Fortnight of Song Musical Karaoke Blog Party Entires

“June is busting out all over!”

Hey, guys! While today is the last day in Katherine and Grace’s Fortnight of Song Musical Karaoke Blog Party, I am in my usual fashion of showing up and participating at the last moment! I did have a post answering their tag questions a few days ago, but this is what you’ve all been waiting for...

The chance to hear my voice.

Oh the horror!

You also will get to hear the voices of my two sisters because I dragged them into this with me. We’re all in this together. 

Fiona when I asked if she wanted to join.

When the Maidens first were throwing around ideas for this party we didn’t know if we’d all be together at the time, but the timing worked out perfectly! Fiona and I were even able to convince Em to do a solo!

Em: "Wait, aren't you guys going to do solos, too?"

The answer Fiona and I gave her.

Quick disclaimer: I am by no means a professional singer. This is purely for fun! I actually know almost nothing about music. Think of me as Professor Harold Hill. Fiona is the only one of us to have taken voice lessons so we just depended on her to guide us through all five songs. Which involved a lot of "tongue exercises".

Exactly. This is how I felt the whole time.

Wait, we’re doing FIVE WHOLE SONGS? Oh yeah, we are!

To be honest with you all, showing my voice is almost scarier than showing my face (sorry, that's not happening today. You just get to see the audio tracks). I have always had a hard time talking. I have to focus to talk in a way that is understandable and people often ask if I’m British because they say I have a kind of accent (which used to offend me but now I just think is hilarious.). I fully admit that I have a weird voice. Which helps me figure out when people are trying to do an American accent and it isn’t at first noticeable. Sorry, Tom Holland and Charlie Gillespie, you did well but I could find your British and Canadian coming through even though I didn’t know what it was at the time.

Back to singing. I live with a very musical family, but singing never was my thing. It hurt (probably because I was doing it wrong!) and I wasn’t attached to it, but at the same time rather sensitive about it. A few years ago I realized that any singing should be fun and I’ve been super chill ever since.

I learned a lot through this singing experience! Apparently if I can’t hear myself singing then I don’t speak actual words. Instead I just say random things, haha! For example, a practice song was “The Other  

Side” from The Greatest Showman (we decided not to do it in the long run, but it still helped.) I had headphones on so I could only hear the original version and instead of “King of conventional” I said “King of conventionable” and “You run with me and I will cut you free” I said, “You run with me and I will cut you three”. We haven’t been able to stop laughing over that. It’s funny, people have always said the Em and I have very similar voices and we have always scoffed at that. We couldn’t be further apart. Well, we both realized that there is some truth to that listening to these recordings!

Enough chit chat! Let’s hear these!

(There are some spoilers for the musical in question for some of the following song. I will warn you at each one IF there are spoilers present. Don’t listen to the song or read my explanation if you haven’t seen/heard the musical, please! I’m going to give a quick run through of what has lead up to that song just in case it’s been awhile since you’ve seen it.)

(Also, if for some reason the videos don’t work please let me know! We have gone through a lot of different methods and this seemed the best.)

“Life’s a Happy Song” from The Muppets (2011):

(No spoilers here)

This song opens up the movie, so you don’t need any insider information to know what’s happening. Gary and his brother Walter are going to Los Angeles with Gary’s girlfriend. (We cut her part out because there is some much talking involved).

I’m Gary and various voices. Fiona’s Walter and various voices. Em is various voices.

When picking songs we all decided to not do anything from a movie or musical that all three of us hadn’t seen. We broke that rule right away because Fiona and I haven’t seen this movie, only Em. Have you made you want to watch it? Fiona and I now do!

“I Can’t Stop Singing” from Teen Beach Movie (2013):

(Mild spoilers. This song happens about halfway through the movie)

Fiona and I talked a lot about this movie in the last post. Two teens, Mack and Brady, get stuck in a 60s beach movie called Wet Side Story. They have now messed up the story because the main characters are supposed to fall in love with each other, but now Tanner loves Mack and Lela loves Brady. They find that they are changing the movie and are bound to break out in song at any moment. This movie really expresses how I feel towards musicals because sometimes I’m Brady and love everything about it, and sometimes I’m Mack and think it’s annoying (“It’s just a song! An insignificant way to move the story  

along!”).

I’m Brady and Fiona is Mack.

Em says (even though she didn't sing it) that this is one of the hardest songs because it has a weird key. I have no idea what key means. Or notes for that matter...

Saying “I Can’t Stop” made me keep breaking out into singing Morph by twenty one pilots (and freaking out my sisters) while there where happier songs thrown around, too, like “Can’t Stop the Feeling”.

It also provoked a lot of yelling of "Make it stop!" because we were tired of this song.

“Tightrope” from The Greatest Showman (2017):

(Mild spoilers. This song happens about 3/4 through the movie.)

Charity Barnum is afraid that she is losing her husband to ambition and all his endeavors. She sings this song to say to herself how she’ll never stop loving him and doesn’t want life to be calm, but anything is fine if they are together.

Em is Charity.

Em says that in her opinion this is the most underrated song of the whole movie. Fiona and I argue that “Come Alive” is. What do you guys think?

“No One is Alone” from Into the Woods (2014):

(Spoilers! This is one of the last songs in the musical!)

Fairy tales intertwine and happen at the same time in the woods! This song occurs when everything seems darkest. A giant is wreaking havoc while in revenge searching for the boy, Jack, who killed her husband. Our remaining heroes have found a way to stop the destruction, but anger, fear, and sadness are still present. The Baker and Cinderella sing this encouragement to Jack and Little Red Riding Hood.

Em is Cinderella and Fiona is the Baker. As you can see from the video, they filmed this when I wasn’t there and then realized that I had to be Jack and Little Red Riding Hood, so we had to edit that in.

This is one of my favorite songs ever! I love it tremendously. One time during filming Fiona said “alone” with a British accent and then Em and her kept joking about Enola Holmes. If you know, you know.

“Days in the Sun” from Beauty and the Beast (2017):

(Mild spoilers. This happens about 3/4 of the way through the movie)

All three of us are huge fans of the live-action Beauty and the Beast and part of the reason is all of the amazing new songs! It has just been revealed to Belle that the Beast used to be a kind a person when  

he was a little boy, but ever since his mother died his father brought him up to be cruel like him

We were crazy and chose an ensemble song. I know.

Fiona is young Beast, Cadenza, and Belle. Em is Plumette and Madame de Garderobe. I am Lumiére and Mrs. Potts. Disclaimer is that we were all trying to sound like how the people sound in the movie so it provided some funny results. Let’s just say that Ewan McGregor’s magnificent voice is a lot to live up to and I didn’t do that well in my impression of him...

The karaoke track that we could find for this had people singing in the background near the end, but we did our best to drown them out.

Apparently when singing I sometimes close my eyes and start whispering which, as you can imagine, does not show up well on the recording. Em and Fiona were singing “Eyes Wide Open” by Sabrina Carpenter to remind me not to do that, haha!

Please, hold your applause.

There you have it! You have now heard what we all sound like. Different from what you expected? Do you think that we sound alike? Have you guys heard any of these songs? 

Thanks to Katherine and Grace for hosting! Check out other singing HERE! Have you ever tried ensemble songs with three people?  Thanks for making it through this post!

MovieCritic (+ sisters)