Anohni Quotes

When I was 15 or so, I made a conscious decision to try and sing with a big voice. Everybody I listened to had these big voices, and I wanted to try it. The blessing is that I could.

I'm a piano player. I never thought of myself as a singer, at all. I was always trying to sound like somebody else. I don't like my own voice, I like Ray Charles, Robert Plant, I like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, people that have an edge in their voice.

I always say the person who taught me how to sing indirectly because I listened to her all the time was Brandy. I fell in love with her voice when I was six years old. I always loved Brandy.

I've taken singing lessons since I was young, just to work on technique.

Dad had four world records, and they happened to be Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ali Farka Toure. I tried singing like these people, and it didn't work.

You start singing by singing what you hear. So everyone, when they first start singing, they naturally are singing like whatever they're hearing, because that's the only way you learned how to sing. So when I was growing up on Lauryn Hill, when I started singing her songs, I literally trained my voice to be able to do runs.

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.

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

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

I was a boy soprano. I had a natural kind of voice and then trained it after my voice changed.

I've been singing ever since I was little, but I didn't start taking it seriously until I was about 15 or 16.

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

I started taking singing classes just two years ago. It was great. I never knew I could sing but I kind of found my voice.

By that point, I had started taking singing lessons. And after the first session, I mean, I was surprised that the windows didn't shatter. And after the third session, I really didn't know where this voice had come from.

Because her voice is, it's like the muscles and it develops all the time. That was the fantastic thing for us.

I wanted to emulate Bob Flanagan, the high voice in the 'Four Freshmen.' I wanted to sing high like he did.

Over the years, I was lucky; right from the beginning, I studied with a lady who had a lot of... she was a classical singer, and of course, they're a little bit more into, you know, preserving the voice, making sure your instrument is ready to perform.

That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.

I'm a huge mimic. That's how I learned to sing. I listened to a lot of Freddy Mercury, obviously.

I went to this vocal coach, Ron Anderson, who has worked with Axl Rose and Chris Cornell, to train my voice and learn a whole new way of singing.

I think I've learned a lot on the vocal side of things.

I knew that I could sing when I was young. I would listen to a lot of jazz; I'm a big jazz fan. When I first got to high school and studied musical theater, I could sing. But I added certain things to my voice, and I realized after graduating high school that this is the kind of voice I had. It's not very nimble, but it's heavy.

Boy George always told me to stop noodling; he wanted me to belt like Ethel Merman.

Early on, I started with classical voice and had that wonderful foundation. For where I wanted to go at that time, there were no teachers to teach it, so I came up with all kinds of different ways to develop the sound of my voice.

I mean, I sing. But I don't think I'm a good enough singer to do any kind of musical.