April 2008

Work, Work, Work…

Hiyah, Everyone!

My apologies about ignoring to write the previous months blog. It’s not bout the laziness but “It’s all about the money…”haha. Yeah , that’s true. Someone told me here: “If you’re able to survive in London, you’ll survive everywhere!” That might be true too.  If you not gonna have any financial support for livin in here, you should be aware of combining studies with a part time work. Yeah, it’s really hard at times, coz you wanna give that time to music and things related to it, but at some point you need to forget your past, your success and status which you’ve got elsewhere and start from scratch, to step back and try to accept things with easy heart, to open your ears, your mind and soul for new not always good things (critics, concurrence, etc.)

Well, going back to the subject described beyond regarding kinda other part time work. I’ve started giving Singing Private Lessons in Vocaltech from April 2008,  which is great, coz I love teaching and I learn from my learners as well. BUT! People come and go, this is only the beginning, that’s why the process flows slower than it might be expected from both sides, me and Vocaltech. But advertisement is the thing which needs to be done properly. All that takes much time to organize. plus, I start to work in addition somewhere else and it’s not connected with music, but people again, I work with people.

A lot of things happened to me since I wrote my last blog. I’m progressing as a musician and with more complicated stuff that came down during this period in college my marks got better. Of course it’s not about marks, they’re just the result of hard but interesting work. I improved my Vocal Technique, Musicianship is still on a very good level, coz Vocaltech concept lets us “stay in shape” all the time during the course.
I got some great private lessons with teachers from Vocaltech. Every tutor of Vocaltech teaches at a very high professional level and has some specific things to show and share. I love Kim Chandler’s Warming Up “Funky n Fun” CDs, Karen Grace showed me unbelievably incredible things you can do with your vocals, she gave me an answer which no one could give me before and demonstrated practically how it works (how to connect chest voice with whistle tone without a flip!). Annabel Williams is my soul mate vocally, because we like similar styles of music and admire similar artists, (soul, gospel, R’n’B, funk, Stevie, Brian Mcnight, Whitney, Mariah, Beyonce, Chaka Khan, Aretha…) Every time I’ve seen her live it was an outstanding, energetic performance, full of interesting ideas and great fun!!! I’m looking forward to having a lesson with Laura Barnes, she is awesome, also seen live and has a huge experience in the music industry.

Showcases.
I’ll try to describe shortly. We’ve had two of them. Both were in soul, r’n’b, funk context. I loved it! It was fun to sing and play that music. I did better this time, singing one of my favourite Craig David songs, walking Away (I know, I know, someone gonna go ishhh…that’s cheeeee, but it reminds me bout good times), Erhika Badu’s song and Stevie’s “I Wish”.

The last performance…km km I'll try to be objective he he, was the best I gave ever here. but I’ll write the opinions, feedback next time, coz exactly now im gonna watch it with our William Da Best (Lester).

Hope you all are fine. Happy Easter, by the way.
Talk to you next time
Love and Blessings

Nic XXX

p/s we had a fantastic opportunity to perform on the big ’Freshers’ (new students) event helping with backing vocals for our teacher-singers. It was a huge fun and experience as well.+ One more event gonna take place on the 17th of May. Check the myspace.com/nicolstyle page.