Thursday, December 20, 2012

My Vocal Journey: The Beginning

For as long as I can remember, music has been one of the most important things in my life. Even before I can remember, my parents tell me that I loved music. I was a big fan of Blondie, Pat Benatar and the song "My Sharona."

My mom said she used to sing in choir contests. My Granny wrote bluegrass songs for Bob White and the Candy Mountain Boys.

My dad always played a little guitar and keyboard. My Grandpa was a well recognized Basso Sexto player in Tejano music. When Papa died, my aunt told us the story of when Papa had to dress up like a cowboy. He had some people show up at his door and and ask him if he could play with them for a show. The act was Hank Williams. Papa dressed like a cowboy and played the show.

I don't know when I started singing. I only know when I realized I was good at it. When I was about 6 years old, my babysitter was bored and told me to sing a song to her. I sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She lit up. She told me it was really good. Then we ran down the street to her house so I could sing for her mom. When I was done singing, she gave me $0.75. It was that moment that I realized I could sing and it's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

I was always singing around the house. My sisters didn't seem to appreciate it much. My parents bought me a microphone with a speaker for Christmas. I loved that thing and probably held it right to my sister's ear just to make her mad. I was in all the school plays. For our Christmas play, I was cast as "Wanda the Witch" and had a solo. I was pretty stellar. That then opened the door for to be in the Libbey High school production of "The King and I" when I was in 6th grade.

Stay tuned for the rest of my journey. I figured it's probably best to split it up and not write a novel in one sitting.

1 comment:

Iris Took said...

Like the background "lights."