio and lay the other one over the other. Easy enough right? Nah, same as yesterday. But at least today I was expecting it, so it wasn't as bad. I line it up, I save it, it's a little off. Oh well. What was more disturbing was the decline in quality and change in contrast as I go from using my camera software, exporting that to a Windows Media file, saving that as a Movie Maker project, and exporting it as a Windows Media File. I go from looking like a person to a super high-contrast black and white cartoon. Ah well, it fits with the mood of the song I guess.

In any case, I'm *much* happier with my final product today than I was yesterday!!! And a happy Kaitlyn is a good thing. Thanks for watching!

Day 2: "Son of a Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield

Alright, things are already looking up! I found out that my mic will work with a stand, so I ordered a stand and it should be here next week! I contemplated ordering a shockmount as well, but online reviews tell me my mic (a Blue Snowball) might be too heavy for the shockmounts that are made for it. Ah well.

Yesterday's post focused on the sometimes overwhelming logistics of creating a video. These are the logistics that prevented me from auditioning online for...several things, but among them are American Idol and The X Factor. That will not be happening again!

Today's challenge is figuring out how to perform to a karaoke track and somehow getting the track, my vocal, and the video to all line up...since apparently these things don't occur organically. Today I'm trying to use Windows Live Movie Maker, since it seems to be the closest Windows equivalent of iMovie...and by that I mean not close at all, but it exists on my computer.

(an hour or so later)

*O.M.G.* getting the track to line up with the vocals was a pain. Why? BECAUSE WINDOWS LIVE MOVIE MAKER DOESN'T SHOW SOUNDWAVES WHEN YOU EDIT. So I had to use an up and down arrow to try to hear the difference between hundreths of a second. Thanks Microsoft. This is a perfect time to reference back to "throwing perfection out the window." Once I got close to something that sounded close I just went with it because I was tired. (To anyone who's wondering, I thought it was important to add the karaoke track because otherwise all you can hear is my voice loud and the karaoke track very faintly, which is pretty boring.)

Then, quite literally every other time I would play it back it would be lined up, then not. Then lined up, then not. I thought I was losing my mind, but I swear it happened. Of course every time I saved it it was in the "not lined up" format.

After two false start uploads to YouTube (and two e-mail from YouTube that I may or may not be violating copyrights for...performing a cover? unpaid?), I decided to just upload the "boring" video without the karaoke track. I figured if I didn't make a decision soon, it'd be midnight, and then this wouldn't accurately be a "Day 2" video.

In other news, having a gigantic microphone in my hand/bobbing along in the screen is really distracting so...I really can't wait to get my new mic stand. Tomorrow I might just put my mic on a setting that doesn't require me to sing directly into it. Hey, that might fix the whole "lining up the track" issue as well! Also, I think I need something more modern for tomorrow. Any ideas?

Day 1: "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga

What better way to start this off than with a Lady Gaga anthem? All hail Mother Monster! For this video I took inspiration from the HBO commercial for Gaga's concert, as well as her Grammy performance. It's my own little arrangement.

So Day 1 was off to a rocky start.  Despite battling a fever, stomach bug, and possibly broken toe (?!), I forged ahead with making this video. The show must go on! That's part of this process.  When you have a gig, it doesn't matter if you're sick (usually). You perform. And now I have a nightly gig.

Another part of this process is going to be figuring out the logistics of recording videos. ...I am not good at this.  So much goes into it, including camera placement, lighting, sound quality, etc.  I spent about an hour running around my apartment with my laptop just trying to figure out where I could put it down that would be the right height for recording.  Several stacked cardboard boxes later...I was in business.  Lighting I decided I couldn't be bothered with today.  For sound, I wanted to use an external microphone. However, the mic needed to rest on a tabletop and there was not one to be had at the level I needed, so you can see the mic and pop filter bopping along with me as I attempt to hold it and sing at the same time. Note to self: buy mic stand to suspend mic from. Buy a new mic if this one doesn't work with a stand.

My next issue was the audio and video. They seem to be lined up at the beginning, but then they gradually drift apart.  I recorded this in one take, audio and video at the same time...I guess there was a battle for memory on my computer and my mic won. I guess that's the more important piece, but it makes the video look bad, and I don't know how to fix it. And speaking of video not looking great, the video looked one way when I played it with my webcam's software, and then had a completely different brightness and contrast when I played it in Windows Media Player, which is what the uploaded video would look like, I'd assume. I can't win.  But hey, I have 99 more days to get it right. (Update: After tweaking the bitrate for audio and video and playing with brightness/contrast it looks slightly better than it did before. Maybe there's hope!)

The redeeming part of this process came when I uploaded the video to YouTube.  Before I put any information about the song down, it came up with suggested tags. Two of these were "diva" and "african american." YouTube, this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship...<3

Please send me your comments not just on the singing, but tips on how to make these videos work! I'm definitely not an A/V expert and can use all the help I can get!!! (And keep the song requests coming!) Thanks for watching!

First post!

Hi all, Welcome to my site! I haven't had a blog since...oh circa 2005, and even then I think I made about 3 posts in a year. In starting this blog, as the title suggests, I'm looking to post 100 songs in 100 days.  I'm going to take requests from you, my friends, and try to put up a song a day on YouTube.  So frequently, whether it's for an audition, a gig, or a competition, I'm looking for the "perfect song."  This is an opportunity to throw perfection out the window and learn a song to performance level within a day (who are we kidding, within a few hours, I have a full-time job!) and make it public! In doing this for 100 days, I'll get to move out of my comfort zone and learn and perform songs in all different genres.  So send me your requests! Comment here, e-mail me, post on facebook, w/e works for you! Thank you for joining me on this ride, I'm excited to get started!

~Kaitlyn