[Video] Evanescence-My Heart Is Broken (Vocal Cover)

For the first time I did an actual video of me singing the song. This is what I do outside of looking at health stuff...haha Enjoy!

Could I get your help? UJAM Singing Contest!

It's been a long time since my last post and it's because I have been busy singing. I am constantly learning new things and trying to challenge myself to sing better and better. POTS certainly sets me back at times because breath control assumes you have a normal functioning autonomic system. hehe!

After a lot of soulsearching, crying and days of feeling lost and hopeless, I have decided that singing is what I need to do with my life. Even if I am not successful and make no money at it, it does not matter. I need to sing because it makes me feel whole and happy.

I have entered a contest and I desparately need your help in order to keep my entry in the Top 10 until February 5th. For this entry I remixed the instrumental, wrote and sang the lyrics.

You can listen to and vote for my song at this link.
http://www.ujam.com/songs/cTzD7kg6ptWk

To vote for it, just click on the Facebook like button on that page. If for some reason you do not have a facebook page, then please consider sharing it on other forums, blogs, on your facebook wall and on twitter. I cannot do this without you guys!

I have almost a full 2 months to keep the competition from taking over my spot. This will not be easy at all, but I have to try to do this. Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, who are both award winning composers, will be judging the entries!

And with all of this singing stuff, I am finally showing my face too. Please check out my video and it's nice to be able to show you a more personable side of me. Text can only do much.

What I do in my Spare Time!

I wanted to make a happy post today on my blog! What do I do in my spare time?

Well I quite honestly I lead a pretty sedentary lifestyle. Every morning I look forward to my morning cup of coffee. As I get older, I am finding that I am actually developing a palate for coffee. I am starting to become a coffee snob where I only use a Coffee Press these days to make coffee!

I absolutely love my Bodum Coffee Press and don't know what I'd do without it. My mornings would be quite sad. Even though I really like coffee, making it can be annoying. One morning I made the comment, "I wish there was a machine that made coffee". My husband thought that was the most hilarious thing because DUH there's tons of machines that make coffee. LOL What I really meant was, I wish there was a robot that could make me coffee in the coffee press. That line has now become a family joke. "Man I really wish there was a machine that made coffee". I'm glad I entertain my family.

The one other thing that I love even more than coffee is singing. If I tallied up how much I sing every day it's likely pushing 8 hours. I am not kidding at all and my poor husband has to hear it all the time. haha My mother was always singing so I think that kind of stuck with me. She would listen to various singers like Bette Midler and Celine Dion. I'm sure there were others, but that's all I can remember. My family went to church every Saturday night and I started to realize that I had a really good singing voice. However with my lack of self-confidence I had been afraid to let anyone know about it and sort of hid it. A few months ago, I decided to record myself to see if I sound good on tape. To my surprise I think I sound pretty darn good for having very little official vocal training.

I really wish to write some music and at least put it out on the internet for people to download. Singing makes me feel so good. It's like all of my problems go away and it is a major destressing tool I use. If you are interested, I have put up a few covers on Youtube. Let me know what you think--if you hate it that's ok. There is always room for improvement with singing. My trills, slurs, vibrato and hitting high notes could be much improved and I hope to take vocal lessons again one day. My last vocal teacher was pretty terrible and I sang better than her.

Getting More Serious About Singing

I think my chest (or whatever muscle it was) has finally healed. Thank goodness! Now I am questioning my vocal lessons. Is this teacher really helping me or not? I certainly don't want to ruin my voice because of a bad teacher. Unfortunately the only teacher that looks incredible is like an 1 1/2 hours from me. It would be really hard to justify driving all that way for a 30 min-60 minute lesson. She is on western side of Pittsburgh. Not exactly a very nice place from what I can remember. My mom used to go to a craft store in that area. We would run to and from the car and never went there at night> LOL

I talked her last year sometime, but just wasn't quite ready to do lessons. I was too scared to sing for someone. Getting there wouldn't be too tough though from what I can see. (Just a very long drive) It's a straight shot down 79. Maybe her studio is located somewhere else though. (Not sure)

Right now she is offering a free first lesson and if you sign up for 12 weekly 1 hour lessons (I currently take 30 minute lessons), you save $110. I think that makes her CHEAPER than my current lessons.

(Doing the math)

It looks like she would be only a few more dollars per hour. After 3 months of lessons, I'd have to decide what I wanted to do.

Ms. Hissam has the credentials, education and incredible singing talent. Now she was trained classically (opera), but I know she does all sorts of stuff. Really all I want is to have someone help me breathe properly, use vibrato right and get better at trills and runs. I'm not that good with those yet. I have a tendency to do the jaw shake when I do runs, trills and vibrato. I've been watching myself in a mirror recently. Yikes!

Not knocking on my teacher now, she isn't as good as this other women. Not that she claimed to be though. I think I want to be more serious with singing. She is an alto and cannot sing along with me whatsoever and I don't think I sing that high. Comfortably I can go well into the 5th octave. I can hit the 6th, but I'm not comfortable with it yet. I say yet because I think there is potential. I'm not breathing right though.

All I hear is diaphragm, diaphragm! But...what does that even mean? I can puff my stomach up and fake it all day, but I'm not doing it right. I've started checking out videos on YouTube. There is one person in particular that has been very helpful.. I hate the type of music he sings, but he is a good teacher nonetheless. I've been using this video to get better.

Yeah I know I'm rambling on. Maybe this week I can record the first song I learned for lesson and put it up here for all of you to comment. It is called Treasure by Amethystium. You can listen to the original on YouTube here. This is the type of music I want to sing. Probably won't be famous or a household name, but I would be very happy. The singer in Treasure (Stine Mari Langstrand) also sings Trolltind by Lumsk. This is the song I am currently learning in lesson. As you can see, I have a little thing for this singer. I think she is absolutely incredible and being able to even tackle her songs is very uplifting. A few months ago, I had a terrible time with Treasure. Now I can sing it pretty easily. I know the lessons are working, but I just want to be the best possible.

Blood Work and Ultrasound--Done

I got the blood work done on Wednesday night. I got the ultrasound done this morning. She had me turn my head to the right, so she could do the left lobe. Just looked like gray stuff to me. With 1 really dark spot, but I don't even know where she was on my neck. It was probably the carotid artery.

This is what a normal thyroid ultrasound looks like...It's like another language.

When I was done, I told my husband it looked like a snail was in my neck. We both laughed. We'll probably get the results Monday (I'll be calling the doctors to give them a slight nudge). The blood work will definitely be done Monday. In fact it may have been ready today, but I didn't feel like bothering Dr. Goldstein. He's been really good to me recently. He's gone out of his way to make sure I get the appropriate tests done and I am very happy about that.

I was not going to get the ultrasound before the blood work came back, but I reconsidered. Even if my results were "normal" in the back of my mind I'd be wondering why it changed so rapidly. With the blood work and ultrasound we will know exactly what is going on or what is NOT going on. Possible goiter? Nodule? We will know soon.

2 days ago I did a LOT of singing. Since taking voice lessons, I've been trying to practice a lot. Getting better at hitting high notes with ease and being able to sing long phrases. Well I overdid it. Yesterday I woke up with a chest pain. It was really weird. It hurt when I exhaled, when I laughed and if I let my lungs get too empty. Today it is much better. I didn't sing AT ALL yesterday, which was hard for me. I sing all the time even without knowing. There is definitely still a little bit of pain, but way better. Obviously I pulled some sort of muscle in there! Leave it to me to pull a muscle in my chest.