貓鎮的小公寓
Where Hui & Little Cat Dwell

Finally!

Somehow I acted like a proud (or just relieved?) mom on ht’s graduation day.

I’ve never been to any commencement in the States before. Now I realize it can be really fun. No wonder it’s such a big deal here. Maybe I should get myself into one so that my parents can relive their lost moment. Hum…

Have spent the last two (long) nights playing (i.e. installing, uninstalling, re-installing, setup, test blog, etc., etc.) with both WordPress and Movable Type, and yet I STILL cannot decide which one to pick. *sigh*

I think I’m gonna go to my yoga class now. Maybe that will clear my mind.

More on my “switch” later… *yawn*

Hum… totally didn’t expect the move would happen over night… was planning to do this over the weekend… ~”~

Anyways, it’s done now… whew… blogger is not exactly friendly when it comes to moving your existing blogs around… guess I can use the long weekend to fool around with Movable Type and do a switch. This is what you end up doing for the long weekend when your significant other has a final project due after that.

It seems that accessing images post through “Hello” is a bit unstable. Guess I’ll start to move all the pictures on the blog to the server. In the mean time, I suspect the access delay is mostly due to talking to photo1.blogger.com

Well at least most of it is working now… :)

I will start moving my blog to another site. If you subscribe to my site feed, you will probably see A LOT of activities without seeing any new posts (and that is because I’m quite confident I will keep republishing for all the backing up and unnecessary stuff. ~”~) Also the layout of the current blog might get screwed up a bit because of the backing up.

Hopefully this will be done during the long weekend… Now I’ll just pray that I won’t lose anything in the process. *fingers crossed*

xxn  好人好貓  其實我只是想試試看仔細思考是一種什麼感覺
xxn  好人好貓  沒想過
好人好貓  xxn  怎麼樣叫仔細思考?
xxn  好人好貓  不知道呀
xxn  好人好貓  正想要試試看
xxn  好人好貓  哈哈你都不知道吧
好人好貓  xxn  可是我最近覺得思考是累積的... *-)
xxn  好人好貓  我從來不思考的
xxn  好人好貓  碩認真的
好人好貓  xxn  就是, 一次想一些事情
好人好貓  xxn  過了一陣子不相關的事也會相關起來
好人好貓  xxn  然後就會有領悟
好人好貓  xxn  然後就繼續想新的問題
xxn  好人好貓  我只想怪問題不想自己的問題
好人好貓  xxn  這倒是... :P
xxn  好人好貓  所以呀乘這一次試試看
好人好貓  xxn  嗯... :)

My American Idol chitchat of the year…

“As much as I like Bo, I don’t think he will be the American Idol this year. And, I want to see Paula coming back next year. This whole Paulagate thing is just ridiculous (not on her part). Until next year…”

Now, back to your regular scheduled programming… ;)

I mean, really, what makes one a good singer?

To me, all children (under 10, maybe?) are good singers. No matter what they sing, no matter if they’re on key or not, no matter if they got the rhythm right, they just sound nice. Some are timid and shy, some are fearless, nevertheless, there’s something about a child’s voice that will put a smile on my face and make me want to listen to them.

What makes young kids good? Their pureness? That they’re not thinking too much but just trying to sing?

And then there comes a point when kids are no longer kids and they’re judged differently. When is that point? Is it when they start to immitate what’s in the recording?

In the singing workshop I go to (almost) every month, you meet all kinds of singers. A large group of them are teenage girls. I think it was last month, there’s a girl who really reminds me of the “bee girl” in Blind Melon’s “No Rain” music video. That’s, err, not exactly a compliment. But after she started singing for a few seconds, a “Behind the Music” episode started emerging in my head, telling a story of how a bee girl makes it big. She sounded that good. Not too polished, but makes you feel that she has “it”.

What is “IT”?

Then there are the Britney girls. They’re kinda pretty; they have a bit too much makeup on them for their age; they’re in super-duper low-waist jeans (and sometimes you see their undies sticking out); they have flat abs, and they actually sing fine. But during the whole time they’re on stage, all I can think of were things like… she. is. so. skinny, or, what kinda of attitude is that, they can be a little nicer, or, do they have to sound like they’re moaning (i.e. do they have to sound so much like Britney and/or Jessica?) They do have good voice, but are they good singers?

And then there are the adults, like me. I don’t think any of us are professional musicians (or else we probably won’t be here.) This is when it becomes very, very diverse. There are times when people cheer loudly after a performance, times when people clap politely, and times when people are trying very very very hard not to laugh. Why do we want to learn how to sing (properly) in our 20s, 30s, or even 60s? Why do we want to be on stage when we’re actually nervous to death? What makes one performance better than the other?

The house band of the workshop consists of professional musicians. All of them are friends of the voice teachers. They all can sing. I mean they *CAN* sing. Still, I like some of them better than others. They are all very good technically; their performances are all very polished. What makes the difference?

So, having a nice voice isn’t enough; having a polished performance isn’t enough; looking pretty isn’t enough; high notes are definitly overated; forgetting the lyrics or singing the wrong notes doesn’t always ruin your performance.

People always like to say “singing your heart out”. How do you sing your heart out?

I have to admit that I’m always very critical when it comes to singing. But I guess I’m not THAT terrible a person since I’m the most critical to myself (meaning I’m actually kinder to others. ;) I still can’t listen to myself objectively (or maybe too objectively?). I always listen and think, this note is wrong and that note is off and this part can be stronger that part can use more vibrato, etc., etc.

ht is probably the only other individual that can be really harsh on my singing. But lately, he’s having less and less negative things to say. I want to believe that I’m progressing, but if I can’t hear it myself, how can I believe it?

Jim, my voice teacher, once said to me, that I need to learn to appreciate my voice, and then I can learn to listen to it objectively, and know what needs to be improved.

So, what exactly makes one a good singer???

I think I’m still a long way from figuring it out…

Or maybe I should stop thinking?

(*yawn* Why do I have to learn three new songs today? *yawn* … oh, ’cause I didn’t learn any in the past two weeks. Grrrr.)

Written by: C. Hynde / J. Honeyman-Scott
Performed by: Pretenders

How do you sing a song that you have no idea about what it’s saying? Well, you google it. ;)

So here’s what they tell us on songfacts.com:

There is a lot of British slang in the lyrics:
“Got Bottle” - Have courage.
“Skank” - Move your body side to side.
“Reet” - Righteous
“Brass” is a Northern English expression for money, harking back to the days when non-silver coins, or “Coppers” were worth something.

Ah, so basically, like what I originally guessed, it’s about hitting on/flirting with someone. *eyeball rolling*

Anyhoo… Turned out that this is a fun song to sing! The range is right (for me), the melody just flows. I guess there ARE some good reasons that this song was so popular way back when. Somehow Hynde’s voice keeps reminding me of Pat Benatar. I got similar feelings when singing their songs. Is it just me?

Found a really nice ACOUSTIC version of the song on iTunes’ Music Store. Love it! The coolest thing is, I also found the right chords for this version and I can actually play all those chords! HA!

Now I just need to memorize all those British slangs…

Written by: Gwen Stefani / Dave Steward
Performed by: No Doubt
Music Video: Yahoo! Music

We’re doing this song ’cause J wants to do something reggae. And no, we’re not gonna do the Lady Law rap part. ;)

Somehow there are tons of information about this song on the web. There’s even an explanation of the meaning of it on About. Hum… isn’t it rather obvious? I remember seeing Gwen Stefani in an interview saying she usually writes about how she feels. I personally like “Running” more, but this is a sweet little love song, too. Well, almost too sweet. :P

None of the chords I found on the web sound right. Guess I’ll learn it from J later. Anything else I want to say about this song? Not really.

(I thought I’ll start jotting down notes while practicing a song. Just a way to get myself to work harder. I hope.)

Written by: Jewel Kilchar, Steve Poltz
Performed by: Jewel
Music Video: Yahoo! Music

Now, J’s wife heard the song on the radio and thought J and I should do it. Somehow she thinks it suits my voice. Hum…

This song was played a lot during my first year in the States, probably the most chaotic period in my life so far. Usually I’m not very good at sad break-up songs, maybe this one will be sort of an exception. How it describes when one’s alone just gives me the chill. Used to have some kind of heart wrenching feeling when I hear it. Wonder how I will feel about the song after I make it mine…

Technically, it’s a simple enough song (meaning even I can play the guitar part, though probably still can’t sing at the same time). In Jewel’s version, the guitar is tuned down half a step, but we’re gonna do it in standard tuning.

This is probably the only song from Jewel that I’d like to do. Others are just too Jewel to sing. Even with this one, it took me a while to stop singing the way she does. We’ll see how it goes this Sunday. :)