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. =)