Jamming Session

Had my first jamming session with Jarvis, Shawn and Chris today.. Met them at Potong Pasir MRT at 1pm before proceeding to Boon Music Instrument Centre down the road for the jamming session..

Prepared 5 songs for the jamming session today.. The songs are "Jyojyoushi", "Eien", "Blurry Eyes", "Fate" and "Twinkle Twinkle".. Was a little nervous in the beginning because it was my first jamming session and some of the songs are quite difficult to sing.. But I still hope to give my best.. Shawn asked me whether I'm ready for "Jyojyoushi", cause the song should be the most difficult among the 5 because of its pitching.. However, knowing myself, I'm quite sure "Jyojyoushi" wouldn't be the song that would give me the most problem; "Fate" would be the one.. After the jamming session, I believed I was correct.. I'll elaborate on this later..

For a start, we decided to play "Eien".. Well.. That song wasn't really a good song for me to start with.. Cause even though I feel that "Fate" would be the most difficult song to sing, "Eien" is the song which I'm still not so comfortable in singing.. The reason behind is the unique melody of the song.. The song has a melody which I find difficult to follow.. The song has a somewhat "lazy" feel to it, even though the lyrics suggest otherwise.. This is also the reason why I admire hyde's lyrics.. He's so great in coming up with such beautiful lyrics..

Anyway, back to the topic.. The song "Eien" wasn't well done in my opinion.. I couldn't really get the melody correct, and my voice is still stuck in my throat.. Couldn't really get my voice out of my throat.. Perhaps I didn't warm up properly.. The second song was "Jyojyoushi".. In my opinion, there weren't really much problems with this song, except the fact that I still couldn't get my voice out of my throat.. In fact, I discovered that my falsetto has improved a lot since the time I joined Geyong.. At that time, falsetto was my biggest problem.. I guess all the practices has shown their results..

Next up was "Twinkle Twinkle".. Not too much problem there except for a part which I got the melody wrong.. Tried to introduce some rasp for some parts of the song.. Not too bad.. Although my voice is still far from raw..

After the song, "Fate" was next.. As predicted, "Fate" did posed some problems.. Tried to hit the high notes during the chorus.. Managed to do so for the first few times.. But as time goes by, my voice started to break.. Apart for that, the song was not too bad..

Finally, "Blurry Eyes".. This song was also quite problematic, even though I didn't really expect it.. I had a lot of problem singing the song on time.. For most of the verse, I was off rhythm.. I couldn't figure out what went wrong.. I was mostly ahead of the music.. I guess I came in too early for some of the parts.. But the chorus was ok..

After playing through the 5 songs, we went on to repeat the songs.. On a rough estimation, I believed we played "Eien" 2 times, "Jyojyoushi" 2 times, "Twinkle Twinkle" 3 times, "Fate" 3 times and "Blurry Eyes" 3 times.. A total of 13 songs over 2 hours..

Well.. To sum up, I believed I'm still very far away from reaching the standards of hyde.. But I will try my best to improve.. I guess I've also found the key to singing: Letting my body relate to the music.. Why do I say so?? Cause I've tried to memorize the melody to the songs we were going to play, but I discovered that it wasn't really effective, especially when it comes to songs like "Eien".. As such, I decided not to think too much when I sing; Just let my body tell me what to sing next.. As a result, I believed this method worked very well for me.. The second time I sang "Eien", it was way much better when I used this method..

In addition, warming up of the voice is also important.. My voice was stuck in my throat in the first hour.. It was only in the second hour that I feel my voice getting out.. It was also after my voice got out that I felt I was singing better.. My pitching was more correct after my voice warmed up.. I could also hit the high notes better.. However, my voice was a little strained after 1 hour of singing.. So I believed today wasn't my best performance.. Hope to do better next time round..

Singing with a band is indeed a great experience.. I feel so alive singing with a live band.. This was indeed a great experience for me.. Hope to do more jamming in future.. Hope I will do better the next time I jam...