Norbert Leo Butz Quotes

When I teach master classes, I tell young singers if the foundation isn't good, the house will crumble.

I realized that equipment really had little to do with why I sound like the way I sound.

I'm not a very good singer. I just know how to present a song, and honey, I think I've been through enough to do it right.

If any performer has quality in his voice he can almost always be helped to develop all the other necessary attributes.

My vibrato was my weakness. With romantic pieces, I could be a lot more schmaltzy. My wider vibrato fit that.

It's important to me to be able to hit the notes and just be able to fly when I sing.

I could probably use some tips from a vocal trainer or something about breathing, but we all know it's not about technical prowess.

When I sing, I close my eyes. If I see a feather, everything is fine. Without this image in my mind, the sound is not 'truthful' enough, and I must begin again. I have to.

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.

The beauty of it is when you can just show up and hit the notes.

It's impossible to play a run with as much feeling as a single note. I've never been so much into runs as making single notes cry.

Or if I have my head in the results, I can't work with what I have, because I'm trying to force something to happen. And with singing, any time you force it, you tighten up. If you tighten up, you're screwed, nothing will work.

I've lost a few notes on the top. But I've gained a little insight about what makes people comfortable when they're listening or watching a performance of mine. It usually has to do with singing something that isn't vocally too strenuous.

There are so many challenges and different parts to the job of singing. When you're in the studio, you have to be really, really, precise. You've got to keep everything clean and nice because that's going to be something that's down forever. And then you go onstage, and it's much more in the moment.

I'm a flutist so I know what they can deliver in terms of texture and sound and blurriness and softness. It's a very soft instrument.

Watching somebody sing reveals a lot about character.

I'm not a good enough singer to pull off the effect.

I think singing comes most naturally for me. Because it's part of your body - it's a natural thing. You can practice all you want but it's part of your body.

Don't ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and people like their hominy and grits in everyday clothes.

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

I have often heard the statement made by foreign singers, as a demonstrated fact, that the German artists are artists in feeling indeed, and serious in their devotion, but that their singing is crude.

True expression is hard when performing opera. The problem is that opera relies on the dramatic context of the piece. It can be interpreted and represented, but there are guidelines; there is a vocabulary within the pieces that you must know objectively and reflect.

I love singing, but I feel very naked and very vulnerable when I'm singing sometimes. With acting, I always think that it doesn't matter what you are as long as you're truthful in that moment. But with singing, you always have to hit the note. It's not like you can just go, 'Oh, it doesn't really matter what note you sing!'

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we've all heard about before.

To sing opera, one needs two things: the voice and the passion - and above all, the passion.