Uncreated Conscience

Whose brilliant idea was it to give me license to record myself playing instruments and singing badly online? Gaah.

Anyway, in a fit of Libertines-related nostalgia (as it appears that a long-hoped-for reunion is in the works?), I decided to record a cover of “Music When the Lights Go Out”. I use the term “record” loosely. This is about as “produced” a sound as I’ll ever get: vocals, guitar, and piano all recorded separately and then mixed together with sub-par equipment, yay!

All I can say is I have no explanation. It started with me complaining on Twitter that I couldn’t figure out what the last chord of the pre-chorus to Lady Gaga’s “Speechless” is. (For the record, I have no idea what its name is, but I play it #F-C-E as the last piece of a pseudo-chromatic downward progression–if that makes no sense, then that’s okay, it doesn’t make sense to me either. I never took music theory and quite literally play everything by ear, so I lack the skills to articulate what I’m talking about.)

It ended with someone convincing me they wanted to hear what I sounded like. So there it is. That’s what I sound like when I’m singing in a key that’s lower than comfortable (too guttural) and playing a non-USB digital piano with the world’s clickiest sustain pedal. Digital pianos make really loud sounds! (Meaning this was recorded using my MacBook’s less-than-ideal built-in-microphone and run through Garageband’s “Live Performance” filter. Ha!)

Anyone else out there have Garageband? Did you know you can turn a woman’s voice into a man’s? BECAUSE YOU CAN AND IT’S THE AWESOMEST THING EVER. I recorded myself singing “Das Licht Des Himmels” a cappella (excuse the bad German and the mistakes).

Now I’m a girl…
…now I’m kind of a sexy man.

It may only work because I’m singing the original in a very high key (but this is where I’m the most comfortable singing–head voice) because I tried to turn my cover of “Speechless” into that of a man but it didn’t sound as good.

But it’s totally uncanny, no?

Another White-Harp review vlog! She stayed up so late finishing A CURSE DARK AS GOLD by Elizabeth C. Bunce that this one isn’t quite as coherent as her review of SHIVER.

P.S. You can follow her vlog reviews on YouTube or Vimeo.

Both she and I really thoroughly enjoyed it, and my review follows beneath the cut.

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Okay, I give up; not only am I a sentimental fool, I’m also a complete and utter SAP who apparently cries at the drop of a hat.

Take this video for instance:

I…I…I can’t even begin to describe how much this moved me. This woman is an artist. Her name is Kseniya Simonova, and she creates live animation with sand. Yes, sand. (On a side note, she is also as incredibly beautiful as she is talented. Sometimes the world just isn’t fair.) She is also this year’s winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent. Ukraine’s got sand animation performance artists. America has confused dogs. I go hang my head in shame.

Also, last night I stayed up to an ungodly hour reading OF BEES AND MIST by Erick Setiawan. Yes, I teared up in this one too. My god, what is happening to me in my old age?