Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
A few months ago I had posted a video of some a capella singing I had done at an open mike in New Hampshire. I realized I never posted up a more recent version I have; the first song is classical, and the second is one of my own songs. The second song starts at 2:01, for reference.
Posting up some music, for a change.
I went to an open mike at the Tupelo Music Hall, a local music joint with an incredible stage and the best talent you’ll ever see turn out to an open mike night. A few of my awesome friends came out to see me sing, and Ian took a video with his iPhone.
The singing starts at 0:40, if you want to skip the usual chatter.
I had an absolutely fantastic weekend, and I’m so grateful to my friends who made it that way.
Saturday started with me driving down to Massachussetts for a last-minute Justice-of-the-Peace wedding. The ceremony was very short and the whole thing was beautiful; it made me tear up along with the Justice herself and the three members of the wedding.
After I got home (one $25 EZ-Pass ticket poorer, thanks for making sure I had the newest tag available, New York), I was able to spend a lovely few hours rereading an old favorite of mine, The Raven Ring
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My recreation of a fantastic quote from my "Gratitude" iPhone app
I have an iPhone app called “Gratitude,” (the website is http://happytapper.com/ if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch) that displays quotes after you type in everything you’re grateful for that day, and this was one of the quotes that came up.
It spoke to me so strongly that I (ironically) spent several hours of a work day recreating the photo so I could keep it as a reminder. Hours later, I realized my iPhone has a “capture screen” function that would have done the same thing for me in about two seconds, but hey – now I know that I can recreate damn near anything from scratch when I put my mind to it.
I think we must spend half our lives doing things we don’t like to do. When I’m working on a song that speaks to me, I can have the entire song finished in an hour. In fact, that’s about how long it takes for me to get the bare bones of all my songs together. It’s easy for me because I love doing it, and therefore the creative juices flow, the words come to me, and (perhaps most importantly) I’m focused and driven to finish it.
When I’m at my office and I have to do projects, I find that projects for my friends are finished at roughly twice the speed of projects that drag out and require a million tweaks and revisions. I think the biggest reason for that is because, in all honesty, I don’t like redoing the same thing 1,000 times, and it stops being fun. Once it stops being fun, I start becoming easily distracted, and suddenly an hour-long project has taken all day and still isn’t finished.
I want to live an inspired life, one where I have fun doing things I like to do, and make people happy as a result. I’m incredibly excited that people are starting to read my blog every day; I’ve been holding back because I didn’t want to overwhelm readers with a slew of entries, and now I’ve got requests for more writing and pictures of Cooper. Who now has his own link on the sidebar for when people just want a gallery of his cuteness.
On a totally different note, I have just received my first piece of negative feedback on eBay. Without going into details about how this guy chose to behave like a churlish ass over a misunderstanding, I will say that I have been dreading this moment since 2002 when I first opened an account.
Now that it’s happened and my “score” is down from 100% to 90.9%, I just don’t care! I think that must be a life lesson: Feedback is just a number, you can’t satisfy everyone, and sometimes people are determined to be unhappy, no matter how much you try to please them.
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When a washer gets unbalanced, one side ends up full of wet, heavy, tangled clothes. The other side ends up empty. Which side gets all of your cursing and muttering while you try to get the damn thing running again?
There are days when I hate owning my business. There are days when I come into my office and feel so overwhelmed by the demand on my time that I sit in front of my computer and accomplish nothing over the course of eight hours. These are the days that get the attention, the days that make me question getting out of bed in the morning.
There is a reason I started my business. If nothing else, I love the freedom that owning my schedule gives me, and when I am able to manage my time somewhat effectively I am a productive and successful individual. In fact, a few hours spent with my favorite clients can make my day a fantastic one.
Lately, I’ve been letting myself get off track. Everyone around me is screaming about the economy, how the sky is falling and nothing will ever go back to HOW GOOD IT WAS the past few years. I’ve never been a subscriber to that mindset; what goes up has to go down, just like the sun. I’d personally be pretty pissed off if we had 24 hours worth of sunshine – imagine what the additional fuel, sunscreen, shades, and sun shelters for our plants, animals and automobiles would cost.
The sun obviously goes down, and then comes up, goes down, comes up and goes down again. Daily. For our entire lives. So does the economy, the housing market, the price of fuel, everything. And still, I’ve suddenly found myself at the receiving end of anger and panic, of clients who blame me when their newly designed business cards fail to make new clients appear out of midair.
The thing is, when my job is good – when my clients understand that my goal is to help them, not to wickedly sabotage their businesses with business cards and professional stock photography – I really enjoy it. It’s not my first love, I happen to be a whiz kid when it comes to Photoshop and photography, and I enjoy using those skills to help people become more successful.
The good things are the empty side of the unbalanced washing maching, and it’s the side that gets very little of my attention, and even less of my writing. It’s not fair, because that side – the great clients, the fun projects, the flexible schedule, making a difference in the way people can run their businesses – is why I started a business in the first place.
I’m excited that American Idol turned out the way it did, because I’ve recognized a few things from the experience. I need to end some client relationships that leave me feeling unhappy, and I need to get cracking with the blog because there are people telling me that my honesty helps them in their own lives. Most of all I need to remember that what goes up has to go down, and that if I hold on tightly enough when I’m on the bottom, I can ride that cycle right back up to the top.
I’ve got some fantastic people around me who love and care for me, and I can thank them by picking my mopey self up out of the gutter and getting back to my usual routine of seizing life one damn day at a time.
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For those who just want to know whether I made it without having to read, the answer is no, I am not going to be your next American Idol, and neither is Ian. For the people who want to know the story behind the outcome, keep reading.
The audition day was the easiest I’ve been to. The Crazies weren’t willing to stand in the rain for hours in costumes, so the other contestants were fun to talk to and the day was only 7 hours versus last time’s 16 hours.
The only Crazie I saw get a ticket was a kid wearing Tinkerbell wings, so keep an eye out for him and a man in full firefighter regalia.
Ian and I were well-liked by everyone. Well-liked to the point that the two producers auditioning us started talking to us, having a merry conversation about our engagement and impending wedding while the other two hopeful contestants next to us sweated bullets.
In fact, I truly believe that if Ian and I had been terrible, they would have put us right through for the sake of good television.
We, however, were not terrible, and did not make it through. On my end, I knew my mistake the moment I made it – I switched songs last-minute, and unlike the other two years when you had TEN SECONDS FLAT to sing, this year it had poured all day, turnout was light (for Idol, at least), and they were giving people tons of time.
The new song I had chosen was very strong in the chorus, and weak in the verse. I had them very interested through the first part, and when I realized they wanted me to keep singing past the normal ten second mark, I had to continue on with the song….I saw the moment I lost the male judge (who had been very intently watching me) and mentally kicked myself.
As surprising as it seems, I feel relieved I didn’t make it through. I hadn’t realized it, but the reason I was hoping to get through so badly was to not have to deal with my real life anymore – that’s not a good reason to do anything, no matter how exciting it may seem.
I haven’t realized just how low I’ve been feeling due to certain clients, impending bills, impossible-to-please customers, and the nagging feeling that I want to do something more with my life than what I’m doing now.
That more is this – I have something to say, and want a platform to say it from. I want to be an example to the 1 out of 4 kids who is abused in some way, and tell them that abuse does NOT define you, and that you can do and be anything you want, without ever being ashamed of what you’ve lived through.
I thought American Idol might be that platform I need, but Ian brought up a good point by saying that having my life dictated by FOX (and if you read the release forms you sign, dictated is the right word) is not going to give me that opportunity.
In the long run I am sad that it’s not going to be as easy as I was hoping, but I’m also glad to realize that I was viewing American Idol as the easy way out. I’ve learned that shortcuts come back to bite you in the ass WITHOUT FAIL, so I guess it’s time to get that machete and start hacking away again til I get where I’m trying to go.
Next on the agenda: I think it’s time to start that Muse cover band.
So, even though it’s a little embarassing to be lumped in with the crazies of the show, I’ll put it out there. I do want to go on American Idol. I love the show, and would love to have such an amazing experience in my life. The chances are depressingly low for anyone to get on the show. I know this because this is the third time I will have auditioned, and it will be the first time I will actually “go for it” and not feel meek.
When I first went to the auditions in New York, my friend and I were sure that I could at least get through to see Randy, Paula and Simon. I’ve got a strong voice, I sing on key, and I’m anything but a wallflower.
Cue the experience. Everyone at the audition is truly convinced they are the next American Idol, and here was the weird thing….they were all either hugely loud or super secretive about it. Everywhere you went in the arena, people were holed up in any little cubby they could find, singing their hearts out….into a sweatshirt.
If that wasn’t the case, then the crazies – no, let’s officially call them The Crazies – would be standing on trashcans, countertops, stadium seats, anything they could find to broadcast HOW AWESOME THEY WERE to the entire stadium of 16,000 people. 9 times out of 10, how awesome they were was not awesome at all.
To explain the audition process a little more thoroughly, there is an actual stadium crammed with anywhere from 15,000-22,000 people. At least half these people will sing. The floor of the stadium is empty, and they start off the day filming with a crane to show how many people showed up.
After the initial filming is over (Ryan Seacrest shows up to get everyone amped, then scoots right out), there are 14 tables lined up across the empty floor of the stadium. At each table sits two bored FOX employees (production crew, interns, assistants, coffeemakers, whoever they can get), and hopeful contestants are lined up four at a time in front of each table.
One person steps forward to sing for 10 seconds, then steps back, then the next person steps forward, and when all four have gone you step up to the table together to get your verdict and (hopefully) one of the elusive gold tickets.
The math involved here is staggering. If you figure that there are 14 people singing at any given time, and that it only takes one minute to get through your entire group of four, that means that there are 56 people singing a minute. The first time I went, it took a full half hour for anyone to get a ticket…..which means after 1,680 people auditioned, one person made it through to the next round…..of more producers.
But, I’m being honest here. I want to get through, and although it’s a one in 1,680 chance I still want to go for it. I made a bold statement to the Universe a few months ago. I said, “I wouldn’t try out for American Idol again unless it came to Boston,” and then *boom* it’s in Boston.
I thought this month was going to be all about music, between the trip to Nashville and taking a break from my BNI group. Instead, I haven’t picked up my guitar since getting back, and haven’t even done much singing.
I think I’m stuck. I’m trying to figure out what the next step is, and I’m drawing a blank. In a perfect world I would get together a band and start playing Muse and Paramore songs at great venues to get started. That keeps hitting a roadblock, though, much to my chagrin, and now I’m drumming my fingers against my chin trying to figure out a good move.
Much of my life has been lived in a state of vague frustration. If I’m not smashing against the status quo I am always fidgeting internally out of an impatience to go ahead and do something great already. I’ve wanted to be a rock star since the first time my uncle put a microphone in my hand around age 3 and introduced me to the wide world of STAGE FRIGHT. It’s very “Carlene” of me to want to do the thing that scares me most.
I’ve been taking my sweet time getting the “normal” stuff out of the way – high school, college, starting a business – and although I’ve tried many, many times to get the musical ball rolling, it’s always met a rather boring end, usually getting left behind in the wake of a relationship or in the face of too much homework and not enough time (which is really an excuse for not enough dedication).
And yet, it’s never died out. I thought when I moved from New York to New Hampshire that I had left the music behind me, and at first it was a relief to not have the nagging “You should be playing your guitar and writing a song” in the background at all times. Then, I had one, then two, then three people all mention to me that they missed watching and hearing me play music, and the nagging was back.
I’m not entirely sure how to integrate it into my life. I run a business, and that’s how I’m viewed by most of the people who know me – “Hi, this is Carlene, she’s a professional photographer and graphic designer. See, she made my business cards!”
