Songs without Words

Yesterday, our “summer cooking group” decided to go out to karaoke (DoReMi .. Korean-owned place over by Super 88) at Kenny’s behest, partially because Jennifer, Tejia, and I all admitted that we had never gone before. Given my past experiences with things of this sort in high school and earlier, I figured I’d probably get so nervous that I simply would sit there and let other people sing, and maybe get a bit of a feel for how it works … in preparation for next time?

Little did I expect to be singing a decent number of songs, some of which I knew, some of which I didn’t. For the songs that I honestly didn’t know, I just listened to the others for a verse, sort of trying to match their notes. It’s so much easier to “learn songs” like this when everyone you’re with is so talented and essentially on-pitch (they set some records on the “rating” system .. even getting over 100 once, which was unprecedented – I think you have to hit every note in tune to get that).

We mostly traded a pair of mikes, with non-microphone people singing along or providing backup as necessary. My “mike songs” were .. and don’t laugh .. “Yesterday” (Beatles), “I want it that way” (Backstreet Boys), All I Ask of You (Phantom of the Opera), “My Heart Will Go On” (Celine Dion), “I’m Not That Girl” (Wicked), “Fly Me to the Moon” (Frank Sinatra), a little bit of “Goodbye to You” (Michelle Branch), and “What a Wonderful World” (Louis Armstrong). It took around 2 songs to really solidify my pitch-grounding .. so the first two were pretty awful (in my opinion, anyway – I’m a little harsher in judging that than most). But I was really shocked, afterwards, to be complimented for my singing by none other than my BMES co-pres (maybe she was just trying to be encouraging?) .. apparently I sing really in tune .. . Nevertheless, I glowed a little bit after that :).

I called my mom for recipes afterwards and she said, “Why’s your voice so weird?” and I answered, “I was just karaoke-ing for two hours straight.” I swear if I saw her, I’d have seen her eyes boggle. “You can sing??” she asked. Hahahaha! It’s easier when you’re with a crowd that’s into the ooooold songs .. plus musicals!