"About Leina" - installment the third

Special Labor Day edition, where Leina proceeds to embarrass herself~!

Today's installment: sings Heart and Pat Benatar in the car.

Summer 2007 - my first time playing "Rock Band" at Rachel's place. Before we start, I tell Rach that I'm an alto and I sang alto II in university choir back in 2000. After singing a few songs (including Radiohead's "Creep), she tells me, "You're not an alto --- you're a second soprano."

This would be the start of the road to self-discovery. It made me realise that I sang alto II in university choir only because I hit Low-C in the audition and because the alto II section needed people. Rachel telling me I'm actually a soprano was like the lead pipe that fell on Mama Cass's head.

I had a mental block for seven years and just needed to see the light.

And one way I worked to overcome this mental block was singing along to Heart and Pat Benatar in my car -- on commutes to and from work, on solo road trips to Sacramento, or just driving anywhere. If I'm going to learn how to be a proper soprano, I have to sing along to the greats.

Because it's hard to write this post without any examples, I recorded myself singing while stuck on a horrific 2.5-hr drive up to Sacramento. On a good day, it takes me 90 minutes to get to Sac from SJ. OH NO, not on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, when everybody was escaping the Bay Area and clogging up Interstate 80 East while doing so.

I apologise for the boring footage of the speedometer. I was not in the mood to have my face on camera for youtube.

Singing along to Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker"

Singing along to Heart's "What About Love?"

If I'm ever stuck in yucko traffic on a lone roadtrip again, I may do another installment or two of "Stuck in traffic, singing in my car". It probably may be something other than Heart or Pat Benatar since I sing along to anything that plays on shuffle. And let me tell you, I have a lot of random stuff on my iPod.

Oh, here are some tidbits --

- I sang two Pat Benatar songs on karaoke night on my honeymoon cruise: "Promises in the Dark" and "Heartbreaker".

- A while ago, I scored 100% on "hard" singing "Heartbreaker" on "Rock Band". Last Saturday, I did that song on "expert," but because I was stupid-drunk, I managed to get 86%. OUCH!