I love Regina Spektor. She is spectacular.
I’ve done a homemade cover of her a’capella song I Want To Sing.
Hope you like it 
A bit of Summertime funsies
I was bored, so I recorded myself singing Summertime by Ella Fitzgerald, but much faster. And shorter. And in my bathroom. With no music. It’s a bit weird. Boy, I’m really good at pulling people in!
A bit of Billie
I’m in a jazzy mood! Boo bee doo bup! And man, I absolutely love this song at the moment; “Strange Fruit”. Billie Holiday’s voice is so incredible – so unique and distinct. Not to mention the lyrics are more than beautiful. It may not be your thing, but I hope you appreciate it anyway.
Sinead O’Hara x
The Vibe Bar, London
Recently Conor and I performed at ‘The Vibe Bar’ in Brick Lane, London.
It was SOO much fun to get on stage after practicing for a while now with Conor. Here’s a couple of videos to show you how it went! Have a watch and listen if you please, and comment away!
Bundles and bunches of thanks!
Sinead O’Hara x
Excellent Elton
So, my Dad said to me the other day that he thinks I should do a cover of this song by Elton John. It’s not one of his more well known ones, but it’s got a really nice, jazzy vibe – especially at the beginning. I love Elton John so much, without him we wouldn’t have soft rock n’ roll classics to bust out to on karaoke like ‘Crocodile Rock’, or amazing adaptations of his songs that have been transformed into Musical Theatre phenomenons, like ‘Your Song’ in Moulin Rouge (one of my FAVOURITE movie musicals of all time). He’s really incredible.
Anyway, the song is ‘I’ve seen that movie too’ from his Yellow Brick Road album.
Have a look at it here and let me know what you think!
Sinead O’Hara x
It’s all experience…right?
So I thought I’d start out by sharing some of the things I’ve done in the past 3 years to gain some experience. Some are hilariously embarrassing and some of them I’m really proud of.
- In early 2008, I had only just started singing lessons and had my first performance as Entertainment at Perth’s singing competition ‘Star Search’. This was a bad collaboration of songs that had been released by past Australian Idols, put together by my singing teacher – Cheers. That combined with a horrible tech crew who didn’t make sure the microphones were working properly and the majority of the performance was feedback rather than music, it’s safe to say that was probably the most embarrassing performance… ever.
- Later on in 2008 I performed as part of a chorus in the entertainment for Perth (now turned National) Drama and Music Theatre Competition ‘Storm the Stage’ at Burswood Dome. The piece we did was a song from the incredible Musical ‘Wicked’. My piece was so small but it was great to get up on the Burswood stage and be a part of a great performance.
- In 2008 I recorded my first song, Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man by Ava Gardner.
listen to it at www.myspace.com/sineadohara88 or watch a performance on Foxtel’s The Couch on the Aurora Channel here…
- In studio
- In later 2008, encouraged by my vocal coach, two of her other students and I came together to form a girls Country music group. Although this was not and is not my preferred style, Western Australia’s biggest Country Music Festival in Boyup Brook was coming up and it seemed like a great way to show off our talents, so we did! The name of this band is incredibly embarrassing (conjured up by our vocal coach) so I’m not even going to say it – don’t even TRY to get it out of me. But here we are at the festival… (bad shot where I look like a hunchback, rest assured, we rocked the show. Haha.)
Boyup Brook Country Music Festival 2009
- 2009. Following the girls Country Music group, I had three songs recorded: Valerie by Amy Winehouse, Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones and Fever by Michael Buble (one of the loves of my life). (listen at www.myspace.com/sineadohara88)
- The girls and I continued to perform together at The Publican Bar & Cafe doing regular Thursday night performances which were so much fun!
- 2009 was also when I began rehearsing for a Music Theatre piece I was going to perform in National Drama and Music Theatre competition ‘Storm the Stage’. I had entered both Drama and Music Theatre categories as I absolutely love drama as well and this was my first time performing Music Theatre – thought I’d better play it safe. The Grand Final was held at Burswood Dome with all 10 contestants from WA, QLD, TAS and VIC.
- To my absolute surprise and pleasure – I was the only performer to make it into the finals in both categories, and ended up winning the competition in Musical Theatre! Yay! I won $5000 in prize money which was put towards funding the trip to London (where I am now!) to check out the music and theatre scene over here. Needless to say, I was absolutely stoked and the proudest I think I’ve ever been of myself. I worked so hard on both pieces, and for it to pay off in such an amazing way was an incredible feeling.
"Miss Byrd" from the musical 'Closer Than Ever'
Recieving my award
Speech time!
- After Storm, I had the inspiration I needed to tell myself that I can do this and to actually do something about it. Today, I’m in London where I’ve formed an acoustic band called The 3rd Letter with my friend Conor and we’re practicing regularly with the aim of getting some gigs at a few pubs and bars around here and doing things like open mic’s to get our names out there. We’ve recorded a couple of video’s on youtube (VERY bad quality of both the video and my voice – warm up people, who would’ve thought it’d help so much?
My teacher will kill me for saying that…Haha) so if you want to have a listen it doesn’t really do justice (oh, the modesty), but it’ll give you an idea about our vibe
In between these main things, I’m taking singing lessons, doing small performances here and there (paid and unpaid) and writing songs. I’m hoping to audition for a lot more when I get home, learn piano properly and guitar, and then come back to London to LIVE AND BREATHE the music industry. I can’t even explain how badly I want to be a big part of it. It’s all I want in life.
Cheers for reading,
Sinead O’Hara x
Nice to meet you.
Hi to anyone who may have stumbled across this random blog and thought, ‘Oh, geez, not another wannabe musician’. If you managed to read on ’til now then cheers for that, but if you didn’t, well, I can call you an asshole and you’d be nonethewiser! 
Anyway, I guess I’d better introduce myself, I wouldn’t want to be rude to my obviously enormous number of readers! Haha
My name’s Sinead O’Hara. Pronounced “Shenade” (I have so many people ask me how it’s said). I’m 20 years old from Perth, Western Australia. Like most people who have the same career objectives as me will tell you, yeah, I’ve been singing since I was little. However, I only really started taking it seriously about 3 years ago when I started singing lessons. This was great because my vocal coach gave me so many opportunities to perform, record in a studio and even travel within W.A to perform at festivals. After starting those lessons and exploring different genres of music, I started to search for a style that suited my voice. That was when I came across Jazz music. I was influenced by this music at first by my Aunty who is a jazz singer herself. I fell in love with it immediately. From absolute classics like Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra to modern jazz-pop-soul to the likes of Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones and Duffy – I love it all. The imperfect, husky voices or the smooth, trained voices, the sexiness of the saxophone in a slow melody to an upbeat trumpet that just make you want to dance. I really felt like my voice belonged in Jazz – and to an extent I still do.
What I realized though, is that as beautiful as Jazz is, it’s not as marketable. I started taking a liking to Florence and the Machine and felt like my voice had similar characteristics to hers. I think she’s absolutely amazing as both a singer and songwriter, and I found my lyrics in songs I was writing began to change in the way of language and attitude. Not in a bad way at all, just slightly different.
So now I’m taking a break from the Jazzy side of things, trying out a more rock n’ roll/alternative scene, so we’ll see how this goes. At the moment I’m actually in London (living here for a short while to check out the music/acting scene) and so is a great friend of mine Conor, so we’ve been jamming a bit. I’ll update more on our progress later.
Anyway, a few more little tid-bits about me just before I go.
- I love theatre, film and television.
- Hence, I study Performance Studies at Curtin University in Perth.
- Singing is actually the only thing in the world that when I do it, I have no inhibitions, no fear, no unhappiness – just pure joy and nothing else.
- I want to be a star. I don’t care what you think of this. I want my voice to be heard and appreciated and enjoyed. I want people to know who I am. I want people to know what I can do, because I know I can do it.
That’s all for now.
Thanks for reading, I hope you continue to
Sinead O’Hara x
