Here is my first in a series of Christmas songs! Have to do them now because nobody likes Christmas songs after Christmas, go figure. 

I found the sheet music on 8notes and sang all five versus. If you want to hear words muddying up my beautiful voice, you can sing them yourself ;) 

It's difficult to sing off of Western sheetmusic. The notes are written differently and everything is upside down. My higher notes are towards the bottom, but the sheet music has them towards the top. 

I also got bored of singing the same song, over and over, so I started messing around with it ;) Here's the music and lyrics if you want to play or sing along :)

I have a special project coming up and it requires me to change how I sing, I have to sing only the Western scale. I hate the Western scale. The Western scale is just not as pretty or fluid as the Pentatonic scale that is traditional for my beautiful voice.

Here's my beloved RubyStarfire helping me train my voice. It's kind of a long and boring process, a lot of repeating notes until I get them right.

The Western scale is usually written one of two ways:

• A - B - C - D - E - F - G
• Do - Re - Mi - Fa - So - La - Ti/Si

You have to pay attention to the notes to make sure everything sounds good. My voice also has a very limited range when singing the Western scale, I can only reach three octaves.

The Pentatonic scale that's traditional for my voice uses the following notes:

• A - B - D - E - F#

This scale is much more beautiful and fluid than the Western scale. It's hard to play or sing something that sounds bad, you have to put lots and lots of effort into it. Almost anything you play or sing will sound alright if not beautiful. I can also cover four octaves when singing, this gives my singing a much greater range and lets my voice do more.

There is apparently a piece of music hidden in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. There's apparently some disagreement as to if Leonardo did it intentionally or not. All I know is there is something playable in the painting and Leonardo probably won't get around to telling us the answer any time soon.

Supposedly, the hands and loaves of bread correspond to notes, and you should read the music from right to left (the same way Leonardo wrote). There's news articles and Wikipedia which can tell you all about it. 

The music is supposed to be in the same style as what was common in the time that the painting was made. It sounds a little bit gothicy (time period, not the people who wear black and pretend they can't feel anything) or chanty. I decided to take a shot at the song. After all, how many people can say they've played Da Vinci's music? I didn't do a performance quality piece, then again, I just wanted to play it.

I'm still experimenting with my new toy. The Samson Go Mic is doing incredibly well, the sound quality is better than anything I've had access to before. It even allowed RubyStarfire and I to give a private performance online :)

RubyStarfire got me a new toy! He got me a Samson Go Mic to use when recording songs. Before, all I had was the crappy little mic on the front of the computer; now I have something to make higher quality recordings, and it's portable! Here's a video I made while experimenting with the new mic *ignore the man touching me, I'm the one who's important here ;)*.

I did a little tuning exercise to make sure my voice was in good shape followed by some random playing and fingering exercises. The mic was inside to catch the full range of my singing, but I think it caught too much of my range. I will continue to experiment with different positions and see how well they work. 

The mic was real easy to setup, I just plugged it into the computer and voila! There was one slight hiccup, the computer decided it was a sound out device as well as sound in, so it tried to use the mic as a speaker. It also comes with music editing software that can record audio and add audio to video, but unfortunately it doesn't capture video as well :( 

Recording the video was a lot of fun. It's been awhile since I've been done a recording and I hope to do many more in the upcoming months. Follow my progress with new music here!

I'm so excited! RubyStarfire took me shopping in Pigalle! No, no, not for sex stuff. I need a new travel coat because the lining of mine is getting ragged. Pigalle is famous for being a place for seedy sex stuff, but it's actually kind of a pathetic place. Most of the sex shops try to cater to the seedy image people have of clandestine and illicit sex parlours, but they do it for tourists instead of doing it to create a legitimate atmosphere or just being legitimately seedy shops. When you get off the metro and turn around, however, you find music shops and there's a family friendly area a five minute walk away, complete with cafe and merry-go-round.

See what I mean about the lining of my coat (case) being worn? In some spots it goes all the way through to the outer shell. This just simply won't do! I have very delicate skin that bruises easily, which is why I wear a special coat when I travel by airplane. This is why Ruby took me to Stars Music to look at new clothes.

The gentlemen there were very nice and helpful. They went out of their way to find me something that would fit. They had one coat that fit, and it looked very nice, but it was also very expensive. The price tag was 269€! It definitely looked like it was worth that, but the price was a little too much for the budget. They suggested calling Fabriquant Fly to see about getting one custom made. Now I have to take my measurements and send them off to get a quote. Oh how embarrassing! To send your most personal and intimate measurements off to a complete stranger! *^^*

We didn't get me a new coat, but Ruby got me a Samson Go Mic while we were at the music store. I've been looking for an affordable and portable mic to record myself while singing and I finally found one! Haven't had a chance to try it yet, but here's a picture of an adorable little friend trying it out :)

Feh. I'm pissed. 

I have a book of Tamil music that RubyStarfire got for me when he was in India. There is a place there called Yatra Arts Foundation. They help children explore and develop the creative arts and also use performance art to do public works and bring about social change in the region. When he visited Yatra Arts Foundation, Ruby heard one of the founder's daughters playing traditional music on a veena. The music was enchanting and he knew it would be perfect for my voice. 

The director helped Ruby track down a couple books of Tamil music to bring back for me. The music is written in a very different format from Western music. 

• The notes are written as S, R, M and not A, B, C
  
• There are vertical lines, numbers, and commas everywhere
• I have no idea what an Akshara is supposed to be

I definitely need to find someone to help me with this! Unfortunately, there's nobody near me who's even heard of Tamil music let alone knows how to play it. But the book is made of paper and doesn't fit through all these pipes and tubes that make up the internet. The solution? Dismantle the book and scan it!

So, I spent an entire afternoon dismantling and scanning the book. The book is made of bundles of paper, folded in half, and then really large thick staples were punched through them all. The cover was then glued onto the spine and over the staples. It was a pain, I can tell you, to keep track of every piece of paper while scanning it and to keep everything in good shape so I can still use the book. It was such a relief to finally finish, go home, and sit down to organize and assemble all the pdf files I scanned into one pdf.

Then I saw marks on the pages. The scanner was dirty!

Now I have to go back and scan the entire book all over again, and that's why I'm pissed.

RubyStarfire and I have been singing together for many years now and we can't bear to be far from each other for long. People call him a musician when they see us together, though he doesn't call himself one (he doesn't write music). 

Several people we've met recently are learning how to sing or are shy to sing in public. Ruby and I tell them to record their singing so their friends and family can share their enjoyment of the music and they also so they have a record of their own progress. I know without being able to look back at early songs, I wouldn't have any confidence in myself.

Here's a song that Ruby and I recorded a long time ago for just this reason. 

Actually, it's the very first song we ever sang together! It's titled "A Song for School"

Listening to this song brings back fond memories. Ruby was still very hesitant in his caresses and he was just starting to learn how to listen with his soul. (He also looks so young!) Even if he doesn't call himself a musician, I certainly do. When we're both in good shape we're able to sing the song that's there instead of the song on the paper, and only a musician is able to do that with his/her partner.

It took several takes to get a video good enough to keep, but that's one of the benefits of recording in private. One of the most difficult songs we learned took fourteen takes to get one that was good enough to keep, perhaps I'll share it with you one day.