Walker Hayes Quotes

My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.

I haven't even had to learn, but it's just this natural thing to be able to express any emotion I have through the tone of my voice.

In every song, there is a vocal element that doesn't have any words. I wanted to play around with how emotive and expressive my voice could be.

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 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.

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

As much as I appreciate people putting me in the category of these very acrobatic belters, I feel like my strength is my... interpretation and my truthfulness with songs, and I don't want young people to think it's all about the high notes that they have to hit.

Everyone thinks I'm singing falsetto, but that's my normal singing voice.

For singers, our singing voice is our natural voice, not the speaking.

If actors are trying to convey, in a smart way, the context of the scene, that becomes too self-conscious.

I don't push my voice; I try to keep a good technique, a natural way of singing, to sing from the breath, which is the main thing.

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

I was really sickened with people passing on comments that I have nasal touch while singing. Naturally, when anyone sings with high-pitched octaves, some notes may slight get in touch modalities with nasal, and that doesn't actually mean 'nasal singing.'

I don't think the singers take it as seriously as we used to. The words, the meaning, the phrasing, the feeling of the song. They see the words, they know the tune and they just sing it.

It's fun to use all of my range; there are so many different colors and textures that come out, revealing different parts of my voice. I know what my voice is capable of, and I try to fit it to each song, evoke a mood.

I'm under no illusion. There are lots of male singers out there with raspy voices.

I can do the vocal acrobatics but I really try not to. I've always been drawn to singers who sing it like it is, pure, straight down the line: Ella Fitzgerald, Patti Smith, Carole King. Simplicity is really important to me.

I've always sang a little like a 16-year-old girl, but even Ann-Margret stopped after a while and brought it down a bit.

In the ring, you want every one of the 80,000 people in the building to know what you're feeling. On a movie set, every expression you make is going to get picked up times 10. They kept having to dial me back.

[Malipiero's advice to Casanova.] If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a judge.

We must overact our part in some measure, in order to produce any effect at all.

To me this is not yelling. I am not yelling. I'm just passionate about my opinions and I want to tell you all of them before you start talking again.

I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion.

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.

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.