Part 2

We have a speaking voice and a singing voice. Do these feel like they are natural extensions of each other, ends on a spectrum or different in kind?

Sometimes they feel like one and the same, and sometimes if I am singing an Italian art song, or exploring my vocal timbre they can feel worlds apart.

How do you see the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? Do you feel that honing your sense of rhythm and groove has an effect on your singing skills?

Dancing brings together harmony, rhythm and melody in a visceral way. I have been a non-professional dancer all my life — ballet as a child, and later, in my twenties, Cuban salsa, swing, and then Argentinian tango. This has been a big part in how I have absorbed sound into my body and expressed it.

I also played djembe in an African dance ensemble at one point, so rhythm has always been a big part of my life and has deeply informed my singing, as well as my sense of swing and space.

For me, harmony was something I worked on more consciously, and I trained with David Vinden of the British Kodály Academy. That training really transformed my singing and tonal confidence.

[Read our Julia Basso interview about Dancing, Neuroplasticity, and Collective Consciousness]
[Read our Julia Basso interview about the Potentials of Music and Dance as Medicine]
[Read our Andrea Lacoste interview about Ecstatic Dance, and Movement Meditation]

What are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?

I like to allow my voice rather than create it, so I will spend time with my songs learning the lyrics, with the melodies honing them, and my voice in terms of breath control and vocal health.

But when I am performing, I just sing, without thought, just be with the audience so they can be with me.

As a singer, it is possible to whisper at the audience, scream at the audience, reveal deep secrets or confront them with uncomfortable truths. Tell me about the sense of freedom that singing allows you to express yourself and how you perceive and build the relation with the audience.

I remember seeing the British folk singer Kate Rusby on stage once, and I loved how completely herself she was. She engaged with the audience, was very funny, and then blasted out a song that went deeply into us.

She inspired me to do the same, just be me on stage, and I am — after making the audience laugh, I may then sing a moving ballad. It feels like real life then, bittersweet at times.

Stephen Nikleva, the guitarist in Black Gardenia, thinks I should do stand-up comedy. Interestingly, I don’t plan to be funny — I just am. I get that from my grandma too.

I'd love to know more about the vocal performances for Whisky Scented Kisses, please, and the qualities of your voice that you wanted to bring to the fore.

Honestly, I did not think about that at all. As I wrote six of the songs, it was more that my voice was in service to those songs.

Again, I have a more body-centered approach to singing than a created sound. It’s just me.

I’ll think about this for next time … lol.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?

What’s interesting to me as I answer this question is that when I sing my own songs, it often feels like someone else wrote them. So I haven’t yet written songs as a vehicle for my voice; rather, my voice becomes a vehicle for them. Singing my own songs feels viscerally different, and the audience really responds to that.

I suppose singing standards that the audience already knows will always give them a sonic context they can relate to, but singing my own songs gives them an energy that is other — something that is uniquely me, revealed to them, which they love.

Strain is a particularly serious issue for many vocalists. How do you take care of your voice? Are the recipes or techniques to get a damaged voice back in shape?

Yes this is a serious concern. Honestly going out with my funny girlfriends, to a loud bar, and drinking Tequila is the worst thing I can do for my vocal chords. And I limit this activity especially if I have a big gig coming up!

I’m actually careful with my voice and do things like sit next to people at a restaurant so I don’t have to raise my voice when talking. I drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. If I feel my voice is getting strained, I speak in a higher tone to protect it — it works. I also take a teaspoon of Manuka honey. I have also used clary sage essential oil, blending a couple of drops with olive oil and rubbing it into my throat and neck.

If I do experience strain, I take it seriously. I have gone on complete vocal rest before — no whispering, no sound at all — and it recovers. I regularly stretch my body. Acupuncture can also help with vocal fry. But honestly, that has only happened once or twice in my life, as I take care to warm up, cool down, and rarely over-sing.

How has technology, such as autotune or effect processing, impacted singing? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?

I am not sure how to answer this. With me you hear what I sing.

For recording engineers, the human voice remains a tricky element to capture. What are some of the favourite recordings of your own voice so far and what makes voices sound great on record and in a live setting?

I think it is hard to be objective about one’s voice as a singer, because we hear it from inside our heads first, and then the recorded sound is a little like looking at ourselves in a mirror. It depends on the mirror, and our mood, so we never truly know how we sound. It’s so mysterious — we are both the instrument and the sound.

Having said that, I love the sound that Sheldon Zaharko got on the Cellar Live recording. Bryan Adams’ Neve desk at The Warehouse Studio is famous, and as soon as we listened to the first take, it sounded like a mid-century jazz record. We loved the experience and I love how I sound.

As for the live sound, I use a Sennheiser microphone that is very sensitive and picks up all the nuances of my voice. I sing the same song at every soundcheck — “How Long Has This Been Going On?” It helps me hear how I sound in each room and what I may need to ask the sound engineer to adjust.

It’s more of a feeling — “Ah yes, that’s me, that’s how I sound” — than an intellectual decision.

Motherese may have been the origin of music, and singing is possibly the earliest form of musical expression, and culture in general. How connected is the human voice to your own sense of wellbeing, your creativity, and society as a whole?

I often think about this question, to be honest.

Singing continues to be something that human beings want to do — and to do together. It is the collective sound of singing together, or the beauty of a solo singer, that stirs us and eases us. I recently read that we love the sound of birds singing because when they do, it signals that there are no predators around. Maybe it is something like that.

I am a great believer in what sound healer Jill Purce once said: “When you free the voice, you free the human being.” I used to run voice workshops for non-singers, and people would often be singing and crying at the same time, because so many people carry personal wounds around their voices — especially women, who have often been told not to sing because they “cannot.” It’s sad and profound. Freeing the voice helps us become fully human.

So I do believe that singing is a big and necessary part of every person’s well-being, and I encourage everyone to sing as much as possible. I often think that birds don’t wonder if they sound good when they happily chirp away on a spring day, so neither should we.

Just sing.