As I mentioned a few entries ago, my cousin and I were jamming fairly regularly by now. We were doing standard stuff like 12-bar blues, etc., just to see if we had any chemistry. We did, but I wasn't going to win any awards for my musicianship. It became clear that I was going to have to add vocals, and this was my first attempt. I've before mentioned my unease with this; so it was easier at the start to do jokey stuff. It'd be devastating to try something more ambitious only to find that you sound like the AFLAC duck-- it's a lot safer to have some ironic distance as a final defence: "Oh yeah, I know I was seriously out of key there. That's what makes it funny, man. Get a sense of humor, willya?"
And what better to experiment with than our "rock opera," Sylvie, The Water-Sprite? This had a fairly simple libretto: Sylvie (the water-sprite) is out for her morning walk when she is attacked by a fierce leopard! She runs away! A handsome woodsman comes to her rescue! They live happily ever after/are both devoured by the beast! (We weren't certain about the ending yet.)
Okay, it's not exactly The Merry Widow, but at least we dodged the hoary cliche of the lead singer/protagonist as a thinly-veiled pseudo-Christ figure (Tommy, American Idiot, Jesus Christ, Superstar, and just about every other one you can think of).
Also, I'd switched to bass guitar; I'm pretty sure this was done the same day I brought it home. Other instruments: My cousin on "drums" (more on our "drum kit" later); me on recorder (one of those -- plastic, usually -- wind instruments that looks like a half-size clarinet). I couldn't play it, of course; not that that's stopped me before. I discovered that if I waggled my fingers randomly, I could create noises that sounded vaguely Arabic. (Whether that says more about me, or Arabic music, I leave for others to decide.)
As far as the song goes . . . well, we were certainly . . . energetic. (Remember, it's supposed to be funny.) There are also more tempo shifts (some even intended) than on your average Rush album.
Other lessons learned: a) I actually could be good as a vocalist, at least in the timing and tonality (there's no real melody to speak of);
b) I was better at improvising than I expected -- I had written down a couple of verses, but much of the "Run, run, Sylvie" parts were on the spur of the moment;
c) I was not good at the typically histrionic rock vocal thingee;
d) I should probably lose the recorder from my instrumental quiver; and
e) Singing got easier the more I did it. Before long, not even semi-plausible death threats could shut me up.