By Ruiming Zhang
When I was 17 years old, I felt desperate because of school violence; I suffered from bipolar disorder and anxiety. I felt sad every day, thinking about bad things, and asking myself what I had done wrong. I didn’t even want to go to school, because I was afraid of encountering those abusers. I did not go out on weekends, I just trapped myself in my small bedroom. I had no friends or family members with me.
One day, I came across “Bad Day” while watching YouTube; just from listening to the warm melody and the lyric “You had a bad day,” I shed tears. Every day after that, I played this song in a loop. I kept watching this song’s music video. In the beginning, the boy and the girl in it live the same repetitive lives as separate individuals every day, boring or even bad. But gradually they met each other, from two sad people to a happy couple. I thought, am I also in the first half of this song’s story? Living an unhappy life? Maybe it’s just that the happy ending of the second half hasn’t come to me yet, but it will come eventually. I felt that I was gradually reconciling with myself and no longer forced myself to question myself. This song gave me great courage and hope to face reality. “Yeah, I just had a bad day, but it doesn’t matter, everything will be fine,” I think like this every time I hear this song. From then on, I, who never used to listen to music before, fell in love with listening to music. Music healed my soul.
When I knew that this project needed me to sing in public, I was very anxious and nervous. I was hesitant to determine the song, but in the end, I chose the song “Bad Day” which brought me courage before. Although I needed some time in the beginning, I believe I can overcome this fear. I’m a very shy person, so I’m always worrying about how to perform. I never sing in front of others, because I am afraid of other people ridiculing me since I am tone-deaf. This project is a big challenge for me. I think the group project is a good “warm-up,” which has given me a lot of help. When our group assigned roles, I was actually very uneasy about whether I would be responsible for singing. However, my group member Seughun took the initiative to ask for this singing role, and I thought he was very powerful and courageous at the time. I was very surprised by Seughun’s beautiful singing voice and confident attitude. In the Jul. 15 class, I heard a lot of performances from my classmates. In fact, not every performance is perfect, even some out of tune, but they all sing out loud with confidence. I would never laugh at them because of their little mistakes. Instead, I think they are very courageous because they have done things that I dared not try. I started to feel that singing in public is actually not that hard, as long as I am confident no one will ridicule me. I started to practice singing after class. I think the feeling of the music is very wonderful, and I like people who sing to me. I can feel their mood and heart. At the same time, it also narrowed our distance.
I think the best way to overcome fear is to prepare well in advance. After I started practicing, I found that it was always difficult for me to sing to the rhythm of the music. I first practiced the lyrics part individually and pronounced the pronunciation of each word correctly. But if I want to read every word clearly when singing, I cannot keep up with the rhythm. I asked my music major friend for advice on singing skills, recorded my song, and called her in Jul. 16 for her advice. She said she thought I needed more practice. Because this is an English song, there are some singing skills that are different from Chinese songs. There will be swallowed sounds. For example, in “You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind,” the pronunciation of “you” is very short. Also, “turn it around” does not need to be read clearly, but like “turn-it-around.” As an international student, I need to spend more time on the lyrics skills. But fortunately, this is a small problem that can be solved through practice. After solving this problem, I also have more sense of accomplishment. I felt I can solve any problem if I decided to do it. At the same time, she gave me a method that she usually practiced: she told me that I could record when I sang. In this way, when listening from the perspective of an audience, I will find my own weaknesses. It helps me a lot. I first practiced my intonation with the music video. After practicing for three days, I started to sing independently using the Karaoke version.
The tone of this song is more consistent with my voice, not very high or very low. It’s not a problem for my voice to sing some high-pitched and medium-pitched ones. Due to this, I have more confidence in singing this song.
When recording songs, I still hesitated, because I have a roommate and I have never sung in public. This is a very big challenge for me. I recorded it a few times and deleted it because my voice was low. Later, I decided to overcome this psychology. My roommate and I told me that I was going to record a song, but he said that he actually heard my practice, but my voice is very nice. His words gave me a lot of courage and finally made me brave to perform.
When I was editing the video, I chose different filters to help me convey the changes in my mood. At the beginning, when describing the trough in the lyrics, I used the black and white filter to express the feeling of despair and sadness. Later, when I sang “Cause you had a bad day”, I started to use bright filters to express my mood and become cheerful.
I am very proud of my performance. Music can always bring me back to my previous memories. I haven’t listened to this song for two years, but when I listened to it again, my situation, my mood when I was listening to the song, and the scene of being alone in my small bedroom emerged. When I sang, I kept thinking about the memories of the past and the time I spent. I am very happy and blessed now, just as in the lyrics, I just had a bad day. If I didn’t stick to it at the time, how could I feel this beautiful life now? I want to convey through this song that we should have expectations for life and bring warmth to those who are experiencing despair-just like me at the time. I may not be a perfect singer, but I am a hardworking and confident singer.
