Matt Monro Forum

Hello to all Members of this forum :
My name is Fernando, and I am trying to make a living working as a singer in the southern coast of Spain, near to Marbella, halfway between Málaga and Gibraltar.
One of my favourite singers, is of course, Matt Monro, so I do many of his songs in my gigs. Another favourite singer is Elvis Presley. But here I want to extend an invitation to all of you to visit my website and listen to a couple of songs that you will find available to listen on the right column. it looks like a box in pale blue color, and, like a jukebox, you select one song and play it.
My latest input was "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing", recorded at home just weeks ago. The other material is 18 months old and I think I can do it better today... I hope so, at least!
I am asking friends to give their impressions, as I have a dozen of tracks recorded in this style and would like to take the big step to send them to music producers if they have a minimum of quality. Not to publish as they are now, as the music is taken from karaoke backgrounds, but for them to have an idea of what I can do.
I would appreciate your honesty, I know I have a road to walk yet, so your comments will help me improve on things that I may not be aware now. Thank you!

The link to my website is: http://www.myspace.com/fernandopaez
Doesn't work? : try again... http://www.myspace.com/fernandopaez

Fernando, I was quite impressed by Love Is a Many Splendoured Thing just a couple of points though, even though your English is very good, when you sang the word "taught" it did sound like it was "mock" English, so that would need to be improved upon also, I could not get rid of the camera clicking noise on your website which rather put me off when listening to the song

Hello Robert,
Thank you for your reply; I will consider your point about the spelling.
The clicking sound starts automatically when a visitor logs in, I can't remove it from the web design program as I don't know how. BUT it can be removed easily, just draw the cursor to the lower left corner of the little window, there is a "Pause" button, click on it and the caroussel will stop. Or move to the upper right corner of the same window, and it should appear a picture of a speaker to cancel the sound.

Soon there will be more songs, so I will announce it here in time.

Regards,

Fernando

Hi Fernando, and a warm welcome to the forum.
Like Robert, I also enjoyed your rendition of Love is a Many Splendid Thing.
You have a good strong voice, and hold the long notes well.
The only small comment I have to add is again to do with pronunciation, which can always be improved upon. It sounded like you sang "a reason to be leaving" rather than "a reason to be living" which rather changes the whole meaning of the line! Otherwise, very good.
Marian

Hello Marian, thank you for taking the time to listen and comment my recording ; yes, it is not easy for my ear to catch the right pronunciation of similar sounds, as I grew up speaking spanish. Every language has a particular way to position the tomgue, or form the mouth cavity. Even the pitch of the entonation is distinctive: italians goes up, finnish goes down, asiatics goes nasal and so on.
In the spanish language (castilian, to be precise) the vowels are open and distictive one from the other, and there are no sounds that merges from the combination of two vowels as in other languages.
Hence the problem for a spanish speaking person to produce two different sounds saying " Living" and "Leaving" . At the moment, I can only register that the first "i" in "Living" sonds the same but is shorter than the diphthong "ea" in "Leaving". And now you mention it, you are right, I have to work on it. Thank you again!
Best wishes,
Fernando

Very nice Fernando. You have put so much heart and soul in to "Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing ".
We agree with Marian's comment about the word living, just remember about that and you will be fine.
It's good to know that you love Matt's music and you are playing a part in keeping the good music alive.

MISSED MUSIC
(with apologies to Abba)

I can't hear your songs, Fernando,
though I can access your website.
I click on the black square, Fernando,
where the hand in encircled, right?
But no enchanting music comes,
no 'play' sign appears, Fernando.
My computer skills alas are slight,
can you shed some light, Fernando?

Keith

Thank you for your reply, Keith;
I have experienced the problem you mention, and at the moment I don´t know exactly why in some computers the songbox does not appear or does not play. Possibly has to do with the version of the program to listen to music installed in your computer, but I know it can happen even in computers that have successed to play it in previous visits.
I can only suggest you to try again, my friend. The black box you've seen is not the player, it is a photo "caroussel", a window in wich photos previously loaded by me appears (or should appear normally) as a slide show. That window is problematic as well, and it is not a problem of the software you use in your computer. I think it is a problem in the web site itself. Sometimes it decides to show my page as I have designed it, but sometimes shows a simplified version without the music player and the photo caroussel.
I am sorry for the inconveniences, but this problem is not in my hand to solve, except to create another website or to send you a file with a mp3 version of the song.
Thank you again, best regards
Fernando

Thank you for your support and advice!
Regards,
Fernando

The music player box is on the right side of the page (opposite my photo as Elvis, which is on the left side, isn't it?) it is a grey or pale blue window with a selection of songs: "Love is a many..." / "I remember Aznavour"/ "Elvis medley"/ You click in one of them and it will play, or a picture of "Play" sign will appear, so you click on it.

Thanks for your advice Fernando, I'm sure I'll get to hear
your songs - I can be a persistent old (though juvenile at heart) pensioner.
Keith

This looks like being an old topic but I need to tell you about my mini-tribute to Matt Monro! It's only about 2 minutes long and was taken from my one-man show "A Tribute to the Stars of Las Vegas" in the Arts Wing Theatre of Swansea's Grand Theatre 2 months ago! Wherever I sing, and whatever the venue, I ALWAYS sing of couple of songs made famous by THE VOICE because people of all ages rated this man so highly. I hope you enjoy?
www.youtube.com/user/4miler
Bill Bennett