I stole this idea from Tim Ferriss, a blogger who I find wildly entertaining. He mentioned on his podcast that he traded New Year's Resolutions with one of his friends - the idea being that an honest friend can point out the holes in your game a lot more effectively than you can find them yourself. (His goal for his caffeine-addicted friend was to drink nothing stronger than green tea for a year; his friend, noting that Tim was afraid of open water, challenged him to learn how to swim a mile. Both were successful, and, I imagine, living better lives for it.) So, to test this scenario, I traded resolutions with one of my voice students. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent... But he was a young man with a lot of talent, and less confidence than he should have had. My goal for him was to get up in front of people once a month and sing a song in public - and he followed through! I couldn't be more proud, and it's made all the difference for him, both in his public performances and his private lessons. Of course, if he follows through on his resolution, I have to follow through on mine, which was a little more involved. Whatever the #1 song in iTunes is on the first of every month, I'm supposed to record a cover of that song. (If the same song is #1 two months in a row, I'm supposed to do the #2, etc, so there are no repeats.) The setlist looks like this:
I have to give this guy credit: he cut me to the quick on this one. Anybody who knows me is aware that I don't put a lot of top-40 stuff in my setlist. And there's some really weird shit in that list - I had to rap. More than once. I had to cover Drake, and Rihanna, and Justin Bieber... This was a major challenge. So, I'll be dropping a new tune via this blog on even-numbered days in January, and you can hear all the weird stuff I've done to last year's iTunes #1 Hits. Since logic is for chumps, I'm jumping around the setlist and starting with April's entry, "Bitch Better Have My Money" by Rihanna, shown in the video below. It's a powerful, poignant lyric, and I think there's something there everybody can relate to. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter to get updates on when the next tunes drop. Thanks for listening in!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorScott Test is a singer/songwriter and educator pursuing a radical change in direction. Archives
February 2016
Categories
All
|