Thursday, March 09, 2006

masculine voices

it's strange that the voices i love most are male. after all, i was practically raised on my mother's sweet mezzo soprano. she sang the old chinese classics almost every day and my childhood is not complete without her voice lingering in the background.

my father sang too, although his contributions to my musical background are mostly gruff renditions of hokkien songs. a favourite story in my family is the tale of how my sister couldn't stop crying one day and, out of frustration, my father launched into song, startling my sister so much that she promptly stopped wailing.

to be fair, my father has never gone out of tune whenever he sings. i am ever grateful for the fact that both my parents are not tone-deaf. thank God!

however, i am more fascinated with the male voice than the voices of the great divas of the world. if i were ever to do a meme listing out my favourite voices, the top 5 would all be male. i can stand to listen to an entire pavarotti concert but never will i be able to endure dame kiri te kanawa. no, never.

and i can even remember the first time i've ever heard josh groban sing. it was late one night when my parents were out and i was the only one at home. i sat at the dinner table, revising biology, and the telly was tuned to mtv. suddenly i heard the most heavenly voice sing "who can say for certain? maybe you're still here" and i immediately left the table to take a look at the man with that divine voice.

for the duration of the song, i was lifted off my feet. i remember feeling a little disorientated when the song ended, but i managed to keep my head on long enough to write down the title of the song. it's still there in my book. "to where you are" - josh groban. *note: download it tonight!

watching the boys sing on american idol tonight made me think about the other male voices i love. frank sinatra, elvis presley, paul mccartney, steven tyler, sting, clay aiken, harry connick, jr...

i love harry connick, jr. i first heard him on the soundtrack to "when harry met sally". that soundtrack kept me company throughout my study sessions in my college library. i remember wondering, "how the hell i could have missed this guy?" he plays brilliant piano and sings brilliant songs. how the hell could i have missed this guy? i've been an ardent fan since. it was heartbreaking to realise that i simply could not afford the RM210 needed to purchase a ticket to his concert in kl.

anyway, there isn't much point to this post. it's ridiculous that i am blogging so much and have been blogging so much since my move to blogspot. i guess the fear of losing yet another blog has somehow driven me to type out my thoughts as fast as they come.

having said that...i really hope a male contestant wins american idol this season!

lishun at 10:41 PM

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