High notes
Sharing my anecdotes on my singing skills and my reflecting on the K-Pop and music industry; and the furry fandom too
Previously posted on DeviantArt
TL;DR - my inspiration for singing is Baekhyun and Chen from EXO, and Jungkook and Jimin from BTS, as well as other K-Pop artists.
Recently, I've been strengthening my vocals since I've been focusing on producing music full-time as I want to part away from making videos because I have experience and it stresses me, a lot.
My History of Singing
My first inspiration and experience from singing are when my family bought a home karaoke, which is just another DVD-looking player that comes with a couple of microphones and a disc that can access a catalog of songs. I and my family sang along to "On The Wings of Love" by Jeffrey Osborne. The other experience I've had with singing is when I'm at a public karaoke bar where people will watch people sing, I was a little nervous since I was 9 years old and sang "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence. Yes, I know - but it's the only song that I was capable of belting high vocals through. I was met with praise, people we're applauding as I exit the karaoke bar, and more people came while I was singing. When I came to the same karaoke bar, I was met with nothing in the end, and it does lose my motivation a bit for singing.
During my elementary days, I would always get called out or asked to participate whenever singing is involved, one kinda embarrassing moment, when I have to sing "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus to where I had to sing the chorus part of the song, and the teacher gave me a 5 out of 10, because it was "too high", but I really didn't mind. They would refer to me as the "Golden Voice" because no one in the class would have the courage to sing higher other than me, this was during the 5th and 6th grades.
Although I would occasionally hum to songs on top of my head or something that crosses my head from time to time. When puberty hits, I couldn't hit high notes as I was when I was in that karaoke bar. In fact, most of the time, I was even unconscious and unaware that any song I was singing had high notes and my friends wouldn't even mind.
Quarantine Stage
Recently, because of quarantine due to that scary virus constantly dabbing at people, heck - even WAAAAY before that, when my sister introduced me to BTS - I was shocked that they could dance and sing at the same time, and that gave me the courage to not only sing but to dance better as well. This was around 2016.
Last year, I listened to Brendon Urie or Panic! of the Disco, tracks like "High Hopes", "Saturday Night", "Victorious", and "Emperor's New Clothes", I'd unconsciously lipsync those songs since I usually put songs on repeat and would not realize that I'm listening to one song for an hour while I'm doing something else. Another artist that I listen to is Melanie Martinez, I like her concept and artistry and I like it. This was also the year when I listened to more K-Pop, specifically BTS, and I gained an interest in singing when I realized that I'm singing them unconsciously because school has recently just ended I got curious and looked up BTS lyrics, and the message that they put in their songs is really great and positive, it discusses things about mental issues and about solidarity, and this is what I like about BTS, and I've also heard about how twisted the Korean entertainment industry is, but I digress.
Earlier this year, I step away from making videos and more on producing music because it stresses me and I am running out of video ideas there are more focused on documentary-related content that spans more than an hour. Anyway, I've been getting into the music industry and I've learned more techniques and more complicated lingo stuff on FL Studio, which I use to produce most of my music and to be honest, most people use FL Studio, and I'm going to upgrade to Cubase Pro.
And I have improved on producing music, but yet to work on vocals - just out of curiosity I googled "vocal range" and I came across a video from Roomie reacting to a performance by Dimash Kudaibergen from a Chinese reality show. And I was immediately blown away by Dimash's vocal range, so I immediately went and looked up the video to which Roomie reacted, and I endlessly replayed it over and over again because I was actually astonished and had a really strong urge to sing and improve my singing and vocal range.
I'd occasionally lipsync songs with high notes, most of them I'd listen to are EXO's "El Dorado", Baekhyun's high note, Baekhyun's "Psycho", Chen's "Flower", "Love song", "Shall we?". In fact, this is one of the factors of listening to K-Pop is because of their high vocals, and intense choreography, not to mention the meaningful message they portray such as BTS' "Spring Day", "The Truth Untold", and much more.
Ever since quarantine, I've taken some of my free time I'd look up some vocal training videos, and listen to some songs that contain high notes, especially Mariah Carey's "Emotions", which is a classic--and just a few days ago, I decided to record and analyze my highest falsetto note that I could possibly hit and it's a key of G#5 (previously C5), which is very high, my lowest is F#2, my vocal type is Tenor apparently, I hope with more practice and more dedication, I could possibly expand my vocal range and can hit any notes comfortably with ease.
Reflecting on the Furry Fandom
Honestly, I was just a weirdo who likes cartoon dogs and foxes, and I've never realized that there is a huge community starting to get huge and there are people just like me watching movies like Balto, Fox and the Hound, and 101 Dalmatians. And I can honestly say that I am 100% proud of being a furry, as well as having the ability to sing really high as well as other talents I had, such as a filmmaker and a dancer as well. Despite a current pandemic that has been going on for like 8 months, I rarely get mood swings but I'm overall positive and trying to see the positive future. The next thing I need to really work on right now is songwriting and rhyming on some of the songs that I already produced.
Well I think that's all for now, I'd like to share my experience of singing or something lmao
Furry musicians are underappreciated
So, while I was adding the Ace of Hearts Fox article on Wikitubia, I've always asked myself why people in the furry community have under-appreciated talented musicians, including myself. I've heard artists like Fox Amoore, and Pepper Coyote, which they're prominent (at least I hope so), but I've never heard of their songs yet, but I can't find the time to do so, because school and other stuff are in the way. The reason is that I want my mind to be clear and take time to appreciate it without any interruptions.
This feels like this is a very long stretch, but I have hopes that I could be one of many furry artists who could hopefully get into the Official Music Charts, it's my primary goal. Because I've heard that no one in the furry fandom has charted an album or a single, and hopefully collaborate with some of the other talented furry musicians as well, because I am very positive about it, I've done very extensive research and many forums sites.
And this might be why, it's because of the distributors they choose, artists like Fox Amoore, and NIIC uses CDBaby, Scratch21 uses TuneCore, which is alright, but CDBaby is not a good choice in my opinion. I chose AWAL Digital Limited as my music distributor since it gives you 100% control and freedom as a music artist. I even might, or hopefully pitch a deal with BMG (because they work with other songwriters like me, and they distribute under Warner Music Group) to see the potential of the furry fandom. I've manifested my singing and producing talents recently, due to quarantine of course - I've improved my vocal range from time to time, and I have to take a break from producing music due to exams and I don't want to feel demotivated and lost of ideas. But I digress. I hope I can be friends with Ace when I'll be on my own one day, because not only we're both musicians, but he's half-Filipino as well, which makes me very proud since I'm a Filipino as well, he is one of my inspirations as soon as I found that out. Hoping that we'd make a collab album, EP, or something.
And of course, I've seen dance competitions and dance covers in a fursuit, heck I've seen furries who performed K-Pop songs as well, and I've made a playlist for it for those who have the same interest. Anyway, one time planning to binge-watch dance competitions, and most of them are mashups of pop and alternative music, but I've never seen someone in a dance competition dancing to their own songs maybe this is because they don't have a musical background, I'm not sure.
My future of being in the furry fandom
Well, I think I might change that (if I had a fursuit lol, which I currently don't but I'm planning on getting one), and I might try to choreograph a dance in one of my songs, but I'll run into issues where my music playing would get claimed by my record label but there's just too much to think about that I don't even bother explaining it because that's boring.
Because I've never heard of his songs, I have heard a bit on Twitter but one of my biggest skills is singing - now hear me out, I like to dance, but I've put all of my efforts into singing because dancing is easy to replicate and would sometimes take weeks or months to perfect it, for singing it takes a long time and there are people who give up on singing because it's a very difficult thing to achieve to some people - I took it as a challenge because there are no furries (at least from what I heard) had powerful and high vocals as me, well I'm not sure since I'm still working on my vocal range. Maybe in the future, I can achieve the highest notes that I can belt for longer from several songs that I've already planned, and it's a Christmas album.
I'll expand a musical storyline series called DREAM WILD, which is one of many influences more into the furry fandom and some of the favorite stories I've read that I can remember, and expand more on merch, music video, etc.
Starting a company
The reason why I wanted to form a media and entertainment company is that people have a big passion for their talents and especially for small musicians and there are no talent agencies that aren't for furries, and this is because of this reason because I've recently seen a video by Stormi Folf where furries ran the internet and the telecommunication areas and I think that is impressive and it baffled me a bit. The other reason is because of JYP Entertainment, as they provide the healthiest food and great mental health for their idols, trainees, and the staff of JYP, and this gave me the idea to run a company in one of those ideas. As far as I know, there is no big entertainment and/or production company that is furry-related nor run by furries, and I might I'll put this aside for now since I have less priority, but I digress... again.
Just right now, I've thought about the impact of the furry fandom as accounting that I've, for example, done several charities around the world, have gained platinum for an album which is absolutely crazy and something really unachievable, is very big, the fact that there are over 15-50k furries in the Philippines just that I've had the biggest influence in the furry fandom if I'd ever achieved any of these things, there is just so much to think about, but that's all for now. I know there are some people who will dislike me just because I'm into K-Pop, and trust me - I have a nerve of people replying with fancams on Twitter as well.