When I was six years old my friend was auditioning for 'Annie,' and I decided I wanted to audition with her. My mom was worried I would fall flat on my face because I'd never opened my mouth to sing, so she sent me to vocal lessons. I did the audition and fell in love with the entire process of a show.
But as far as dream roles - I know this is so expected of me, but I would to play Elphaba in 'Wicked' on Broadway. I have a lot of dream roles, but that's like my main one because of the vocal track. I love belting high things!
I don't dictate the solos and I don't dictate the vocal harmonies.
If you listen to my tapes, you'd hear 14 different ways to arrange the rhythm guitar behind the harmony vocal, and then 14 different ways with a different vocal. You'd have to really be a music lover to sit through that and find it entertaining. I enjoy it, but I'm easy to please.
I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it's about feeling more than being perfect.
I was very insecure. I figured the only thing I can do is just work harder than everybody else and be useful. So I would anticipate when a client would need a cup of tea. I would anticipate when they wanted to rewind the tape. I would anticipate when they were going to do a vocal.
Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.
The thing with One Direction songs is that you can probably break them all down to an acoustic guitar and vocal.
People who share the same language, French or Chinese or whatever, have the same vocal cords and emit sounds which are basically the same, as they come from the same throats and lungs.
Relations between black and white would be greatly improved if we were more accepting of our fears and our feelings and more vocal about it.
Brenda did some little vocal arrangements for us and she got to sing as well. So, we're happy to be able to work together and that's another reason why we look forward to doing more of these.
We figured you could download live shows for days, so we decided to go for a cream-of-the-crop approach, but not just take the best vocal or the best performances.
'In My Hands,' the title track, is my very first vocal attempt, and I'm not a singer as such. But I've always wanted to express myself vocally on my albums, and I don't really have much of a capability for singing. The strength is in, I think, the lyrics and just speaking. It just comes from inside.
I think my style as far as vocal delivery and even down to the pronunciation of certain words is so deliberate.
I had a lot of vocal problems when I was younger. I don't know if it's down to leading a healthier lifestyle or what but my range has increased.
If someone doesn't want to hire me because they think I'm too vocal, fine. I will do a play. I will always find a job. Let them try to get me out of this industry. I am not going to be silenced!
I do a lot of vocal hygiene.
We are so vocal about what we hate.
If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal.
I always want to pick songs that are really crazy rangy, and sometimes those low notes aren't there. But I started taking it way more seriously after a certain point, and I started doing vocal warm-ups every day, even when I wasn't singing, sometimes twice a day.
I had throat surgery. We had to check that out and make sure it wasn't cancerous. I had a polyp on my vocal cord, so I had that taken out.
When I hear someone, instantaneously, I'm like, 'Who's singing?' You're giving people so much of yourself, and my voice is the most natural, distinctive tool I have. It's up to me to express myself on a wider scale than just writing vocal melodies and lyrics.
Blind Willie Johnson is a pretty big vocal influence. He can be very harsh, like gargly, gruff vocals, but also just slip into some very delicate, vulnerable soft stuff. I like that combination.
My dad has always been vocal about critically appreciating me. If I have done a bad job, he will definitely try to correct me with his inputs.
I'm so hard on myself. I play these sketches in my computer for friends and they say 'Gee whiz, the vocal's beautiful.' I hear, 'It needs to be better.'
Literally, when I go to the vocal coach, I'm like, 'You are teaching me nothing.' You know?
There's this one song called 'Final Warning' that I'm really excited about because I love the contrast of my vocal sounding very soothing and my harsh lyrics.
The Beatles were basically a vocal band.
I don't sing now, because I had polio when I was 15, bulbar polio. This was when the epidemic was happening. And I was lucky that it didn't affect my lungs or my legs. It went to my face and kind of paralyzed my vocal chords, and I wasn't able to sing. And they said I was very lucky that I would get over it, which I did.
I record stuff all the time, like little vocal things. I write random things down... Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head and I record them, and that actually becomes a song quite a lot of the time.
'Teenage Wildlife' is just epic. It's, like, five or six minutes long, and it kind of crescendos and builds into this insane vocal of Bowie wailing. I think I would pay $5,000 dollars to see footage of that recording session.
I have songs that sound like this and songs that sound like that. I think it's just my vocal that keeps it all together.
I had an explosion on my vocal chord.
I came from being a singer going into jazz. And that's one of the things that polio did for me is it took away my ability to sing with a range because it paralyzed my vocal chords, so that was when I started playing. But I hear the music as if I were singing even when I am playing.
When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.
'Circuital' was just so much about us as a band. We captured every song live, including the main vocal. That is probably my favorite My Morning Jacket record because it's really the essence of us being us. The solo record is just a completely different essence of just me trying to figure out stuff.
