Bruno Mars - It Will Rain (Cover by Cynthia Ng)

Cynthia Ng Yi Xyann, the name one always heard in primary school (Penang Chinese Girls' Primary School), owing to her title of the 'flower of the school' (校花), whom I have not been keeping in contact with for 11 years!!! ever since Primary 6, whoolala. We're in the same class for 2 years (4H, 5H) anyway.

I guess after watching my Happy Birthday A Cappella, she intended to do a cover with me when I got back to Penang, and thankfully when I flew back to Penang from Singapore during my recess week, we managed to make one cover in one night at her house. It's a cover for Bruno Mars - It Will Rain.

Can you imagine how insane Bruno Mars is? The key I played for Cynthia (D major) is the original key Bruno Mars sang in, without her realization. He's just totally singing a female's key. I bet none of his songs is probably comfortably singable by normal guys, except The Lazy Song, I supposed.

Recording the audio was quite an impromptu. Luckily the clavinova at her house which she hasn't been touching for ages is a Yamaha clavinova, I know how to record the playback. Well, the reason of recording the playback is basically, the keys are making too much noise, it could've been louder than the musical notes produced by the keys.

The next fortunate and unforeseen thing was, she has a karaoke system at home. So having no mixer and stuffs, the smart way (or rather unprofessional) is to record her voice with my iPhone, by placing my phone in front of the one of the speakers. But sadly she has no pop filter, and it took me a while to bring down the volume of the 'p' and 'k' air.

Editing the video transition was another pain in the ass, as she kept having different postures (of the way her hands were holding the mic stand) when I was shooting her lip syncing with our first successful recording.

Well, I love collaboration, when you get to halve your effort for publicity.

And I have to say that she has a very voice, which she utilizes well. That's why I didn't even want to harmonize, because my voice just won't fit hers in any way.

So please do check out our cover for It Will Rain!