The Voice

These past two weeks I've been hooked on this new reality TV show called The Voice, it's kinda like American Idol, but a bit different. If you haven't head of it, it is a singing competition. Carson Daly hosts the show and the 'judges' or 'coaches', how they call it, are Adam Levine from Maroon 5, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton (a country singer).

The first two weeks were the 'blind auditions', where the coaches will be sat on chairs turning back to the stage, so that the contestants will be singing to the back of their chairs. When one of coaches hear something they like, they will push a button by the chair and will turn the chair that says 'I want you' at the bottom facing the contestant. Each coach gets to recruit 8 contestants, to train them to become 'The Voice' in the end. If more than one coach push the button, the contestant will decide which coach will be training them.

It is a cool concept that the judges actually judge on the contestants through their voice and not their appearance, like what we see a lot on American Idol. Some people have great voices, but might not be the greatest looking person. While it is true on The Voice that some contestants' appearance might not be the greatest looking person, I feel like almost all contestants have a fair look. The contestants were selected beforehand, based on their singing before they can audition for the show. Now, I am not certain if appearance was a factor that decided who can audition for the show and who cannot. I was hoping to see, maybe, a midget, or someone big, or someone who looks awkward to come on the show, but have a great great voice. Susan Boyle-style, y'know. But no, they are almost all decent looking to very good looking.

I heard one of my fav youtube artists, Brad Doggett auditioned for The Voice, and I go really really excited to see him on TV. Unfortunetly, on the second part of the auditions, there was a time constraint and they didn't show all the contestans singing on stange. I think like in total, counting during the show and previews, I saw Brad for like 2 seconds. Or a second and a half. Just a quick flash of his face. That's it. So, guess unfortunetly Brad didn't pass the auditions =( Which I am very dissapointed, because I think Brad is an amazing singer and music player. He has amazing talent, but it's a shame that none of the coaches could see that. Not counting the fact that there are crazy talent there too!

The blind auditions have passed. Next episode will be, in each team, people will be paired up to sing the same song on the same stage. But one will stay and one will leave. See how's that gonna be.
From team Christina I like: Raquel Castro.
From team Cee Lo I like: Curtis Grimes, Kelsey Rey, Tori & Taylor, and Vicci Martinez.
From team Adam I like: Jeff Jenkins, Javier Colon
From team Blake I like: Patrick Thomas, Xenia, and Elenowen



And in case you were curious about Brad Doggett, here is one of his videos on Youtube:



Check out Brad at 6:06


Yeah there he is, so cuuute!

Dear Ashley (my guitar)

Dear Ashley the guitar,
Sorry I haven't been able to hang out with you more often, thanks to all the school work. Sorry I have abandoned you lately. You are a great friend.

It's been a while since I have played my guitar. In case you didn't know, my guitar is very appreciated by me. I even named it Ashley, named after Ashley Parker, ex-singer from O-town whom I had a crush on when I was younger. I used to watch Making the Band on MTV (plead guilty!). Ashley was gifted a guitar on his bday by a music teacher when he was younger. From then on, he played the guitar. When he auctioned for Making the Band, he broght his guitar and played his own song, instead of just singing a cover like everyone else did. And I can tell that he's really passionate about music and playing the guitar; he made great songs. So I guess I can say that Ashley Parker was my inspiration to start playing my guitar when I was in grade 7.

Now, it's been and on and off relationship between me and my guitar. I started when I was like 13, my mom bought me a guitar from a music place in downtown as a gift for my birthday (or something like that). I have had two music teachers since then. One of them was a Cuban classical guitar player. He was really good, and he taught me great techniques. As a treat for practicing at home, I could bring any song I wanted and I would learn how to play it. Awesome.

Then grade 11 and grade 12 I kinda stopped playing guitar. For one, I really hated that my mom kept pushing and insisting that I should practice the guitar. And I always hated that my mom used to tell me always what to do (I was a rebel, you see). For another reason, I was swamp by school work to do. Lots of exams and studying, and I had no time for practice. So i quit.

When I moved to Canada, I didn't bring it with me because I already had too much stuff to bring. That was the time when I began to miss my guitar. In university I know friends who played the guitar, and they would always be jamming, and in the end of the year there was a Talent show hosted by my college, and I soooo, but soooo wanted to play my guitar so badly.

It wasn't until two summers ago when my dad came visit Canada and help my sister's transition to Canadian university and I told him to bring my guitar back, which he did. Ever since then I have been playing it a lot. Last year I participated in jam nights in residence, and the end of year Talent Show. I played For the Nights I can't Remember by Hedley and Apologize by Timbaland. I forgot the lyrics to the last song, but I recovered from it after a while. It wasn't bad, but I could have done it a lot better.

To this date, one of my biggest wishes is to be GOOD at playing the guitar. Right now im Meh. I know lots of chords, but I don't have good techniques or rhythm. Right now I have a classical guitar, and I'm looking for an actualy acoustic guitar. It's nice sounding, but I guess it feels different. There are so many chords I wanna learn, but they seem to be so difficult, especially those with the index finger on a whole fret. My fingers are short, you see.

This is a video of my playing guitar. Don't laugh. I'm kinda embarrased. Sorry for the bad sound quality.


And my favourite thing about youtube is that I can search for people who play the guitar so well. And what I like the most is when people grab a song - like from any genre like hip hop, electronica, metal, or whatever, and convert them into acoustic. And you know I love acoustic.

My all time favourite guitar player on Youtube is Brad Doggett. He's got crazy covers of like Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Coldplay, John Mayer, Rhianna, Justin Timberlake, Sublime, Outkast, Weezer, Bob Marley, the Beatles....HOLY!!! He's my favourite!! Not counting the fact that he's extremely good looking and has an amazing voice. He also has a lot of singles. Here's my favourite one:


Gawd, I love him!!

In today's world, everybody has talents. We're in an era where everyone plays the guitar. Hope one day I can be labeled as "good guitar player".