This was really spectacular. What a night!
I knew about this place because I’d seen karaoke break out at the end of an industry mixer I want to the previous week… And I sang, “And I Am Telling You.” Because, come on. Why not?
I hadn’t thought it went exceptionally well. (It wasn’t terrible. But after a night of talking and talking over music to a whole bunch of different people… my voice sounded pushed, I thought.) Anyway, I wanted a chance at redemption! So, back I came.
A few of my friends came out to karaoke, which was awesome. But also, I didn’t want to wait for them to start singing. (So impatient, I know.)
So, I went over to this table of girls to ask if one would take a few photos for me so I’d have something for the blog.
Chase (one of the girls) looked at me and said, “You were here last week, weren’t you? In a pink sweater and white skirt.”
“Um, yes. Yes, I was.”
She then turned to her friends and said, “Watch out! This girl is amaaaaazing.”
She turned back to me and told me I was “a big black woman inside of a tiny white girl.” She then said I was “Aretha Franklin inside of Anna Kendrick.” Whoa. Compliments abounding.
I was a little scared to perform now. I also thought it was hilarious that I thought my last performance hadn’t been all that grand, and Chase remembered it as something amazing.
Here’s the secret my high school theater teacher taught me: Of course try to sound as good as you can. Practice your songs. Work with your vocal coach or whatever you do to feel comfortable. But ultimately, when you get up there, it doesn’t totally matter how you sound. It really only matters how you sell it.
We could debate that advice. And I understand it’s good to sound good. But overall, I agree with her advice. If you have a bad vocal day, if you’re sick, if you’re just off, whatever. Perspective is so much in life (ah, a running theme, it seems, in many of the blog projects and such).
Anyway, if you sell it, you might be to make people feel like they are hearing something awesome. Cool how that works, huh?
Also, can we just talk about how between the weeks, when I looked up karaoke online, I learned that Trevor Penick (of O-town fame) is the host of karaoke?! I had just requested my song the week previous and didn’t even recognize him. He was my favorite member of O-town (and I loved them)!
I went to one of their concerts and screamed my face off. And here I was requesting a song not even realizing Trevor Penick was in front of me?!
Weird. This time I absolutely got a picture with him. Aye aye aye.
And we’ll get to the actual performance stuff next time.
