Cathy Rigby Quotes

I don't have the slightest idea of how to do vocal exercises or scales or anything like that, but I did always know to breath properly from the stomach. I'm a pop singer and never really felt I needed more.

When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.

Ninety percent of what's wrong with singers today is that they don't breathe right.

I'm not great with breathing, like holding notes. I usually don't. A lot of people wouldn't believe it, but I don't focus on technical stuff.

Someone told me that you could learn to sing, and that there are muscles that if you build, you will sing.

To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more.

When I was a kid, my aunt coached me a little bit for choir, and what she taught me actually stuck with me. She basically taught me to sing from my diaphragm and not from my throat.

Everything I'd taught myself about screaming is basically a big no-no for singing. Your posture, your airflow - you're just pushing all the air out. When you start out, you're fast, heavy and loud but you're hiding behind it in a way. When you stop screaming, that's when it gets hard.

You have to learn how to sing from your diaphragm, and you don't become a great performer overnight. It takes a while. The more you do it, the better you are.

If your body is not in shape to sing [from the diaphragm] you will push and push but keep falling back on your throat to make the sound. This will ruin your voice.

Thousands of kids and parents come up to us and say, How do we get better as a singer?

I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is.

I know what I'm missing. I know what I have to work on. Coloratura. And I sing sharp sometimes. It happens when I'm nervous.

I have a huge rib cage, which is why I can hold a note out until I'm blue in the face... because I have such a big lung capacity.

I took some voice lessons here and there as a teenager but nothing too serious. I started taking it more seriously when I was in Miss Saigon. I needed to improve my technique in order to survive doing that show as many time a week as I was doing it. It's not an easy show to sing, so I needed all the help I could get.

At Julliard we had some voice classes. It was really just so you could carry a tune. It always just helps with your speaking voice also, when you connect your diaphragm and your breath.

Speech lessons probably did more for my singing voice - they teach you breathing, resonance.

I am still working on developing my voice. I am, I know, better as a coloratura singer than I was. It's a matter of strong breath control and yet making it sound as though it is the easiest thing in the world.

To play the trumpet, you have to use that diaphragm, and it's the same if you want to sing correctly. You really need to push it out from there. And I think that's what has kept me going as a singer.

When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It's all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.

So much can be gained from watching other singers, seeing what they do and what they don't do, seeing how they look when they breathe, how wide they open their mouths for a high note.

True singing is a different breath, about nothing.

I also have to support my speaking voice by sitting in a way that engages the diaphragm in the way I would for singing.

I thought I sang - it's OK - it's so hard to sing! Singing - I had no idea. I'd get fatigued at the end of a phrase - the amount of respect I have for singers!

Maybe I was just born with a little bit of vocals or natural talent, but I feel like I taught myself. I just started taking vocal lessons to just work on my breathing, my vowels and stuff.