Picking up from the last blog post... we did go to Metro Cafe our last night in Atlanta. It was great fun. It's usually fun there, anyway, but this was a particularly fun night. There was a big crowd there...not too many singers, but I wasn't the only one singing, either. We were not making a long night of it because we went later than usual, after the hockey game.
First I did a warm-up song "XXX's and OOO'x" by Trisha Yearwood. It was not really a country crowd, but they were nice and applauded anything. It was more of a modern R&B crowd, but they appreciated older music as well. My second song was an 80's rock song (I was in the mood to do a variety of styles), so I did "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash. They liked it a lot, especially the women. I could see them singing along.
By the time I did my third song, which I worked on lately to really learn it, the crowd was in a fine shape. I did the disco song "Knock on Wood" by Amii Stewart. And, I'm not being immodest when I say that I really nailed it. It was awesome. I love it when there is a great combination of things, like, I'm singing well, I've just had enough to drink, and the crowd is into it, etc. They were having a great time singing along and dancing to the song, and I was moving around, pointing, all sorts of stuff, playing to the crowd. It was great. One of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. That was a great high note to leave on, too.
I may have mentioned this before, but last year I had a sort of musical epiphany where I figured out how to do what they call "singing more forward" or "pointed", which to me is singing through my nose more. It really has helped my singing a lot. Not only do I sound better, it's 100 times easier because it makes the breathing so easy, almost effortless. It's almost like magic. I don't know how else to describe it. Before, in a song like Knock on Wood, I would have had to make sure I was really warmed up, and really push it, and sing so loud and really over-do it, just in order to get the notes and the energy I needed to make that sound. Now I just don't need to do all that. I really feel now that there isn't any song in my range I couldn't sing if I put my mind to it. And, of course, my range is much wider as well. The shocking thing is that now I can sing lower, too. But what's really sad is that my voice teachers told me to "sing more forward" for years, but they didn't really tell me what that meant, and I didn't understand it. All that time wasted!
I'm not making any new year's resolutions this year, are you? I have certain goals, but I'm keeping them to myself. It's not like I'll really accomplish them, probably, anyway! They're the same ones every year, ha ha!
Anyway, we had a great time in Atlanta and on our whole trip. The next day after the karaoke, before we checked out of our hotel, we had lunch there at the food court in the CNN Building (it's a mall among other things). It's a great food court. I ate at this place that had some kind of weird combination of ethnic food - some of it looked Greek, some Indian, some Chinese...I don't know, but it was delicious. Best fast food I've ever had. No kidding! Wish we had one here. It's called Bistro #7. Delicious!
It took a few days to recover from all that...we were pleasantly surprised to find that a friend had sent us a Hickory Farms gift box. That didn't last long.
We didn't have a very exciting new year's. We just stayed home, watched TV, drank some wine and champagne. We got an Electric Rabbit for Christmas. It opens wine bottles in a snap. It worked great. It's just too hard to get a cab on new year's, and who wants to have to worry about how much you had to drink or whether a cop is going to stop you? That wouldn't be very fun!
I took all the Christmas decorations down on the 1st...and it took me a few days to take them all down inside, as well, and take down the tree. Now I am procrastinating on putting them all away in the garage. That's the harder part and will probably take me another few days, at least.
My allergies have been really bad...it just seems like I can't eat any more without something making me sick (especially eating out). I've been trying to cook at home more.
Have a good time the rest of January!
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