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you’re natalie goodman and learning how to drive. your mom is teaching you because she’s in one of her more hyper moods and either your dad isn’t home or is encouraging it because “this means she’s getting better this time i just know it nat!” so you’re in the car with your nerves wrecked as she’s teaching you to park because she hasn’t driven in years and all of a sudden you hear a squelching sound and as you both get out of the car you discover you drove over your family cat

and for some reason your mom takes a picture of this moment

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Um, actually everything about this.

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i kissed the brick before i threw it dw

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Kindness is my second language, please forgive me.

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Hi Flans! I’ve been wondering, you’ve got an extremely impressive vocal range, falsetto and all; did this always come somewhat naturally for you, or was there a concerted effort to train your voice to hit all those notes? Especially the higher ones; I’m still new to having a deeper voice, and it’s been disconcerting not being able to sing as high as I used to… Thanks for your time as always!

JF: I... I... I feel a little anxiety about this. First thank you for the compliment. I do appreciate it. For many years I was really frustrated by the shortcomings of my singing voice, and because I wasn't interested in singing with a traditionally "trained" style, it became a big challenge figuring out how to improve. And very very late in my professional life-like 20 years in I started having breakthroughs and found a much more consistent way to perform.

I tried going to a pretty traditional pair of coaches in the mid-90s (they were a couple) but I realize in retrospect they were really only capable of training Broadway people to belt and opera singers to maximize their projection which was an aesthetic I didn't really relate to. They couldn't address my big issues in a head on way (basically singing flat, scooping up to notes in a goofy, amateurish way, difficulty hitting smaller intervals precisely, and, the big one-- losing my voice). Why couldn't they help me? Because they couldn't really give me the tools in an efficient way (recording vocal lessons was a real-time disaster with just fragments of useful stuff to review--After a year I realized I would have had to go to daily lessons to really get anywhere, and I could barely afford it once a week.)

I really started addressing things in a successful way post-2000, going to a coach who gave me some really simple but informed moves in a more natural way, and using YouTube instruction to do warm ups in a systematic way.

This is my take, and I am sure other people might disagree or are just more naturally good at this than me, but I found there was something a little basic about how to improve my voice--dedicating a half hour every day and just putting in the time with YouTube videos. I wish it was more fun! But if you drill basic stuff all the time you'll find some stuff coming together in months, and some bigger stuff coming together in a year or two. But just living in the world of always singing was really my path to basic improvement. It also helped me hold on to my voice, and through weirder conditions. (I actually capture the audio from my favorite clips and have a playlist on my phone so I can practice almost anywhere)

Finding a 15 minute warm up of scales and arpeggios, and then add in videos of intervals small and large (very helpful for flexibility) I bet you will find you sing more consistently in tune and expand your range in an organic way. I even dream of being able to sing riffs/runs but, man, it does not come naturally to me!

One series of warm ups I can easily recommend is Jeff Rolka. He has tons of videos for all different kinds of voices (and as a tenor, dipping in to baritone and alto warm ups is a great way to expand your range without public embarrassment!) And his interval and chromatic videos are super-useful for focusing up on pitchiness.

I have even sent money to him in the past just because I lean on his stuff so much. I even requested a small interval video and he made one! (I should probably PayPal him some more dough--he has a solid library now. Very useful!)

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i may be just a little salty about this

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comm for @/pappertoot 

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(x) (x)

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I cannot stop thinking about Episode 5 of TADC because Ragatha is, however unintentionally, one of the best examples of how isolating and difficult it is to interact with the world as an autistic person I have ever seen. To the point it genuinely makes me sad to think about her. I need to make a post expanding on this at some point but rn just. The way everyone assumes there’s some sinister hidden meaning to everything she does and says but she’s literally just trying to be nice and she doesn’t understand why it’s not working. The way she tries so hard to make connections but it constantly falls flat, she says things that hurt without realising how or why. She follows the rules she’s been taught will make her friends — she’s kind, she’s forgiving, she’s accepting and apologetic when she messes up, but for some reason it’s just not working. She tries to mimic other people, she tries to laugh at past experiences, tries to open up about her past like everyone else is doing, but now everyone’s uncomfortable and looking at her like she’s crazy and she doesn’t get it!! She doesn’t get it!!! Jax is a jerk and he’s mean to everyone but for some reason Pomni likes him and she doesn’t get it, she doesn’t understand! Pomni tells her it’s okay to be a jerk sometimes but Ragatha doesn’t like being mean, she wants to be nice to people, but she does it anyway, she gets mean like Jax and Zooble do but now Pomni’s looking at her like she’s done something wrong but she just did what she asked her to!! She doesn’t get it!! At the end of the episode everyone goes off into their groups and Ragatha is left alone, after having tried so hard to make friends and fit in and make people like her, she’s still alone, and everyone thinks she’s weird and unapproachable and she just has to give up and accept that she is inherently unloveable. Her evil alter ego tells her she’s going to die alone and nobody loves her and the only thing she corrects her on is the fact that they can’t die here. The few that might like her when she’s around don’t miss her when she’s gone, because there’s nothing to miss. Ragatha has spent her whole life systematically stripping away everything that makes her different and unlikeable in order to make herself more palatable to others, and in the process she has made herself a personalitiless blank slate with no unique identity for others to latch onto and appreciate. She has nothing to add to any conversation because she’s too afraid of being disliked to have a memorable personality beyond being generally polite and nice. And just. God. Someone get this girl some noise cancelling headphones and a therapist on speed dial, being this good of a representation of what it’s like to be autistic, especially to be an autistic person with trauma, is not good for the soul. That final shot just destroys me right in the heart. My poor girl.

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intermission time!

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Konstantin Korobov (Russian, 1985) - Sharks (2023)

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One more round?

no text version

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I hope Ragatha gets to crash out even more, it’s so crazy seeing people villainise the shit out of her for yelling at Jax ONCE when the dude threw her in a DEEP FRYER

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they’re like a weird little family to me

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Ladies and gentlemen, the Space Oddity stylings of Mr. John Linnell, featuring the stylophone.

11.18.03