Sufjan Stevens Quotes

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

Right now, my voice is better than ever. It changed. I have better low notes than I had before.

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

I work on my voice through what I have to sing.

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

All my voice training comes from choir and small ensemble singing.

I've got more low notes than I had when I started.

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.

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'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.

But actually just yesterday we raised the key of one of my songs two steps up, so my voice is obviously responding. It's a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you use it right, the more you should get out of it. So yes, I sing.

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

When I had my first voice lesson I was 15 years old. And I had a really good teacher. This is what made all the difference. A good teacher will teach you the technique, but also how to listen to your voice.

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.

When I was young, my voice was so strong, and I would annoy people because I had such a loud little voice. And then it changed, and I thought I wouldn't be able to sing again, because I thought you had to sing like Christina Aguilera to be a singer.

I studied voice for about two years with an amazing coach, and I never rose above the level of mediocre.

I just wanted to show people - maybe I'm wrong - that I can still really sing. I can sing better than I ever have before. My intonation is way better, my timing, my phrasing - there's a lot more expression; I feel it's a more lived-in, soulful voice.

I knew how to sing in choirs and sing in church, but I didn't know how to sing in a studio. That's what Darlene and the Blossoms taught me to do - to be a studio singer.

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.

Well, first I'd want a better vibrato.

With classical singing you have to put out so much air - you project, you emit force.

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.

Contrary to the norm, as my technique improved my voice became higher.

When I started to record, I could sing in pitch, but that was maybe about it.