A Tale of Two (OK?) Performances

Nearly (or over) a month ago, I participated in not one, but two karaoke or J-Song competitions. In both of those, I performed the same song, which would be "OK!" by Rica Matsumoto. Alas, if I may say so, both of these performances somewhat deviated from what the song title would suggest; in other words, they're not quite so OK. Regardless, I do have to say something about both of them, not the least of which is because I have both of them recorded, with the intent being to critique them. I had planned on doing so separately, but since both performances are related by virtue of them being the same song, I've decided to do it in one post.

As I've noted in my post about this song, this is a "hyped" song since its lyrics are high-energy and the tempo is rather fast. They alone might have been the source of many problems during my performances. I had to put in a significant effort into memorizing the lyrics, in order to make sure I know how to sing all the parts and get the expressions right. It's something that is a challenge when you're not a speaker of the language, but then again even in my choir days I had to do just that. While this had worked out and I had done so prior to the first performance, it was a feat to even just prove that it had already been done.

The first performance was from the Konbini Anime theme event early last month. At that time, after I performed it, I realized that I blanked out or was off on some of the lyrics. When the judges reviewed my performance, they thought that I couldn't keep up with the lyrics, being that the song is rather fast. That could be said to be true to some extent, but I attributed my off performance on my recall of the lyrics. However, after listening to the video of my performance from then, I found out that there was another thing that was off: the very first stanza, which sounded like it was out of tune. So in short, this performance was somewhat regrettable, though it did seem to get better toward the end. The only other good thing was that I was accompanied by (a friend who cosplayed) Psyduck during the performance, but that is wholly unrelated.

"OK!!"

The second performance was from the COSTHNIFEST theme event in the middle of the month. The intent was to see if I could fix my errors from my first performance, and I did, to a good extent. I didn't forget any of the lyrics, and I sung a lot better this time. The only problem, as Brock (a friend of mine) explained, my voice was barely audible over the karaoke backing track. He said that the look of confusion was apparent among the judges - he recorded my performance directly behind them - and they probably couldn't figure out why things went the way they did. On stage I sounded fine, but apparently it wasn't to others. A second recording, made and given to me by my girl fan, affirmed the sound issue for the audience and judges. Personally, I feel "gypped" for being the first one to perform, and I was indeed just that - whoever registered first sung first, and that was the case.

A look of confusion?

Another friend also provided input on my latter performance, the same one that remarked about the ways of the song. The "OK!" parts certainly require high energy to perform, and I confess I may not have had that during the performances. Also, Rica Matsumoto - the singer and Japanese voice of Ash - is really considered the "queen of rock" in Japanese music, so any performance should really stand up to that. In the end, that friend also suggested performing something else that isn't rock music. I can't exactly say that I will heed this advice fully, for after all a part of me is inextricably linked to Ash and Ash is inextricably linked to her (thus explaining why I perform her songs related to Pokémon), but it's a worthy consideration for another competition.

"Aitsura ni aitaiNDA!!"

As for the future of me performing this song, I may be apt to perform it at least once more in the company of really good friends. The "when" and "where" are to be decided later, but this may just work out - that much I can say for now. For actual song competitions, I'd like to venture into other unexplored territory and see if they can beget favorable results. In that sense, I already had done so for this one, except things didn't work out in my favor... at least not yet. But things can and have to turn out "OK!" in the future.

One year ago: Ode to Magikarp
Two years ago: Snorlax's Awakening