Hail from the Savage Lands of Oregon!
AmandaU
Pro Posts: 3
Hello, everyone!
My name is Amanda and I'm from Oregon. My gift is to learn, and I am excited for all of the things the KTVA has to teach. I love all things creative and scientific, especially when the two are combined! I love to read books, write stories, draw, and braid hair, and now singing has become my new goal. I envision myself as growing to be a modern-day Renaissance woman, in which I combine my creativity with practical skills to accomplish my goals. I am very driven and I balance it out with patience and kindness toward myself.
I always enjoyed singing ever since I was a small child, during which I'd sing along to Disney movies and get my dad's Metallica and Guns 'N Roses tapes stuck in my head. I sang in choir throughout elementary school up until junior high, where I stopped going to music classes because I was more focused on art. That's about the time when the daydreams about being the lead singer in a band started creeping into my head. They continued to float around my imagination all throughout high school and continue to do so now that I'm in college. Sometimes it can take me a while to realize I love something, and even taking a music classes and spending hours listening to my favorite music weren't quite enough to get it onto my head. I'm kinda slow in the feelings department, hahahaha.
I officially decided I was going to learn how to sing well in April of this year. I then did one of the thing this Amanda does best and used the Internet to research it and to find good books on the subject because books are good for learning everything, right? I quickly noticed that just reading didn't work, so I found singing lesson videos on YouTube, which was much more suited to my audiovisual learning style and kind to my starving college student budget. There's a woman who made a singing lesson program that she put on YT for free, so I applied those techniques. I hadn't sung much since junior high because I was hyper-critical of my voice's lack of skill and being a relatively quiet person meant that it was quite a big step for me.
During this summer (college happened in the fall), I applied the techniques I learned from that free program every day (totaling in 5-10 hours/week) and recorded myself often. And to my delight, I improved! I think deep down inside, I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't because I'm not "naturally gifted" and would be doomed to sounding awful forever. My recordings from summer 2014 compared to my most recent ones from November sound so different! My singing is nowhere close to perfect and I don't consider myself to sound "good", but seeing my progress encourages me to keep moving forward. I intend to hold onto my recordings, even if they make me cringe, because they give me evidence that I'm working hard and growing.
About two months after doing singing practice, I noticed that I started exhibiting odd behaviors, such as singing on my walks home, while I cooked dinner, procrastinating on flossing my teeth as I sang in front of the bathroom mirror, and doing crazy, weird stuff with my voice whenever I had the house to myself. And the condition of my daydreams worsened due to increased frequency and intensity. At that point, I was certain I'd been infected by the singing bug and that I need to see my goals of finding my own voice, joining a metal band, and singing in front of a large audience to the end.
I'm glad I decided to begin my journey and push my way through the stages of noobdom. I send my trusted friends my recordings to my trusted friends for evaluation and they have been honest and supportive about it and I'm so grateful that I have a supportive group of people that stands by me. I also appreciate my housemates for being patient and tolerant enough to let me practice in the house in the daytime and not shooting me with tranquilizer darts. I am excited for what's ahead of me, but also a bit intimidated because it seems like a lot of the members came here with a lot more singing experience than me. I'm at a pretty good place in my life and I have built enough patience, understanding, and compassion to keep myself going and knowing I've already accomplished some amazing things already must mean that I can do this, too.
I think this course is a great investment for my journey for the quality and quantity of content. I think it will keep me occupied for a long time and will pay for itself in the end, especially since it's cheaper than one 4-5 credit college class that lasts less than 3 months around here. I can't wait to get my hard copies in the mail and I've already given the videos in the complementary download a quick overview and tried out a few of the exercises. Merry Christmas to me, haha.
My favorite singer is Floor Jansen of Nightwish and ReVamp. Her voice is so clear and beautiful, plus she is so versatile her singing style. I also like Evanescence, Within Temptation, Pink, Tarja Turunen, Meg Myers, One-Eyed Doll, Avril Lavigne, and Halestorm. There are a ton of other bands and music genres I like, but those are the ones that inspire me the most.
I'm happy to be here! Thank you for reading!
My name is Amanda and I'm from Oregon. My gift is to learn, and I am excited for all of the things the KTVA has to teach. I love all things creative and scientific, especially when the two are combined! I love to read books, write stories, draw, and braid hair, and now singing has become my new goal. I envision myself as growing to be a modern-day Renaissance woman, in which I combine my creativity with practical skills to accomplish my goals. I am very driven and I balance it out with patience and kindness toward myself.
I always enjoyed singing ever since I was a small child, during which I'd sing along to Disney movies and get my dad's Metallica and Guns 'N Roses tapes stuck in my head. I sang in choir throughout elementary school up until junior high, where I stopped going to music classes because I was more focused on art. That's about the time when the daydreams about being the lead singer in a band started creeping into my head. They continued to float around my imagination all throughout high school and continue to do so now that I'm in college. Sometimes it can take me a while to realize I love something, and even taking a music classes and spending hours listening to my favorite music weren't quite enough to get it onto my head. I'm kinda slow in the feelings department, hahahaha.
I officially decided I was going to learn how to sing well in April of this year. I then did one of the thing this Amanda does best and used the Internet to research it and to find good books on the subject because books are good for learning everything, right? I quickly noticed that just reading didn't work, so I found singing lesson videos on YouTube, which was much more suited to my audiovisual learning style and kind to my starving college student budget. There's a woman who made a singing lesson program that she put on YT for free, so I applied those techniques. I hadn't sung much since junior high because I was hyper-critical of my voice's lack of skill and being a relatively quiet person meant that it was quite a big step for me.
During this summer (college happened in the fall), I applied the techniques I learned from that free program every day (totaling in 5-10 hours/week) and recorded myself often. And to my delight, I improved! I think deep down inside, I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't because I'm not "naturally gifted" and would be doomed to sounding awful forever. My recordings from summer 2014 compared to my most recent ones from November sound so different! My singing is nowhere close to perfect and I don't consider myself to sound "good", but seeing my progress encourages me to keep moving forward. I intend to hold onto my recordings, even if they make me cringe, because they give me evidence that I'm working hard and growing.
About two months after doing singing practice, I noticed that I started exhibiting odd behaviors, such as singing on my walks home, while I cooked dinner, procrastinating on flossing my teeth as I sang in front of the bathroom mirror, and doing crazy, weird stuff with my voice whenever I had the house to myself. And the condition of my daydreams worsened due to increased frequency and intensity. At that point, I was certain I'd been infected by the singing bug and that I need to see my goals of finding my own voice, joining a metal band, and singing in front of a large audience to the end.
I'm glad I decided to begin my journey and push my way through the stages of noobdom. I send my trusted friends my recordings to my trusted friends for evaluation and they have been honest and supportive about it and I'm so grateful that I have a supportive group of people that stands by me. I also appreciate my housemates for being patient and tolerant enough to let me practice in the house in the daytime and not shooting me with tranquilizer darts. I am excited for what's ahead of me, but also a bit intimidated because it seems like a lot of the members came here with a lot more singing experience than me. I'm at a pretty good place in my life and I have built enough patience, understanding, and compassion to keep myself going and knowing I've already accomplished some amazing things already must mean that I can do this, too.
I think this course is a great investment for my journey for the quality and quantity of content. I think it will keep me occupied for a long time and will pay for itself in the end, especially since it's cheaper than one 4-5 credit college class that lasts less than 3 months around here. I can't wait to get my hard copies in the mail and I've already given the videos in the complementary download a quick overview and tried out a few of the exercises. Merry Christmas to me, haha.
My favorite singer is Floor Jansen of Nightwish and ReVamp. Her voice is so clear and beautiful, plus she is so versatile her singing style. I also like Evanescence, Within Temptation, Pink, Tarja Turunen, Meg Myers, One-Eyed Doll, Avril Lavigne, and Halestorm. There are a ton of other bands and music genres I like, but those are the ones that inspire me the most.
I'm happy to be here! Thank you for reading!
Comments
We're glad you're here. You're going to get a bang out of your vocal program. I can tell by your enthusiasm that you will be driven to accomplish a lot of improvement with your voice.
Be sure to follow the instructions Ken gives in the videos. It's great that you regularly record your own voice and listen for opportunities for improvement. That is a highly-recommended habit to keep up. It will help you to keep progressing.
You've come to the right place!
Prepare to Rock your Voice!
Bob
I'm looking forward to doing the workouts. I tried my first one today. I have some other questions that I'll post in the appropriate section a bit later on, but for now I'm adjusting to Ken's different way of teaching. I think I'm going to give the lessons a week or two, then I'll post a basic demo to see where I'm at. I have been lurking on the Newb Demo thread and appreciate all of the demos posted by other new singers.
I hope that by recording myself, posting demos, and getting feedback, I'll have a better idea of what to look for to be able to improve. I want a better idea of what to look for instead of just going by ear and intuition alone.
Thanks for reading! I'll see ya around the forum!