NerdSpork's Karaoke Corner Post 3

     It’s been a long time since I’ve made a karaoke blog. I never stopped making the Smule videos though, so I have quite a bit to share. Today will specifically focus on my new favorite musical…The Greatest Showman, but before I get into the videos, I would like to vent about a really upsetting incident I experienced earlier this year, at my day job, while trying to teach one of the songs from this show to my students to sing as a graduation song. Well, if you have read my previous blogs, you already know that I teach students with disabilities. All the students in my school are on different levels of the spectrum. Not all of them can sing on key, but some can sing, and sing well. It might not sound like some students can sing at all when they first attempt to sing a song, but the more they hear and practice it, the better they get, to the point where they are singing it without going off pitch. There are so many different types of students with varying abilities when it comes to singing.

        Anyway, the song I wanted to teach them is A million dreams from the greatest showman. I had a karaoke track. I edited the words a little bit to make it sound more like a graduation song. In the actual song the woman comes in and says, “However big however small, let me be part of it all, share your dreams with me”, but that didn’t make sense in a graduation song, so I changed it to, “However big however small, let me be part of it all, every dream in me. I may be right I may be wrong, I’ll find my where I belong, to the world I see…etc. Anyway, I teach the song for about 3 days, and the kids are picking it up well. They are excited to come to the rehearsal every day. The entire school comes down to the auditorium to learn the song. One kid who is often in trouble is asking everyday if he can sing on the mic, because he is one of the strongest singers we have. He has a good voice, but he doesn’t always remember the words. Sometimes he will start singing what he thinks the words are, but they don’t make sense because that’s not what the singer was actually saying. He is in a class with another kid who sings very well too, but they both have problems. The second kid will hit all the notes without issue, but he has a slight speech impediment so sometimes it takes a while of practicing before he is understandable. He has a lisp. The kid who is always in trouble often gets in trouble for picking on him. Both kids are obsessed with Michael Jackson videos and like to sing and dance along if I put one up on the smart board. It’s probably the only time they get along, when they are dancing to the Michael Jackson experience.  When there is an assembly, I’d usually have them sing together because if one of them starts mumbling the other one will usually be understandable enough where they don’t sound, so bad. They were in the 5th grade at my school, and they were in the class of a teacher who is very negative.

      I taught them carol of the bells for the Christmas assembly, and when I started teaching them, I had them sing it for her, their teacher was like, “Oh that sounds horrible. I can’t even understand what he’s saying. Don’t you think…they should be learning something that sounds more like music they would listen to?” I was pissed, because she’s making these comments right in front of them like they can’t even hear her. I knew that at times they sounded like they were mumbling, but I knew that if we just kept practicing the words would eventually stick and they would get better.  I also thought though that she might have a point about the genre. They might want to sing something that sounds a little cooler. They both have nice boy soprano voices though, and regardless of their teacher’s negativity, I knew they could totally nail Carol of the bells. So, I found a karaoke track on YouTube of carol of the bells with rocking guitar blaring accompaniment. I figured they would feel cooler if it sounded more like a rock n roll track. Well, I have a feeling their teacher complained to the AP because she had the school secretary tell me to change the song not long after that. I had originally attempted to teach carol of the bells to the whole upper grade, but they were not able to pull it off. Most kids couldn’t sing that high, but from that attempt I was able to pick out the children who could. The AP told me to change Carol of the bells with the whole group after listening to a rehearsal in which most of them were just standing there not singing. I think only once did it sound like they could pull it off. but the AP didn’t come on that day. I understood her though and thought that I should probably change the song too because they were not consistent, but I wanted to keep it as the performance for the class with the 2 boys because I knew that they could do it. Anyway, the secretary told me that the AP wants me to change it. At this point we had been making progress with it. I had been teaching it for a few weeks with just that class, so my question was why? First it pissed me off that the AP couldn’t come to me to talk about it. Instead she sends the secretary to tell me to stop. The kids started really liking the song and feeling good about themselves because I was telling them they sounded really good, and I wasn’t just saying that. They were. The day they told me to change the song with them the AP wasn’t even there I had to wait until the next morning to ask her why. So I find her in the office the next day and I’m like. I heard you want me to stop teaching them the song, why? She was like I already told you to stop teaching that song. I said, you told me to change the song with the whole upper grade. I did, we decided to sing Mariah Carey’s Santa Claus is coming to town instead…but you never told me I couldn’t continue teaching it to a class I thought could pull it off. Then she was like, I was walking by the class the other day and I heard it. It sounded horrible. I realized what she was listening to the other day though. She was walking the halls during the period when the kids are waiting for their busses. I was placed in that room that day because the regular teacher was absent, and I saw that one of the kids in that bussing room was one of the kids I was teaching the song to. So, I put on the track, and I started singing it with him. She walks by in the hall and gets it in her head that I’m planning to put myself in the act at the assembly and sing over all the students in a high soprano boy voice, while I was just being silly and trying to make the kids waiting for their busses laugh. I told her it was just me and the one kid singing, and she hadn’t heard them all singing it as a group, and then I asked her to listen to them rehearse, because they are sounding good, and they can pull it off. Then she was like, you should choose a song everyone can sing. I looked at her and I said, there is no song everyone can sing because not everyone can sing. Some students are tone deaf. It doesn’t matter what song you pick they will never sing on key. I have a few students in that class so I was going to teach one of them how to play some simple silver bells accompaniment on the keyboard along with the track that would be playing, and then another kid was in the class who had a decent voice but he always misbehaved and I didn’t trust him on stage, so he always sat out of the rehearsals. She agreed to see the students rehearse on their recess period. So, I told them, listen the teachers don’t think you can pull this song off. I know that you can. So, I want you to try to sing the words as clear as you can when she comes in here to listen to you. The AP came, and the students sang, and she commented that the student without the lisp sounded good, which irked me because the kid with the lisp sounded good too. Then she was like and you’ll give the other kids instruments? I was like yeah keyboards and bells…She let us continue with the song and we/they did well. Their teach threw a wrench into the performance though when she insisted that the boy who always sat out at rehearsal join them on stage. They started singing the song they had practiced so hard, and he started wigging out and breakdancing. The audience started laughing and then the little bully with the nice voice got angry and started screaming, It’s NOT FUNNY! Aside from that it went very well. I would post the video clip, but the kids parents would probably find it and sue me, so I’ll just leave it to your imaginations. So, going back to the graduation song. I teach the song for 2 days. The students seem to be picking it up nicely. The lower grade joins the upper grade and there are many higher functioning students in the lower grades who can sing. I think it’s going very well and then one day two of the lower grade classes don’t come down for rehearsal. I hear that the AP is observing their teachers, so they stayed upstairs. Well those two classes hold the majority of the verbal kids in the school. My one upper grade class with the Carol of the bells singers is the only upper grade class that has voices that can sing, and their teacher often made one of the 2 kids sit out from singing the song because of his behavior. So, I am trying my best to teach the song to the students who are left. I have the one well behaved kid who sings on the microphone and I am on mic singing with everyone, not because I am planning to star in the graduation ceremony, but because they need to hear someone sing the song on key many times to learn it, and it doesn’t make sense to play the song for them when I changed some of the words. So, I’m doing my best, when the AP shows up in the back of the room. She stays there for a while and then leaves. Then I suddenly start hearing roomers from teachers that they are changing the song. I’m like not this $&#+ again. All the kids like the song. I went out of my way to change the words. Why the F&!$ are they changing the songs? Then one of the teachers who had been helping me sing it told me he caught Ms. Beachazz, on the phone. Ms. Beachazz, is the name I’m giving the negative teacher from the Carol of the bells episode. Well, Ms. Beachazz he overhears saying to someone, “Yeah, so maybe we’re going to have to change the song.” I think she called the AP down to listen to the song. So rumor is spreading, and it’s not until the following that I get an email saying, to change the song to something simpler. Something that is repetitive, and easy for everyone to pick up. They want to change the song because it has the word crazy in it. “They can say they can say it all sounds crazy, they can say they can say we lost our minds, I don’t care I don’t care so call me crazy. We can live in a world that we design.” The speech teacher comes to me the day before like, do you really think that’s appropriate for them to sing? I’m like why the hell not? The song is saying you may think I’m crazy for believing in my dreams, but I don’t care because I’m going to live in the world that I create. I mean she knows what the damn song means, she’s the speech teacher, but her words were echoed in the AP’s email. She was like students parent who speak English as a second language may not understand the context. They might hear the word crazy and be like, “Who is calling my child crazy!?” So not only do they think the students are stupid because they want them to sing a simple repetitive song, but they think their parent are stupid, and are going to make a scene at graduation when they hear the word crazy. I told her. You came and you stood in the back of the auditorium to listen to kids that were facing the front. The majority of kids which do not speak, because the majority of kids who sound good singing were upstairs, since you had just finished observing them. She came in and heard me singing with that other boy again, and thought. This sounds…Hoooooorrible. Armstrong is trying to be the star of graduation. Nobody can sing this. I told her. I can alter the words and take the words crazy out. I really believe that these kids can pull this song off very nicely. Please reconsider and listen to the song again when more of the verbal kids are present. She did not want to hear it. I refused to teach a song after that. At least for a few days. The music teacher started panicking because she can’t do it. She almost started crying asking me to help her, and I was like fine. Then she suggested we sing we are the World, which I remember singing when I was in like kindergarten or something. The music teacher is an older woman. She’s a very sweet lady, but she doesn’t think much of the kids abilities either. Before we are the world she suggested the song, you got a friend in me. I was like for a graduation song? What kind of message does that express? You’re my friend? That to me just sounds like you think they are too slow to sing a deeper message, which is ridiculous. Even if students can’t read, music is something that people will memorize if they hear it long enough and keep trying, it will stick. Not everybody though. We wound up singing we are the world with altered lyrics. There are people dying doesn’t really have a place in a graduation ceremony. Anyway, it was really frigging annoying. The AP did tell me that she would be open to me teaching a class the song for an assembly next year, she just thought they needed more time. She doesn’t know what the hell she is talking about, because she has no training in music, and who made her Simon Cowell in the first place. I blame Ms. Beachazz for that, and Ms. Speech. I’m sure they both played a part in complaining to her. It was really messed up. The kids were like, but why are we changing the song? And I was like…because they think you’re too stupid to sing this. Okay I didn’t say that to them, but in all honestly, that’s what they thought, and it really pissed me off. Now on to the videos.

Below is another song I would like to do with a class for an assembly, but I know people would object to it. They don’t want to remind the parents that their kids are different. This song is about being proud of who you are. 

       And now for a rambling side note, about people with disabilities. I don’t know what your religious or spiritual beliefs are, and I don’t care. You can believe whatever you want, but this is my blog and you’re here, so you’re going to hear what I believe. I’m not very strict when it comes to religion. I don’t go to church every Sunday, I don’t even really say prayers anymore. I was raised and grew up praying before every meal and before bed. Anyway I’m getting off the point of what I wanted to say, which is this….I know sometimes parents have children that are born with disabilities, and they wonder why? Why is my son or daughter not perfect? Why is God punishing me? If they even believe if God that is. If you are one of these parents, I’d like to share with you something my wife read  in a Japanese book a very famous psychic Japanese guy wrote. He said that people with disabilities have higher developed souls than we normal people do, because they come down only to teach and help their caregivers who have lessons to learn about how to love unconditionally, or how to lose their own ego and be there for others. It may seem like they can’t learn only because they have nothing left to learn. They are here to teach. By taking care of someone who is nearly helpless, you can learn how to give unconditionally love to another human being. So, don’t curse the experience. Don’t be angry. Know that everything happens for a reason, and that this child’s soul came to teach you, and if you keep thinking he’s too slow to sing anything other than one verse of a song repeated, over and over again, then you’re not making any improvement on yourself.  If you believe in somebody and encourage them, you’ll find out exactly what they are capable of, and It’s often a lot more than most people may think.

I was a little off pitch on this one. I’m not a woman, so…yeah those high notes are a stretch. That’s not going to stop me from singing this song.

This is the next song I’m going to teach the boy sopranos just to piss everybody off. HAHAHA!

NerdSpork's Karaoke Corner Post 2

Hello again, and welcome to the 2nd post ever of the Nerdspork’s Karaoke corner for Theater nerds!!! Well, we had big plans for this installment. We wanted to do a Dr. Horrible's blah blah blog, in which I re-enact many of the songs from the show with various smuleans, but I've been so busy rehearsing for my theater company's next performance. Yes I have a theater company check us out. I don't have enough time to sit down and practice all the Dr. Horrible songs as much as I'd like. I only got one down so far but we are going to leave that blog for another time. However, I didn't want to leave this blog page karaokeless for too long so in the spirit of tantalizing you theater nerds with something...I figured I'd let you know what musical tasks I've been up to in my personal life.

Well, I'm a gym teacher by day. Though I graduated with a theater degree...go figure. The music teacher at my school knowing this has been giving me about half the classes to work with when it comes to assembly time. The spring assembly at my school is coming up. I work at a special needs school. All the students are autistic on different functioning levels. Well, it was my job at one point to go around and check in with everybody to see what kind of song, dance, performance etc. they had planned for this assembly event. One class at my school... probably one of the 2 lowest functioning classes had not yet decided what they would do. It's kind of hard for them to put on any type of performance because most of the students are in wheelchairs and can't even speak let alone sing. So I met with them to brainstorm ideas for spring songs. The teacher was like, "I wish we could do, It's Getting Hot in Here by Nelly." Everybody laughed at the inappropriateness…

I know most of you guys are theater nerds, and you might only have a vague recollection of what the real song sounds like because lets be honest many of us are too busy listening to Hamilton and Sunset Boulevard...Etc. So just to give you a loose reminder of what the actual song sounds like here is a guy named theaterthomas doing his rendition with OV8_Pam...a woman with very nice hair. Be warned explicit lyrics ahead, and various images that might cause spontaneous blindness...You have been warned.

So, inappropriate for kids right?….and then I said...Well...we could do it, if we changed the words. Then she was like but who would do that? Of course the music nerd in me was up for the challenge, and I wound up rewriting all the lyrics to the song, and using smule to make the track that we would use at the assembly...and now I would like to share that finish track with you. Sorry no video with this one, but while you listen to it picture teachers fanning students in wheelchairs and working together to get them out of their winter coats. Spring is here my friends...Enjoy.

Hmmm What else have I been up to on smule? Ah yes. I was cast to sing Mr. Mushnik's songs with a group that wanted to sing all the songs from little shop of horrors and put them on youtube or where ever. I'm familiar with the show. I had played Seymour in a college production when I was 17...The Smule group's leader kind of went MIA and we only wound up recording skid row before we disbanded, but the guy who was cast as the dentist invited me to join his group which was called...the man cave...in which men dress in tank tops or other manly apparel and sing manly songs on video together. It was..quite the spectacle. We recorded one song together and then they decided to invite women and now the place is just called the cave...but everyone loves our Super Manly rendition of eye of the tiger. This has nothing to do with theater...but you'll love it anyways...

Oh and here is the the skid row track if you wanted to hear how that turned out. Sorry no video here...

With spring being upon us it is time to say goodbye to what we love about the winter..specifically Christmas...and let’s do that with a little game I like to call...WHO SANG IT BETTER? Now this is a fun little competition in which two groups will compete by singing the same song. You will vote on which group gave the best performance. How do you vote? Comment below and let us know who sang it better!

And now...the obviously superior video...but don't let me sway your vote...

Okay folks that's all for this blogs installment. But before I go I will give you a small taste of what's to come in the next one..which will be Dr. Horrible's blah blah blog...

Enjoy!