Recently in Get Your Vox Off Category

This arrived in the post today.

You may think that it's not much to look at, but if you're a singer/muso and GarageBand owner this thing's a beauty. You plug it into the Mac and hook up your keyboard and mic to it and 'Bingo!' you can call yourself a recording artist. And if you're a geek; it's another gadget... and you can't be unhappy with any product if it has cables and sockets.

I bought this baby on ebay.

In December.

It FINALLY arrived today... I won't bore you with the tedium of the details, but let's say someone at the USPS couldn't tell his Argentina from his Australia causing me to say to the vendor, "they begin and end with the same letters but there's a world of difference in between". I was less than pleased, as you can imagine...

However, the bigger part of the story is actually not the eventual arrival of this unit; instead it is the purpose for which it was purchased.

You see, I'm singing again.

I've done a little, you may have heard it at Christmas time, but I've never really talked about why it's been so long since I did the one thing that actually brought me to Australia.

Simply put, someone who had an inordinate amount of influence in my life asked me to stop.

It wasn't because I wasn't good at it, it was because my singing got in the way of his purposes, the purposes that were all about him achieving his ends and not wanting me to have anything in my world that got in the way of that, anything that got in the way of me being completely available, or me having any confidence that I was anything without him. (It makes me sick even to write that down, 4 years later).

Initially he said it would only be for a few months, but when I asked him, at the end of that time, when I could get back behind the mic he simply said that he felt "like God really still didn't have his hands on me" as if using the gift God gave would be contrary to doing 'the Lord's work'!

I know, you're probably reading that and thinking, "this is precisely the reason why God fucks so many people up" and you may also be wondering why I still even go to church. The truth of it is, when I finally got out from under his influence I determined that I wasn't ever going to let a man get in the way of me and my relationship with God. For better or worse God is bigger than the shit that goes on in church, none of the petty (or the monumental) stuff changes Him.

Anyway, I stopped singing in 2003 and except for a couple of terms singing with Jonah in 05 I haven't taken it seriously again until now.

Now I'm singing in a choir of my own making. Mine. I'm working on it with one of my very best good friends and on Monday we had our first rehearsal. There were 6 of us there, the foundation members of our community choir.

Even if I say so myself, we sounded awesome.

The Tascam was bought so that we can record parts for rehearsal tracks and to record rehearsals.

The 2nd part of my reason for starting up this choir is that I'm not the only person who lost their place to sing and I wanted to give it back to them too.

I don't think any circumstance is ever wasted. It all works out for good somewhere along the line, and you know,

...I think all good things come to those who wait.

Placeholderpost.... I'll catch you up tomorrow.

In one day I've heard both spectrums of talent on the singing scale...

At one end there's Bianca Ryan (am I the last person on earth to have heard this kid? She's enough to make every singer want to pack up their mic and never sing again...)

And at the other there is our local night school community singing class. It's a class I taught a couple of years back and which tonight I had the pleasure of going back to mark their final assessment... I felt like Marcia, all the wrong colour of course, but I sat there behind a table with a marking sheet trying to write lots of positive stuff around the constructive critique... It was great fun, and I was lovely... not like those other idiots.

Anyway... like I said... opposing ends of the scale... Enough Said.

Actually, there's been a fair bit of music in my week. I sang for the first time since Jonah at a major work recital put on by a 3rd year sca student. I had such a great time. I really need an outlet for this singing gene... Singing at church is out of the question for various reasons and Schweeb, the chick who's teaching the nightschool class and I are talking about getting a vocal ensemble together and doing a recital next year.

I think it's a good idea.

Wanna audition? I know the choir director... she's soft like Marcia... you'll be a shoe-in!

A certain Kiwi(soon to be Aussie) blogger is tired. Too tired to write a new Christmas Decoration post this evening... SO she couldn't resist sharing her excitement at having secured a date.

A date with these two...

Such a long way to drive for a 45 minute gig...

Such a long gig for a 45 second solo...

It went well; with more practice I think I would be happier with my performance but for a 45 second solo the feedback was all good.

I have decided that my struggle is less with singing alone and more with singing spontaneous lines. Give me a good solid melody and I can rehearse it till the cows come home and sing it over the nerves.

It is done...

... and I can relax...