Kelli O'Hara Quotes

I know that composers know my voice type and what songs will suit me. I have been able to mould my voice according to the nature of the song given to me, be it rock, pop or jazz.

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine.

I have sung, but I haven't sung in any way that I would ever call myself 'a singer.'

When I hear someone, instantaneously, I'm like, 'Who's singing?' You're giving people so much of yourself, and my voice is the most natural, distinctive tool I have. It's up to me to express myself on a wider scale than just writing vocal melodies and lyrics.

But I won't deprive myself of singing opera as long as my voice follows.

I've always felt myself as being a serious singer.

People often ask me how I developed my vocal sound, and the answer usually disappoints them: 'It's just the way I sound when I sing.'

I am not a natural singer, but I can sing, and probably the way I sing is more imitative than from myself, which is why I am never going to be an amazing recording artist.

You have to get to know your voice and its strengths and play on those. It took me quite a long time.

The better voice doesn't mean being a better singer.

To sing along with Stevie Wonder, you had to make your voice do things it was not accustomed to doing.

I'm a lyric soprano. I can try to step outside that and do different kind of singing, but it's not something I can sustain over the long haul, and what is good for your voice is good for your career.

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.

I try to steal something from the great singers. Of course, I don't want to imitate their sound, but I try to do a sort of compromise.

I studied voice at Yale with Blake Stern from the music school, and he had me singing German lieder and Italian songs.

I'd love to have the time to learn to sing opera properly rather than bellowing half-formed fragments of melody in exuberant moments.

It's logical for us to sing, but not necessarily operatic pieces.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I learned by listening to other people sing and doing impressions of them. And there are things no one can ever teach you, like phrasing. By listening to Sinatra, for instance - you felt that everything he sang had happened in his life.

Because everything about the voice interests me, I felt it would be fascinating to learn a completely different style of singing.

My idol has been Franco Corelli. But every singer can teach you something.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

A lot of people when they try to sing Skid Row songs, they're screaming and yelling too much. It's more singing than screaming.

I wanted to be Whitney Houston at first, and when I started taking voice lessons, my voice teacher kind of geared me more towards opera.

I use my voice as an instrument.