Saturday, December 29, 2007

an actual recording of me singing lead

Firstly, let me start off by saying that I have no dreams of being a singer or even a musician. I did the music thing and I quickly realized that I am not gifted enough to make it. I'm okay, low-level good but not amazing by any means. As a drummer, I know that I get away with A LOT because I'm a girl. I get away with even more because I'm a tiny girl that actually gets a decent amount of volume out of my kit. My strength is that I have good timing but that’s where it stops. As a singer, I'm sub par. I have a nice, some might say pretty voice, but I don't stand out. This sounds like I'm bashing myself or maybe this sounds like I'm fishing for compliments. It's neither. I'm okay with all of this. God has given me enough ability that I've been able to have a lot of fun with music, but my legacy will never be in music. It will be in poker. That's a lie. I don't know how to play poker.

Anyways. Once I moved to Nashville I figured that I would never be doing music again. Again, I'm not trying to make it, but in IL I've gotten to be the token girl background singer on a couple of friends’ projects and I’ve missed not doing that. Honestly I don't care if anyone ever gets to hear anything that I do, I just love singing backgrounds. I love hearing how much a song can change by what I sing or how I sing it. I love trying to match my voice to sound like the person I'm singing with. I've been the background vocalist for so long that I don't even really know what my voice sounds like. I've sang lead for a couple friends' songs, but they told me pretty much how to sing and I did what I was told.

My friend Robin Ghosh (who is an incredible producer and engineer) has told me several times that he likes my tone. He arrived at this conclusion after standing next to me in church during worship and hearing me sing a bit in small group. Because he's been so complimentary and I don’t feel like he’s going to belittle my voice, I asked him to record me doing How Deep the Father's Love for a Christmas present for my parents. I also asked him to play classical guitar on it because he is a sick classical guitar player.

So he did all of this and more. I recorded the song and hit notes that I didn't think I could hit because he was confident that I do it (they're not high...I just don't have a huge range), my friend Michelle Thompson who has an amazing voice came in and sang BGVs, Rob had a Cellist come in and play (Rob wrote the parts), Rob recorded keys and guitar, and he also managed to have one of Nashville's top session drummers come in and play percussion.

The reason I chose this song is because I knew that I was able to sing it. Like I said, I don't sing lead very often so I'm still becoming aware of what I'm able to do. That's not the only reason I picked it though. I love old hymns and I love that this song is written in that style. I think that hymns are much deeper than modern worship songs and this particular song I love the lyrics to. I sang this song on Easter Sunday at the Warehouse Church in IL 3 days before I moved to Nashville and the day after I totaled my car. There's a lot tied up in this song for me.

Ok so this is a really long explanation. A few of you have asked to hear this so I thought I would post it. I hope that you enjoy it.

Rob, thank you so much for doing this for me. My parent's loved it. My mom cried like you hoped. You are an amazing friend and I know that you're going to great things. Thanks for being in my life.

http://www.mediamax.com/erinlee/Links/FD37BE3F1A

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

simply beautiful. I love your voice.

(and that really means a lot because I don't usually like female vocals too much).

hearing you sing always reminds me of cstone...it makes me wish I could see you!

tim