i arranged this

i'm singing soprano (the highest part.)
and my boyfriend is singing the solo.

check it out!

I guess I mentioned sometimes I sing with people. In front of other people.

In any case, check out this song from our last gig on Saturday night.

(fyi, I had a sore throat Thurs, Friday and Saturday, but I didn't feel too bad. Sunday and today I've been dead to the world with some form of plague that is nothing more than a horrible sore throat and a fever. Thankfully, I seem to be on the mend, though I don't have very much of a voice left after all the coughing. Oh well, no more singing til the new year!)

(that's me second from the left -- in green tights!)

If you want to check out our other songs from Saturday, go to:

http://youtube.com/PitchCraftACappella

Thanks for listening =)

Plenty to Be Thankful for: YouTube & Interweb Funs

Day 2 of the Thankful Challenge! I am thankful for YouTube, because it means I can listen to these guys sing all day long:

{Telephone}

{Love Lockdown}

I am also a fan of the interwebs because of these:

{Some ECards}

...true story.

What ridiculous internet thing are you thankful for?

 Link up, over at The Perfect Compilation Tape!

PitchCraft debuts!

So, I said I'd post it here when I had it and here it is:

I'm second from the right.

I'm also the soprano you can hear throughout the whole thing.

(Oops.)

Let me know what you think!

set your mind free

So, I tweeted last night that I had an audition:

Thanks for the nice responses! Good news is, both Nate and I got invited to callbacks, which are on Saturday morning. Hopefully we'll know by the end of the weekend whether we got in or not! I'm so looking forward to being back to singing.

(also, if you are in the Seattle area and know any dudes who like to sing, send them to the PitchCraft website and have them contact the group -- when they sent out callback emails last night, they mentioned they needed some more boys)

Moving on from a cappella...actually, that's a lie. Moving on to different a cappella: The Sing-Off!

I cannot get over the level of talent of some of these groups. Our TV has crappy speakers, so I've taken to listening to the live mixes of the groups on Spotify, so that I can actually hear what they sound like. The only thing that really changes is that the good groups get better and the flaws become more inherent. But seriously, Afro-Blue is KILLING IT. I cannot get over how smooth their sound is. Delilah, who is not my fave, also sounded really good last night on their pop song. I didn't really like UrbanMethod's song, but they sounded super tight. Vocal Point makes me angry and happy at the same time -- I can't help loving those dang Mormons! (I also may or may not hold a grudge from ICCA Finals 2006 and 2007. Not that we should have won over them or anything, but seriously? The Mormons win freakin' everything. How can an entire culture be so good at singing? And you can't be mad, because they are all the nicest people ever!)


In any case, the Yellowjackets are the quinessential college male a cappella group -- part of the reason they're still there is because they sing lots of open vowels, they're cute and they LOVE singing together. Nate and I were talking about how singing to Sara Bareilles like that at any other age would be super creepster. But for college-age dudes? It's just the norm.

I was pretty sure Kinfolk 9 was going home. I don't really like watching them perform, unfortunately. There's just no spark. And as much as I begrudgingly applaud groups like Vocal Point and the Yellowjackets, it just goes to show that heart goes a long, long way in getting you where you want to go (amirite, Christopher MD?)

I'm excited for next week's episode!

In other television news, I am liking Terra Nova, but I feel like the subject matter of this week and next week's episode (judging from the preview) are things that should have been saved for the second season (or, at least later in this season.) Stuff that can be addressed after they flesh out the characters and solidify the storyline a little bit more. Right now, it's feeling a little OMG, DISASTER STRIKES AT EVERY TURN CAUSE WE'RE 85 MILLION YEARS IN THE PAST WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEE.' But I watch, because a) dinos are awesome and b) my frin' Allison is awesome. So.

Gym tonight. I also need to bake my corn muffin vita tops, because dry cereal for breakfast is just sad.

How are you feeling about your favorite shows, new or returning?

back in your heart

Totally digging this, recently:

I love a cappella, for serious. And Spotify is delivering in that area.

(I have some Spotify invites, if you need one!)

promise not to stop when i say when

Last night's dinner was eeeeeexcellent. Salmon fillet with a little bit of teriyaki and a lot of brown sugar on top, baked at 300 for about 25/30 minutes over brown rice with some sauteed brussel sprouts mixed in. The brown sugar covered salmon was a big hit with Nate. He kept asking if there was more! Alas, only about a serving and a half each. Gotta stretch that $5 salmon fillet, you know!

I'm thinking I really need to get some new lighting for my food shots.

I didn't take pictures of my outfits for Monday or Tuesday. I did look nice, but I wasn't wearing anything that I hadn't worn before. Plus, I was kind of busy, so I let the picture taking slide. It happens.

I'm back to it today, because even though I've worn this outfit (in pieces) before, I added my skinny gray belt to my green (rabbit hair) sweater, to see how I liked it on me. I'm not super pleased, but I'm also not horrified at where it sits. I do think that the sweater needs to be longer to really pull off the skinny-belt-at-the-waist look, personally. I also think I need to get a shorter white tank, so there isn't a foot of tank top peeking out from under my shorter tops. Personally.

CARA Award nominations were announced yesterday, and I am so proud of the FSU groups! From my former group, All-Night Yahtzee's Dave Girtman was nominated for Best Mixed Collegiate Arrangement for 'You Found Me' by The Fray (go to the Yahtzee website to listen for a sample,) and the FSU AcaBelles were nominated for Best Female Collegiate Song and Best Female Collegiate Arrangement (by Kristina Rodriguez): Monster by Meg and Dia and Best Female Collegiate Solo: Alone by Heart (sung by Lauren Barreiro - check out her blog, Acalosophy!) Unfortunately, the AcaBelles don't have clips of the songs on their websites (psst, you should get on that!) but you can listen to Alone. For Monster, you'll just have to buy the album!

It's a beautiful day here in Seattle. Wish I was outside to enjoy it. Instead, I just stare sadly from the conference room window. (isn't the construction lovely?)

-C

iTunes Genius

I am a fan of iTunes, despite some of its more obvious faults, and I think Genius is a pretty cool mod. Most of the time, it has no idea what I want to listen to. But every once and a while, it gets something right.

I created a playlist off of Aimee Mann's 'Wise Up' (which they didn't have on MixTape,) but I tried to put the rest of the playlist on there as best as I could.

the Playlist (click to listen)
1. Wise Up - Aimee Mann (not on playlist because they're poopy, but listen to it here. Or you can listen to my college a cappella group, All-Night Yahtzee, do it here.)
2. Winter - Tori Amos (originally 'Precious Things' on the playlist, but mixtape didn't have that, so I subbed)
3. Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
4. Postcards from Italy - Beirut
5. Brick - Ben Folds
6. Warning Sign - Coldplay
7. Bedshaped - Keane (originally She Has No Time, listen to that here. And listen to the kick-ass version by the UNC Clef Hangers, with solo sung by Anoop Desai, here. No really, listen to it. I actually like it better than the original.)
8. Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) - Billy Joel
9. Where is My Mind - The Pixies
10. Paranoid Android - Radiohead
(originally Mr. Zebra by Tori Amos was in here, but I couldn't find anything I want to sub for it, so listen to it, here.)
11. Tymps (The Sick in the head Song) - Fiona Apple
12. The Luckiest - Ben Folds
13. We Never Change - Coldplay
14. Battle of Who Could Care Less - Ben Folds
15. Exit Music (For a Film) - Radiohead
16. Elephant Gun - Beirut
17. Falling for the First Time - Barenaked Ladies
18. Sunshine - Keane
19. Still Fighting It - Ben Folds
20. Landed - Ben Folds
21. A Rush of Blood to the Head - Coldplay
22. Don't Cry - Seal
23. Army - ben Folds
24. Criminal - Fiona Apple

We went out for drinks with my co-workers last night, so dinner was quick pasta with cheese (it's also lunch today,) but tonight, I'm contemplating making baked teriyaki-brown sugar salmon with brown rice. Need to figure out a veggie, since I'm pretty sure all we have is onions or celery. We might have some frozen brussel sprouts. Maybe I'll chop those up and toss them in with the rice.

I'm excited, because our bananas are almost mushy enough to make banana bread, which is obv the best and most nutrious breakfast in the whole word. Especially when you slaughter cover it with brown sugar and butter. Obviously.

We went grocery shopping at the regular grocery store (as opposed to the Asian market) and spent $56 and saved $27, which I'd say is pretty fair. We got a bunch of chips, mainly because I had coupons so we could get them FREE (uhm, yes please free bag of Food Should Taste Good Sweet Potato chips?!) We're also contemplating starting to make our own trail mix again, since trail mix is expensive (although, the ingredients we like for trail mix are also expensive, but maybe not as expensive, so it works out,) like we used to in MA. See, when we lived in Boston, we bought one of those GIANT tubs of Utz cheese balls, like lard-os, and ate the whole thing. And then saved the tub and made a bunch of different kinds of (really bad for you) trail mixes that our friends LOVED, which included things like marshmallows and honey bbq chips. Clearly, we were concerned about losing weight. Anyway, it's fun to make trail mix, because you get to put exactly what you want in it. And exaclty what I want is chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate! Oh, and maybe some almonds.

Also bought a thing of dry roasted, un-salted peanuts that was on sale to make peanut butter with. Get excited.

I was listening to Lonely Avenue (Ben Folds & Nick Hornsby collaboration) this morning, and some of the lyrics to Practical Amanda really spoke to me. So I made a picture with them. Behold:

What about you guys? Any specific artist or band's lyrics speak to you?

-C

(p.s. because I just know you were worried, I'm probably still gonna do the accent vlog. I might make the boy do it with me, because we are from opposite ends of the east coast, so we say some things differently.)

it's the day of the show, y'all

Really, if you've never seen Waiting for Guffman (and you've ever done any kind of theatre, especially community theatre, stop reading this post RIGHT NOW and go watch it. Seriously.

But for realsies, THE MORNINGSTAR VEGGIE CORNDOGS ARE BACK!!! I am a huge fan of this product (and a lot of other MorningStar products) despite the fact that I am not a vegetarian. Nor have I ever been a vegetarian. But when I was younger, I wasn't really a big meat fan. Now I've discovered that I like most meat, but certain things still have to be seasoned past the point of recognition marinated for me to find them palatable. This doesn't include corn dogs, but if there's a way that I can still enjoy a corn dog, have it fool me into tasting like a corn dog, and be vaguely more healthy for me than an actual corn dog, I am all for it. Their tomato basil burgers and breaded spinach-artichoke bites are also quite tasty. Go try them! Now.

Do it.

In other news, it's a snow emergency in Boston, and a balmy forty degrees and foggy here in Seattle. With all the snow they've been getting in the northeast, I go back and forth between loving that I'm not there to deal with it and hating that I'm not there to see all the snow. I am still a Florida kid at heart, and snow is exciting. I'm not sure how exciting it would be at this point in the game, though.

Feeling kind of fancy today. Love this bracelet that my aunt got me from LOFT, but it's systematically ripping all my armhair out of a small portion of my forearm. Ouch!

Sometimes, I feel just feel like listening to a cappella. And sometimes, I am overcome with an arrangement of a song. Or the soloist. Or how gelled it sounds. Like (Maroon 5's) Secret, covered by the Carolina Tar Heel Voices. I mean, could it get any sexier?

-C

Six Degrees of Separation

No, really.

I was reading Caitlin's blog, Healthy Tipping Point, which was so kindly suggested to me by my Google Reader suggestions list, and I just read her latest blog entry, A Social Media Moment. In it, she talks about friending Peter Hollens from UO On the Rocks (for an a cappella friends, you know of them via their viral Bad Romance video and the latest season of Sing-Off) via Twitter because of a tweet, etc, etc.

My dearest friend Christopher M.D. just recently tweeted about Peter's AWESOME video (watch it, no really. You won't regret it.) because they are friends. So I'm just having this little moment of my own. About how small the world is. And how these random events all connect together. All because of a cappella (well, and the internet!)

I left a note on her blog. Hopefully she finds it as cool as I do!

-C