Chapter 170: Don’t Rain On My Parade

Where do I begin with today? I guess I’ll begin at the beginning. I woke up at 11am before my weekend alarm went off. I got up this morning with a very distinct plan for the day – get my “Glee” audition video done and practice piano. The plan was basically to devote the entire day to both of those things. After washing my face and brushing my teeth and all that jazz, I immediately checked outside to see if my Urban Decay order had arrived yet. There was nothing waiting at the front door or on the lanai, so I assumed it hadn’t come yet and I would be waiting until next week. However, while I was dicking around online and studying the lyrics to “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” in preparation for the video, I heard a knock at the door. I knew there wasn’t anybody planning to come over or anything like that, so I knew what that knock was. I rushed to the door and found a small package with a big purple Urban Decay sticker on the front! I hurriedly ripped it open and tore away all the packing paper to reveal my “Summer Of Love” shadow palette. Let me just tell you, this thing is gorgeous! I love the packaging, with a cool 60s style design on it – it is all very Woodstock. I was in love with the packaging itself but was even more in love with what was inside. This palette included 4 shades of eyeshadow – Flash, which is a bright purple shimmer, Maui Wowie, which is exactly the type of bright gold glitter color I have been desperately searching for, Chopper, which is a glittery copper color and Smog, a very rich, dark bronze glitter shade. They all go on beautifully, which I was slightly worried about because my friend April said that Urban Decay products don’t have a great color payoff. I don’t know about all of their stuff but that is definitely not the case for these shades. The package also included a mini bottle of Primer Potion in Sin, which is just like the regular Primer Potion that I have fallen in love with but with a shimmery tint to it. I don’t like this version of the Primer Potion near as much, although I do think it could wind up very useful for adding a shimmer to some looks using matte shadows. The other thing that I have been really excited about in this package was the 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Bourbon, which is a deep brown with gold microglitter. It is a really gorgeous color and when I tried it on my hand it went on wonderfully and after about 30 seconds or so didn’t wipe or smudge or anything. Unfortunately, when I decided to use all these products to do my makeup today, I found that this color went on really well on my upper lash line but I couldn’t seem to get the color to show at all on my water line, which is exactly the reason I was so excited to try it – girls on YouTube have raved about how well these pencils stay on your water line. I don’t know if it will stay because I had too much trouble even getting it to show up well on the waterline. Oh well, I will probably still order the set of them that I have on my wish list at the Urban Decay website, since they are on sale for a really good price and I am still interested in trying them further.

So, this brings us to the part of the day where I started working on my “Glee” audition video. As I practiced the song I started second-guessing my choice to do “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” as well, so I decided to record videos of a few different songs and see which one worked out the best for me. I started with “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” which worked pretty well but I was having a little trouble figuring out my way around all the crazy riffing that everybody does at the end of the song. Every time I did those parts, I felt like I was shouting instead of singing. I watched the video back and just wasn’t happy with the overall sound. I tried it a couple more times before moving on to “True Colors.” I wasn’t happy with this song before and doing it now worked a little bit better but still didn’t quite feel right. Then I tried a bit of a toned down version of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” and it just felt perfect! I immediately decided this was the song. This was the song I wanted to do in the first place but I felt like I didn’t have the voice for it. Still, doing it now I felt a lot better about my vocals for this song. I was really surprised as I was doing all these videos how much of a strain I was putting on my voice. It felt really weird because I had never really had that problem before. Of course, I am also extremely out of practice with singing – I haven’t done it, at least not seriously or regularly, in a very long time. This fact became extremely clear to me today. I kept feeling like I had to push really hard and was having a lot of trouble projecting. Still, I did several takes of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” and then reviewed them all afterwards and settled on one that I felt was the best. I also recorded my personal statement, which I was really proud of. I thought it was really cute and spunky and just a lot of fun. I liked that a lot. I felt really nervous and apprehensive about the whole thing once I had finished with my filming and considered not submitting it at all… but I kind of assumed it was just my own ego-based fears trying to hold me back. I headed over to the Audition site on Myspace and submitted. Once the videos were done uploading they had to be reviewed before being posted to the site. That took a while but eventually they were posted. That’s when things started going downhill.

I went to the site and watched the video myself and suddenly saw it differently than I had before – it was terrible! Well, the personal statement was still really cute but the song was awful. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t “American Idol audition” bad but it wasn’t great. I sounded, once again, like I was shouting big chunks of the song. I mean, I hit the notes and such but there were lots of big breaths and lots of really overstated line endings and it was basically a hot mess. I linked to it on Facebook and my friend Kelly watched it and, in a very sweet, supportive way, confirmed that it wasn’t great. I was really disappointed in myself and really kind of embarrassed. I took the link down from my Facebook page pretty much immediately. I didn’t want to be directing people to look at it. I just find it really upsetting because I have ALWAYS been a singer. People hear me talk so much about how music is my destiny and what I am meant to do with my life and such, and it really embarrassed me to have this video right there on the internet of me sounding so shitty. It just sucks because I know that I am capable of much better than that video. This led me to a bit of an epiphany, though. Why would I expect my video to be great? Like I mentioned before, I haven’t been singing seriously in a very long time. I haven’t been singing regularly in a very long time. Much like anything else in life, the old adage rings true: Practice makes perfect. As I’ve discussed here quite a bit, I have been considering taking voice lessons once I have progressed better with my piano lessons. Suddenly, I am really thinking about maybe doing both sooner than later. Of course, doubling the cost of my music lessons is a little scary to think about. I’m not going to do it anytime immediate but I definitely want to start sooner than later.

If nothing else, this whole “Glee” audition experience has served to remind me of my passion for singing and that if I expect to make a career out of it eventually I need to actually put the effort into cultivating that talent. I feel like I have kind of let myself slip in terms of my music because I have been focused on experimenting with other forms of art. I haven’t been writing new songs anywhere near as much as I used to and, like I said, I haven’t been singing much at all in a long time. So, from this point on, I am regimenting myself and making absolutely certain that I am working on music just as much, if not more, than any other types of art. So, moving forward my Monday through Friday, while at work, I will write two new songs every day. Also, inspired by today’s experience, as well as by Rachel Berry, Lea Michele’s character on “Glee,” I am going to start making videos of me singing. I will do one song every day. I am kind of considering posting these videos on YouTube every day, as well. It won’t be something I advertise every day or anything, like I do with the blog, but it will just kind of be there for my own use. You always see those videos of random people on YouTube singing different songs and such. I don’t know if I will actually put them on YouTube or not but it is something I am considering. Either way, I want to have these things on video so I can watch them back and pinpoint my trouble spots, etc. Okay, I have to admit here, the YouTube concept has a bit of an ego-based ulterior motive to it – I kind of want to do that to prove to people that I CAN sing better than I did in my “Glee” audition video. I don’t know why I am so hung up on that part of it, though, honestly. As far as I know, Kelly is the only one who actually saw it. It wasn’t up for very long at all. I do think, though, that I can do much better stuff on my own, outside of the parameters of the “Glee” audition, because I will be able to select songs that work better for me and will be able to change the arrangements around a bit and such. Hell, maybe I’ll even mix in singing some of my original songs – back in my Open Mic night days I was always told that I sounded much better singing my own songs than I do other peoples song. Maybe this is the key. I don’t know. Like I said, though, moving forward Monday through Friday, I will be writing two new songs every day and recording video of me singing one song every day. This should help me get back into practice with both of those, things that I have always been able to do really well but have allowed myself to get out of practice with in recent times. Now, those can’t be the only tasks I am doing, though. Another thing that I am making a daily task moving forward is doing at least 15 minutes of piano practice every single day, including weekends. This is something that is just as important as writing lyrics and singing – maybe even more important. Those are both skills that I already have and simply need to revive, while piano is a skill that I am learning for the first time. Either way, what I have learned from this whole thing is that if I intend to make music my long-term craft, I need to be constantly honing my skills. I have no time to be messing around. I need to be making sure that my vocals, my lyrics and, eventually, my music composition abilities all stay completely on point.

So, needless to say, you won’t be seeing me on “Glee” anytime soon. In all honesty, that was never actually the goal for this whole thing, anyway. All my life I have said that I don’t really have any interest in or desire to pursue acting. It simply isn’t my thing. I don’t think it’s something that I would be good at or would ever really feel passionate about. I find actors fascinating because I really don’t understand the process of it. It seems to me that acting is all about stepping outside of yourself, whereas music is focused on going within yourself. I have never had that desire to be somebody else or anything like that, so I find it fascinating when people do. Still, like I said, I don’t think I’d really be good at acting or anything along those lines. Music is my passion. Music is what I am meant for. It is funny, though, because I haven’t really discussed it here in the blog or with anybody else or anything before, but I have recently found myself questioning my pursuit of music a bit. In some ways, I have felt a little bit like I really enjoy drawing and visual arts and am getting a lot better at them lately. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought a bit recently that maybe it would be easier for me to succeed if I pursued a career as a cosmetologist or some sort of visual artist. I do feel pretty passionate about the things that I do in these areas and I guess it’s not unthinkable that I could develop those things into my main passion in life. I mean, my sister has told me many times before that she thinks that I am better with drawing and visual stuff than I am with music. I know, though, that these thoughts are ego-based. These thoughts are my ego trying to convince me not to fulfill my purpose in life out of fear that I won’t ever be able to make it happen. That is a valid fear, though. It is my greatest fear in life that I will wind up living a life in which I don’t fulfill my purpose. What is my purpose? My purpose is very clear and has been since I was just a child. My purpose is to inspire people, to comfort people, to make them feel less alone in this world, to incite emotion in them, etc. I was born equipped with certain tools with which to carry out this purpose. I was born with the gifts of passion, drive, determination, a voice, a heart and a genuine talent for melody and songwriting. I know that I have a certain amount of vocal shortcomings. My voice could stand to grow in a lot of ways. This is why I need vocal lessons. I need somebody who can teach me the things that I don’t know instinctively. I am working with a very strong base, in terms of vocals, but I need to learn technique and how to maintain that base and build upon it.

The only thing keeping me from signing up for voice lessons next time I go in for a piano lesson is the fact that I also really need to learn to drive. Like I mentioned in another recent post, there is a school in the area that provides four 90-minute in car lessons for $320. I could easily save that up over the next few months. First I have to get my learner’s permit, though. I definitely need to re-focus on that, as well. Driving would make a major change in my life; a change that I could definitely use. A change would definitely do me good at this point in my life. More than anything, I think the change that I need is to change my focus back to where it was before – MUSIC. You see, as much as I may have the thought that I could develop something else into my main passion in life, I genuinely can’t imagine ever being truly satisfied with a life where music wasn’t my main passion. Music is the ultimate goal in everything I do. Music is the single most important factor in my life. They say nothing is forever but, for me, music is the one thing that is. There is no changing that. I have no choice in the matter, it is what I was born with and what I have every intention of carrying out. Today’s events could have easily been just the excuse I needed to pull away from it but instead I have made sure that it did the opposite and reconfirmed what I have known all along. I had been saying that I expected something great out of the “Glee” audition experience and I got something great. I got something even greater than expected, actually. So, today was a good day. Now I need to get to bed. Tomorrow will be more dedicated to piano practice, as well as laundry and lying around watching TV. I did practice piano for 15 minutes today but the piece that I am working on now, in spite of having my questions about it answered, is still giving me a lot of trouble. Hopefully it will click with me a bit better tomorrow once I have managed to shake off a bit of the shitty audition malaise I have been feeling today. I just have to remind myself of the song that I sang poorly today – “Nobody, no nobody is going to rain on my parade.” For now, though, it is time for bed. Goodnight.