Musical masochism

I don’t think of myself as a composer by any stretch, and yet here I am fumbling my way through another song. I did some musical theater and glee club (yes, glee club) in my academic years, but that was so long ago I’ve likely lost any pitch and breath control that I might have once enjoyed. Vocal chords are like any other muscle you don’t keep exercising, and my exercise for the past several years has mostly been singing in the shower and/or car where I pray no one is overhearing my gasps and squeaky graspings at octaves I can no longer easily reach, if indeed I ever did.

It’s probably for the best my musical soundtrack CDs were stolen so long ago CDs were still a relevant form of media. Belting out songs from Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables was always something of an exercise in hubris, I’m sure, and infinitely moreso now.

So why, oh why, did I bother recording and uploading this? A capella, on a cheap headset mic in my living room, scratchy-throated during a 2am bout of insomnia? I can’t ascribe that to hubris, so it must be sheer masochism.

Well, that, and this: whenever I would read the lyrics of a song presented in a silent medium, it would be somewhat frustrating. I would try to imagine the tune Tolkien or Alan Moore had in mind and, on those occasions where a tune actually did exist, would find out I was waaaay, waaaay off.

So I sang out the tune in my head, crappy as the effort is, and linked it in the comic blog. So now if there’s anyone out there like me, they at least have something to work with.