: It's Karaoke Week!
By sheer chance, last night I discovered that the karaoke night at one bar I visited once on a Sunday has been moved to Tuesday.
This, plus other recent discoveries, means that on any week I can be assured of karaoke opportunities every night between Monday and Thursday, along with roughly every other Friday. This being one of the Fridays available for said location, I figured I'd do karaoke every night this week.
I've already reported on the change-of-plan last night, so here is...
NIGHT 2: H2O, St Mary's Road
Bad start. Very bad start. The song lists are unavailable.
Think of something that they'll surely have... There You'll Be, that be so stereotypical they must have it. Shockingly, no. End up opting for KT Tunstall's Another Place To Fall, and lawks is it ever lower than I thought, creating a disastrous muddle when I try and sing it an octave down. Note-to-self; consider singing this without any transposition. It'll be practical, albeit not on Gemma's terms (read: will require falsetto). I think it may be worth trying to break Rule 2.
Clearly my mind was addled by this shocking start, for I then choose to break Rule 3 by singing The Winner Takes It All. It only bloody works for me and all too! Granted, it's much more singable than, say, Dancing Queen (less forgiving of many mistakes, perhaps, but a damned sight more comfortable with respect to range), but... I broke Rule 3 and got away with it. I still do not know how.
I head off soon afterwards. So quiet was it that the only other performance was a disastrous rendition of Rosé. Whether a non-disastrous performance of that song is possible is an exercise for the reader.
---------
NIGHT 3: Kelly's Bar, London Road
Hooray - we have an online song list! Planning in advance (woohoo!), I've provisionally listed a possible 16 songs to rotate between, with various degrees of clichédom chosen quite deliberately:
* ABBA, The Winner Takes It All
* Alex Parks, Maybe That's What It Takes
* Avril Lavigne, Nobody's Home
* Bjork, It's Oh So Quiet
* Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse Of The Heart
* Christina Aguilera, Beautiful (in the style of Parks, natch)
* David Sneddon, Stop Living The Lie
* Dido, Don't Leave Home
* Dido, Life For Rent
* Dido, White Flag (hey, not my fault her songs suit me)
* Faith Hill, There You'll Be
* Leona Lewis, A Moment Like This (the Clarkson original's absent; Clarkson-Lewis method in effect)
* Melanie C, Northern Star
* My Chemical Romance, Famous Last Words
* Natalie Imbruglia, Smoke
* Stereophonics, Handbags and Gladrags
Spot the male vocalists. Three of them, and I'm not entirely convinced that any of these (least of all Stop Living The Lie) will work entirely perfectly. The reasoning behind such an imbalance? Very simple; most female-sung pop tends towards an alto range. Most male-sung pop tends towards a tenor [alto?] range. I'm certainly nearer a bass than a tenor (for now), I think even Shylo wouldn't care to admit otherwise. (She certainly won't if I produce E2 in her company... it will happen, and probably sooner than F4 will.) The only obvious deviation amongst these female vocalists are Lewis (and I've planned that song out more than any other) and Aguilera (not an applicable comparison).
Am I perpetuating the very thing I told myself not to do after Gemma's opinionating? Who knows. Who cares.
------------------
Well, that's my last time there. By my count, there were eleven different moving light sources, and just about everything short of a strobe was there. Frankly, I don't know how I coped; perhaps the very fact I did is a sign my sensory issues are in fact not significant.
Performed first, after a long delay that felt even longer when exposed to such light (and sound); the song was Nobody's Home, it went moderately well, but frankly at this point I was just living in what Alanis would call 'survival mode', and my escape thereafter was practically a sprint.
And thus the concept of five-nights-a-week karaoke will end from here, though I shall complete it this week. Wednesday nights are instead likely to be assigned to an open mic night at a pub in the south-east of the student quarter.
By sheer chance, last night I discovered that the karaoke night at one bar I visited once on a Sunday has been moved to Tuesday.
This, plus other recent discoveries, means that on any week I can be assured of karaoke opportunities every night between Monday and Thursday, along with roughly every other Friday. This being one of the Fridays available for said location, I figured I'd do karaoke every night this week.
I've already reported on the change-of-plan last night, so here is...
NIGHT 2: H2O, St Mary's Road
Bad start. Very bad start. The song lists are unavailable.
Think of something that they'll surely have... There You'll Be, that be so stereotypical they must have it. Shockingly, no. End up opting for KT Tunstall's Another Place To Fall, and lawks is it ever lower than I thought, creating a disastrous muddle when I try and sing it an octave down. Note-to-self; consider singing this without any transposition. It'll be practical, albeit not on Gemma's terms (read: will require falsetto). I think it may be worth trying to break Rule 2.
Clearly my mind was addled by this shocking start, for I then choose to break Rule 3 by singing The Winner Takes It All. It only bloody works for me and all too! Granted, it's much more singable than, say, Dancing Queen (less forgiving of many mistakes, perhaps, but a damned sight more comfortable with respect to range), but... I broke Rule 3 and got away with it. I still do not know how.
I head off soon afterwards. So quiet was it that the only other performance was a disastrous rendition of Rosé. Whether a non-disastrous performance of that song is possible is an exercise for the reader.
---------
NIGHT 3: Kelly's Bar, London Road
Hooray - we have an online song list! Planning in advance (woohoo!), I've provisionally listed a possible 16 songs to rotate between, with various degrees of clichédom chosen quite deliberately:
* ABBA, The Winner Takes It All
* Alex Parks, Maybe That's What It Takes
* Avril Lavigne, Nobody's Home
* Bjork, It's Oh So Quiet
* Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse Of The Heart
* Christina Aguilera, Beautiful (in the style of Parks, natch)
* David Sneddon, Stop Living The Lie
* Dido, Don't Leave Home
* Dido, Life For Rent
* Dido, White Flag (hey, not my fault her songs suit me)
* Faith Hill, There You'll Be
* Leona Lewis, A Moment Like This (the Clarkson original's absent; Clarkson-Lewis method in effect)
* Melanie C, Northern Star
* My Chemical Romance, Famous Last Words
* Natalie Imbruglia, Smoke
* Stereophonics, Handbags and Gladrags
Spot the male vocalists. Three of them, and I'm not entirely convinced that any of these (least of all Stop Living The Lie) will work entirely perfectly. The reasoning behind such an imbalance? Very simple; most female-sung pop tends towards an alto range. Most male-sung pop tends towards a tenor [alto?] range. I'm certainly nearer a bass than a tenor (for now), I think even Shylo wouldn't care to admit otherwise. (She certainly won't if I produce E2 in her company... it will happen, and probably sooner than F4 will.) The only obvious deviation amongst these female vocalists are Lewis (and I've planned that song out more than any other) and Aguilera (not an applicable comparison).
Am I perpetuating the very thing I told myself not to do after Gemma's opinionating? Who knows. Who cares.
------------------
Well, that's my last time there. By my count, there were eleven different moving light sources, and just about everything short of a strobe was there. Frankly, I don't know how I coped; perhaps the very fact I did is a sign my sensory issues are in fact not significant.
Performed first, after a long delay that felt even longer when exposed to such light (and sound); the song was Nobody's Home, it went moderately well, but frankly at this point I was just living in what Alanis would call 'survival mode', and my escape thereafter was practically a sprint.
And thus the concept of five-nights-a-week karaoke will end from here, though I shall complete it this week. Wednesday nights are instead likely to be assigned to an open mic night at a pub in the south-east of the student quarter.