Yup, my next cover is a country song. If you know me well, you know I'm not too fond of country music overall. Well then, why did I choose to cover "I Won't Let Go" by Rascal Flatts? If you're curious, continue reading. If you want to just watch the video, skip to the bottom of this post. If you care about neither the backstory nor the video, then why the hell are you reading this in the first place?
Anyway I am in an a cappella group called the New Dominions. These people sing. And make drum sounds with their mouths. And tell very weird jokes. And are very odd people in general.
Which is why I love them.
That, and one of the songs we're performing this semester is this very song. Since I was going to be forced to take part in this one way or another, I figured I'd listen to the song ahead of time just to see what it's like. And you know what? It's pretty damn good!
When I think of country, I think of bluegrass "Weeeel ah waz born een Texas in mah daddeh's pick up truuuuuuuuck...." Nah, this song's more of a ballad. You could easily replace the lead singer with Luther Vandross or Brian McKnight and pass it off as a 90's R&B hit.
Anyway, I and every other guy in the New Dos auditioned for the solo for this song. Alas, I did not get it likely due to any or all of the following reasons:
1. The song is very high and out of my range.
2. There are plenty of better singers in the group
3. My voice has a bit of a raspy quality to it, not ideally suited for power ballads or anything like them.
So since I love this song so much, I resorted to my default option for any song that gets stuck in my head: make a YouTube cover. Doing my own version would also alleviate the problems that plagued me during my audition:
1. I can now lower the key and sing it in a more comfortable range.
2. I don't have to compete with other singers.
3. Yes, my voice is still raspy. F%$# it; it's my channel and I'll sing a country ballad if I want to!
Anyway, enjoy:
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Welcome to Blogging!
Okay, so this isn't my first attempt at blogging. I had a blog a few years ago for something else entirely, but I'll get to that in a moment.
So, what can you expect to find here? In order to give you a better idea, I should probably get into a few details about who I am:
1) I am a college senior, tentatively set to work at a software company after I graduate in May.
2) I like to dabble in music. By that I mean that I am/was a member of two different a cappella groups, I play tenor saxophone in a small jazz combo, and I am self-taught in a small amount of piano and guitar.
3) I'm a big fan of NBA basketball. I've been a Lakers fan since I was a child (I can already hear the moans of disdain), but I appreciate all of the great players in the league. Others sports...well, I'll watch them if others around me are, and I have a small amount of knowledge about the NFL and professional tennis players. College sports, I got nothing.
4) I've been into making YouTube videos off and on since high school. What kind of videos? Why, I'm glad you asked:
I'll talk about my second channel first, seeing as the back story behind it is much shorter than of my first one, and because it's the one that I still work on.
When I say that I dabble in music, I usually mean other people's music. I've written a few of my own songs, but it's so much easier to perform stuff that's already out there. So, about a year ago, I bought myself an iMac and pursued a new hobby. I would follow in the footsteps of many musicians both talented and talentless and create covers of popular songs for the sole purpose of putting them on YouTube. Why not? I had a computer, a keyboard, knowledge of the difference between major and minor chords, huge delusions of grandeur, and the ability to casually strum more than 3 different chords on the guitar. Clearly that's all it takes to become famous (am I right, Justin Bieber?).
My first cover was of “Down” by Jay Sean. I rustled up a honky, 4-instrument version of it that took me 2 hours max to do on Garageband, put one of those stock iMovie title screens behind it, uploaded it to my new channel, and waited for the record labels to start calling me. But when a week past without any sign of an upcoming multi-billion dollar recording contract, I was devastated. Oh well, just gotta keep trying, I said. Not everything on that damn site goes viral after all.
Over the next few months I learned quite a bit from subscribing to (i.e. stalking) other YouTube musicians. For one, if you use better recording equipment than just the internal mic on your computer, you'll sound so much better. Eureka! Also, there's better software out there than Garageband. Holy crap! What's more, making actual videos to go along with your music instead of still pictures can make the entire experience more exciting. Well I'll be damned!
I went through a long stretch of time without making any videos, but I'd like to think that my past few covers since then have shown a fair amount of improvement both musically and visually. Though I've pretty much conceded that I'm neither good enough nor lucky enough to become famous off of clips of me singing Mika songs into a webcam.
But Kiran, you ask, why continue making YouTube song videos?
Because it's fun!
I'm in my last semester of college and am pretty much free from all major responsibilities besides merely passing my classes. Why not make random music and show it off online? There are far less productive ways to use your free time. Right now I'm working on a few projects with some friends and just continuing to cover songs on my own. I'm not expecting nor wishing for a record deal to come out of this. I do it merely for the sake of artistic expression and creativity...or something like that.
You can click the link to my YouTube channel on the side or click here. I'll be updating this blog with new video releases, plus whatever random crap I feel like talking about at the time.
In the interest of my fellow reader(s)'s short attention spans, I'll separate the details of my other, former channel into a different post.
So, what can you expect to find here? In order to give you a better idea, I should probably get into a few details about who I am:
1) I am a college senior, tentatively set to work at a software company after I graduate in May.
2) I like to dabble in music. By that I mean that I am/was a member of two different a cappella groups, I play tenor saxophone in a small jazz combo, and I am self-taught in a small amount of piano and guitar.
3) I'm a big fan of NBA basketball. I've been a Lakers fan since I was a child (I can already hear the moans of disdain), but I appreciate all of the great players in the league. Others sports...well, I'll watch them if others around me are, and I have a small amount of knowledge about the NFL and professional tennis players. College sports, I got nothing.
4) I've been into making YouTube videos off and on since high school. What kind of videos? Why, I'm glad you asked:
I'll talk about my second channel first, seeing as the back story behind it is much shorter than of my first one, and because it's the one that I still work on.
When I say that I dabble in music, I usually mean other people's music. I've written a few of my own songs, but it's so much easier to perform stuff that's already out there. So, about a year ago, I bought myself an iMac and pursued a new hobby. I would follow in the footsteps of many musicians both talented and talentless and create covers of popular songs for the sole purpose of putting them on YouTube. Why not? I had a computer, a keyboard, knowledge of the difference between major and minor chords, huge delusions of grandeur, and the ability to casually strum more than 3 different chords on the guitar. Clearly that's all it takes to become famous (am I right, Justin Bieber?).
My first cover was of “Down” by Jay Sean. I rustled up a honky, 4-instrument version of it that took me 2 hours max to do on Garageband, put one of those stock iMovie title screens behind it, uploaded it to my new channel, and waited for the record labels to start calling me. But when a week past without any sign of an upcoming multi-billion dollar recording contract, I was devastated. Oh well, just gotta keep trying, I said. Not everything on that damn site goes viral after all.
Over the next few months I learned quite a bit from subscribing to (i.e. stalking) other YouTube musicians. For one, if you use better recording equipment than just the internal mic on your computer, you'll sound so much better. Eureka! Also, there's better software out there than Garageband. Holy crap! What's more, making actual videos to go along with your music instead of still pictures can make the entire experience more exciting. Well I'll be damned!
I went through a long stretch of time without making any videos, but I'd like to think that my past few covers since then have shown a fair amount of improvement both musically and visually. Though I've pretty much conceded that I'm neither good enough nor lucky enough to become famous off of clips of me singing Mika songs into a webcam.
But Kiran, you ask, why continue making YouTube song videos?
Because it's fun!
I'm in my last semester of college and am pretty much free from all major responsibilities besides merely passing my classes. Why not make random music and show it off online? There are far less productive ways to use your free time. Right now I'm working on a few projects with some friends and just continuing to cover songs on my own. I'm not expecting nor wishing for a record deal to come out of this. I do it merely for the sake of artistic expression and creativity...or something like that.
You can click the link to my YouTube channel on the side or click here. I'll be updating this blog with new video releases, plus whatever random crap I feel like talking about at the time.
In the interest of my fellow reader(s)'s short attention spans, I'll separate the details of my other, former channel into a different post.
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