Beautiful photograph of beautiful people taken from Dasmond Koh's blog. This must have been taken immediately after the CNY Even Special 2008 at the MediaCorp studio. Familiar faces include Benjamin (CSS 2, @ top left), Zhengning (CSS 2, @ top centre), Keely (CSS 2, @ bottom second from left) and Teresa (CSS 1, @ bottom third from left) .Home Dinner For The Changed Man:
I invited The Changed Man for home dinner because it's been quite some time since he last ate at my place and since it's Chinese Lunar New Year, it's guaranteed that there would be a lot of food and cooking happening at my place. No photographs because my family members invited their own VIPs for this home dinner session so I thought it was rude to take photos of all the food in front of them.
Anyway, thanks for my mother, we had more than enough food for everyone who attended this private gathering. On the table were fruit and almond jelly salad, potato salad with prawns, cheese, sausages, fishballs, steamed sliced fish, multi-coloured noodles, pineapple fried rice, yu sheng and soft drinks. The dinner went on for slightly more than an hour and after that, The Changed Man and I went off to Holland Village (famous for its alfresco dining and cafe culture) for some Coffee Bean tiramisu cake, drinks and people-watching.
We discussed about Chinese New Year, work, friends, life and even stock markets whilst lazing at Coffee Bean, watching all the nicely-dressed people strolling along after their CNY celebrations or dinners. It was a nice mini-outing amidst all the murmurings of various people sitting at the cafe - Caucasians, Asians, Afro-Americans, Japanese, etc. Haha...At around 10 plus, we finally left for home and hence ending the third round of CNY celebrations.
Partyworld KTV Session with The Pouting Apple:
Last Friday night while I was chatting about new songs with The Pouting Apple, she suddenly suggested going KTVing and being spontaneous, I said "Why not? Let's do it tmr."
And lo and behold, on the next day, both of us headed off to the Orchard Branch Partyworld and sang from 11am to 2pm (costing $18 nett per pax). We complained about the expensive wet towels and peanuts and The Pouting Apple made the most of her money spent by using the wet towel to wipe her sofa seat and munched away at those peanuts. Personally, I preferred Kbox Lunch Package because even though their lunch sets aren't that delicious, there is at least food but since it was The Pouting Apple who initiated, I had to sing with no lunch (broken a record of mine), sing with only one hot honey drink (broken a second record of mine) and no toilet breaks within the three hours (broken a third record of mine) because the line-up of songs was very intense and packed.
We sang many songs and exchanged thoughts and ideas about how to improve on singing certain songs. The Pouting Apple kept picking fast-tracks (which are her favourite)from singers like Jolin, F.I.R, S.H.E, Fei Lun Hai, while I kept picking R&B and ballad songs (which put the always wanting to be high Pouting Apple to sleep..hahaha) from singers such as David Tao, William Soh, Lee Hom, Liu Geng Hong, and Fang Da Tong. And my public compliments to your rendition of 如果你也听说 - it's very well-done.
Of the most significant songs during that KTV session was 一眼瞬間 by 張惠妹 & 蕭敬騰 because we repeated the song for more than four times, discussing on how to sing the harmonization parts properly, especially the chorus portions, because The Pouting Apple got her key, notes and volume confused. The song was particularly draining for poor me because my vocal range was stretched to the max to reach the song multiple times (without a drink at all..sob). Fortunately, The Pouting Apple was smart enough to pick up most of what I had taught and the final rendition was much better - smoother and more controlled than the first one in which we were just mashing along without cooperation.
The session ended at 2pm and The Pouting Apple had to go Chinese Lunar New Year home visit to a friend whilst I had to buy something before heading home to prepare for the home dinner for The Changed Man. All in all, it was quite a fun session because The Pouting Apple finally let her hair down and relaxed enough in front of me to start jumping on the sofa and sang to her heart's content. Well, not really , because I did not join her - I am too old for that sort of sofa-jumping singing. Hahaha...
Oh yes, The Pouting Apple wanted me to post my advice here on the blog for her and everyone else to see so here it goes as promised:
1) When you are singing duet songs, don't forget the key thing is about teamwork. Helping each other with the lines and harmonizing accordingly to each other's singing volume and expression. You probably can remember how much better we sounded between the first few attempts and the final rendition of the song. That was precisely because we worked together to sing the song, not merely singing our own parts of the duet song.
2) Remember to concentrate and don't lose focus of the duet's allocated keys and notes for the male and female parts respectively. You are more influenced by Jing Teng's portion so you kept singing his key and notes instead. Practise a little bit more and I believe you will be able to mentally and vocally separate their parts (especially during the harmonized chorus portions). Don't forget that the first lines of the chorus is led by Jing Teng so Amei should be harmonizing after him, not sing at the same volume and intensity. The rest of the song has already seen much improvement after our session today.
3) Gesticulation is the next step for some of your already-established fast-track songs. I know it's not the same as a full accompanying dance but gesticulation is a good start to keep the beat and express the song better. You have a very high expectation of standards to do well in those songs but remember there IS such a thing as trying too hard and tripping over yourself. If there is one thing that needs more thought over those songs, it is to use your own voice to sing rather than mimicking the original singers. Remember what I told you - techniques and accents can be separated clearly. Remember how I sang Wo Huai Nian De by Sun Yanzi? The same effect of the song is reached without utilizing any of Yanzi's signature traits so you can definitely do the same too!
I know you are absolutely serious about improving your singing but you can still do it with a smile and not a pout, right? At your current stage, which is not live singing onstage, you don't have to pre-stress yourself so much, can? Hereby enclosed the Youtube KTV version of the song because I predict you are going to practise the song the moment you finishe reading this post. Remember to have fun learning, not frown, can? Hahaha....
I am also including a very cute video of a young child mimicking Cao Ge's Bei Pan. This is exactly what I mean by singing without even understanding the lyrics or the theme of the song - no connection to the song, no singing is achieved. Personally, I think the original owner is just exploiting the poor child and of course, spoiling the song by teaching it to someone who has no inkling of what Bei Pan means at all.
Last Friday night while I was chatting about new songs with The Pouting Apple, she suddenly suggested going KTVing and being spontaneous, I said "Why not? Let's do it tmr."
And lo and behold, on the next day, both of us headed off to the Orchard Branch Partyworld and sang from 11am to 2pm (costing $18 nett per pax). We complained about the expensive wet towels and peanuts and The Pouting Apple made the most of her money spent by using the wet towel to wipe her sofa seat and munched away at those peanuts. Personally, I preferred Kbox Lunch Package because even though their lunch sets aren't that delicious, there is at least food but since it was The Pouting Apple who initiated, I had to sing with no lunch (broken a record of mine), sing with only one hot honey drink (broken a second record of mine) and no toilet breaks within the three hours (broken a third record of mine) because the line-up of songs was very intense and packed.
We sang many songs and exchanged thoughts and ideas about how to improve on singing certain songs. The Pouting Apple kept picking fast-tracks (which are her favourite)from singers like Jolin, F.I.R, S.H.E, Fei Lun Hai, while I kept picking R&B and ballad songs (which put the always wanting to be high Pouting Apple to sleep..hahaha) from singers such as David Tao, William Soh, Lee Hom, Liu Geng Hong, and Fang Da Tong. And my public compliments to your rendition of 如果你也听说 - it's very well-done.
Of the most significant songs during that KTV session was 一眼瞬間 by 張惠妹 & 蕭敬騰 because we repeated the song for more than four times, discussing on how to sing the harmonization parts properly, especially the chorus portions, because The Pouting Apple got her key, notes and volume confused. The song was particularly draining for poor me because my vocal range was stretched to the max to reach the song multiple times (without a drink at all..sob). Fortunately, The Pouting Apple was smart enough to pick up most of what I had taught and the final rendition was much better - smoother and more controlled than the first one in which we were just mashing along without cooperation.
The session ended at 2pm and The Pouting Apple had to go Chinese Lunar New Year home visit to a friend whilst I had to buy something before heading home to prepare for the home dinner for The Changed Man. All in all, it was quite a fun session because The Pouting Apple finally let her hair down and relaxed enough in front of me to start jumping on the sofa and sang to her heart's content. Well, not really , because I did not join her - I am too old for that sort of sofa-jumping singing. Hahaha...
Oh yes, The Pouting Apple wanted me to post my advice here on the blog for her and everyone else to see so here it goes as promised:
1) When you are singing duet songs, don't forget the key thing is about teamwork. Helping each other with the lines and harmonizing accordingly to each other's singing volume and expression. You probably can remember how much better we sounded between the first few attempts and the final rendition of the song. That was precisely because we worked together to sing the song, not merely singing our own parts of the duet song.
2) Remember to concentrate and don't lose focus of the duet's allocated keys and notes for the male and female parts respectively. You are more influenced by Jing Teng's portion so you kept singing his key and notes instead. Practise a little bit more and I believe you will be able to mentally and vocally separate their parts (especially during the harmonized chorus portions). Don't forget that the first lines of the chorus is led by Jing Teng so Amei should be harmonizing after him, not sing at the same volume and intensity. The rest of the song has already seen much improvement after our session today.
3) Gesticulation is the next step for some of your already-established fast-track songs. I know it's not the same as a full accompanying dance but gesticulation is a good start to keep the beat and express the song better. You have a very high expectation of standards to do well in those songs but remember there IS such a thing as trying too hard and tripping over yourself. If there is one thing that needs more thought over those songs, it is to use your own voice to sing rather than mimicking the original singers. Remember what I told you - techniques and accents can be separated clearly. Remember how I sang Wo Huai Nian De by Sun Yanzi? The same effect of the song is reached without utilizing any of Yanzi's signature traits so you can definitely do the same too!
I know you are absolutely serious about improving your singing but you can still do it with a smile and not a pout, right? At your current stage, which is not live singing onstage, you don't have to pre-stress yourself so much, can? Hereby enclosed the Youtube KTV version of the song because I predict you are going to practise the song the moment you finishe reading this post. Remember to have fun learning, not frown, can? Hahaha....
I am also including a very cute video of a young child mimicking Cao Ge's Bei Pan. This is exactly what I mean by singing without even understanding the lyrics or the theme of the song - no connection to the song, no singing is achieved. Personally, I think the original owner is just exploiting the poor child and of course, spoiling the song by teaching it to someone who has no inkling of what Bei Pan means at all.
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