Guest Blogger - Sing and Walk the Dog by Drama Queen

This is Chuck!

Drama Queen here.  

Awhile ago, Mom got approached by Chuck Gilmore, the gentleman who runs Sing - a voice lesson studio in Bountiful, Utah.  I am a total music junkie, but not the greatest singer, so when Mom asked who’d like a free lesson, I was the first to volunteer!  The plan was I’d take five of the other kids up to Bountiful this afternoon while Mom went off to do a Tupperware party. What neither of us counted on was the sleety-rain-snow that’s been falling all day.  Maybe you remember my car accident story from earlier this week?  Well, let’s just say if Mom didn’t love driving in that weather, she sure wasn’t thrilled at the thought of sending me through it with all the kids in the back of our big van.  In the end, Dad drove us up along with Curly and Sport in the back seat so that Teach only had Baby Doll to keep an eye on.  

It was quite a drive! But thanks to trance-like songs (that sounded like heavy metal and the Spanish channel had had a baby), most of the kids were asleep before we were too far down the road.  Good thing they were sleeping, because it was crazy!  At one point a police car passed in the lane next to us and threw a whole huge pile of slush across our windshield.  We literally could not see for a heart-stopping 16 seconds while he passed and our poor wipers struggled to keep up.  I am so grateful for my dad’s cool behind the wheel!  

 

We arrived at Bountiful with enough time to drive around the block a couple of times and then Dad dropped off me, Dog Walker, Princess, Prima Donna, Crafty, and Scout.  Chuck’s studio was easy to find, and inside it was warm, bright, and decorated with lots of pictures.  He started off our session by introducing himself, getting our names, and telling us about some of the pictures.  As we talked about some of the plays he had been in, and then plays that each of us had been in, we were all set at ease - well, except for Princess.  Poor Princess was incredibly nervous.  She’s pretty reserved around strangers and said several times that she was scared to come and sing for one.

 
Chuck was great though!  After getting an idea of our ranges, he explained to each of us one main thing we could work on that day.  We went through a few exercises and learned about our chest-voice and head-voice.  To help us work on getting our vocal chords together, he had us sing “Nay-nay-nay” really brattily.  Crafty, Prima Donna, and I were pretty darn good at that part!  Dog Walker, we found out, has a pretty impressive range.  And our whole family has good pitch.  (Well...having and using are two different things, I guess.)  





 
Scout was acting alternately flirty and shy - dancing around, refusing to talk, then giggling a lot, but Chuck worked hard to make sure she was as much involved as she wanted to be, giving her compliments when she joined in the lesson, and even letting her sing into his microphone for a few minutes at the end while he showed us a video about vocal chords.  (The video totally grossed Princess out, but I thought it was cool!) Scout also functioned as our expert photographer for the night, snapping lots of shots of us all singing.  

 The last part of lesson was my very favorite.  He asked us what was a song we all knew and liked to sing. The other kids hemmed and hawed a bit, but I knew exactly what to say, “Walking the Dog by Fun.”  Baby Doll is OBSESSED with that song.  She will come up to anyone on the computers and repeatedly ask them to play the “nah-nah” song.  And if you don’t?  She yells at you.  She cries.  She goes and finds someone on a different computer to play it for her.  We all have that tune down pat.  Chuck went right to Youtube and pulled it up for us.  We had tons of fun singing it and nay-nay-naying to it.  

"Walkin' alone and the night is dead!"

 
Sadly, our time was almost up, but Chuck pushed a button on what he’d said was a recording machine and what do you know but a CD spit out!  He gave it to us so we could go home and listen to our whole session. Of course we played our version of Walking the Dog for Baby Doll and she joined right in!

Sing Voice Studios gets five stars from Drama Queen!


***We were given this fun free family lesson in exchange for an honest review.*** 


Note: Click the vid below to hear the audio of us singing "Walkin' the Dog!"