It's very hard to come across as a passionate human being in print. People can't hear the inflections in your voice.
I'm pretty hard on myself when it comes to my voice, and certain notes I'm afraid to hit because I'm afraid I'm going to sound bad.
Singing has never been particularly easy for me.
If you're in America a lot, it's easy to get into playing American. All of it, the sounds, the energies, all very different. But it's really hard to do the accent. I tend to try and stay in it all day, which is the only way I can manage it.
My voice is distinctive: there's a rhythm to it, and also, it's funny. I was just blessed with a funny-sounding voice.
My voice gets recognized before anything else. It's always gotten attention. In choruses at church and school, I started as a tenor, moved to a baritone and finally became a bass. I knew then that my voice would be my instrument. Now if I want to hide, I just keep my mouth shut.
That music in itself, whose sounds are song, The poetry of speech.
I'm sure any vocal teacher that listens to me would rather cut my throat than do anything - I do everything all wrong - but I think for me that's the best - because I don't think I have a voice so I think what I project would be style - if I learned to sing I'd lose my style.
What we look for when we need to find someone who can fit in with our music, the vocals and the harmonies and the way they blend are very important to us because if you listen to Beach Boys music, the harmonies, not only are the notes being sung, but there's a blend to it. The voices have to blend.
When I first started to sing, I just swung at it with an axe.
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.
Nobody told me how to sing, so I just thought I'd try and sing like Howlin' Wolf. It was like a bark; there was melody to it - but I would go off a bit and I wouldn't stick AutoTune on it or anything to make it in key. Even now, I couldn't tell you about harmonies. I couldn't tell about what notes I'm singing because nobody taught me to sing.
I don't know if vocally I am so great.
The only thing wrong with my voice is the way it sounds.
I've always thought it was easier for girls to sing harmonies because their voices can go to that higher plane so much more easy than a male voice.
I will safely say that I prefer singing a song in a stretch if I am allowed to. A lot of times, I do choose to and do sing the asthayi and antara in one take, respectively. And I give a few takes until I feel it is perfect.
I'm tired of people disturbing the peace, getting on the radio and sounding a hot mess. If I can tell what the note really is, why let them go to the note they think it is? I've got that mama vibe. I don't look at it with an ego.
Your voice determines people's perception probably more than your style or your jokes.
If you've got a good vibrato, you can get away with a lot.
What you find with singers, no matter where they're from, if they have any kind of an accent, the accent tends to disappear when they sing.
When you have a live performance, you're going to be pitchy here and there, unless you have perfect pitch.
I cannot switch my voice. My voice is not like an elevator going up and down.
When I sing, there is an almost constant struggle with pitch and with reaching notes in the higher register.
You could make any song sound creepy if you wanted. It's all about the inflection.
I've always been obsessed with the grain of the human voice. It's the ultimate instrument, there's this whole level of virtuosity and poetry, a sort of athleticism, of controlling your voice.
