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I already posted this clip on Josh's forum, but I figured I should post it since I've already uploaded it. It is a super short snippet of me singing "Defying Gravity":
http://www.box.net/shared/vokbe41f34 ("After": March 10, 2009)

I need to find time to record something newer.

Thanks, strike123. I really, really appreciate your feedback and your kind words. =) That's a cool observation you made! You're right; I probably acquired that habit from my choir background.

Hi, Dan! Thanks for replying. Some of the BMAs are very good, so I take that as compliment. Thank you. And yes, I did have a high soprano range "before" but not in my full voice at all. Not even close, lol. And this depends on which frame of reference you're referring to. I have two main "before" stages. I have "before" choir (or at the very beginning of choir) back in 2005, and my voice then was horrible. It was nasal, breathy, and very limited in range. Then I had another "before" period from, say, 2006 to early 2008 when I had expanded my upper range, smoothed out my tone, and sounded relatively good in my comfortable range. This was still before I'd developed a mix, though, and it would have been impossible for me to go anywhere near as high as the "Defying Gravity" clip in a full coordination at the time. So, during this second "before" period, I had the high soprano range, but I did not have the ability to take up chest correctly and harness the full power of those notes.

And then, by extension, my after period would be somewhere in January/February 2008 to present, but I've had a lot of phases during all those times as well. And the huge difference between now and a year ago is that my voice is MUCH more consistent. It is actually extremely consistent nowadays, while back then, sometimes I still struggled with constriction and whatnot. I just carefully hide those clips, lol!

strike123 wrote:

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I would post, but I don't think you can tell which is the before, which is the after. I would feel awkward if someone confused the after for the before! : P

That is one of the things I want to avoid the most too, lol! Sometimes on other forums, people say, "You know, I actually like your 'before' clip better," and I just think, "Aah! What would I feel like if I were this person?"

For me, my earliest "before" clips are horrible, so I know that no one would mistake the "before" for the "after." My more recent "before" clips are a lot better, but my mid-range notes (if present at all) clearly lack the finesse and presence of a balanced mix, so again, no one would argue that they're better than my new clips-technique-wise. The one upper hand that some of my old clips might have is that emotion was at the forefront of my old clips; I was careful not to sing everything in the same bold, loud dynamic (especially since I couldn't, lol). Now that I can hit these high notes in a strong mix, though, I am reminded that I should vary my dynamics and not just feel the need to sing full out all the time.

I noticed the lyrical flubs as well. Unfortunately, with a song so revered and well-known, lyrical mistakes can't really fly under the radar, but I know they were unintentional on your part.

As you know, you sang "perilous night" instead of "fight" in the before clip. However, you have a mistake in both the before and after clips: for the lyric, "O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming," you sang "O'er the ramparts we watched, yet, our flag was still streaming" both times, which is very different from the actual lyric, lol.