Part 1
Name: Gabriela Martina
Occupation: Vocalist, composer, bandleader
Nationality: Swiss
Current release: Gabriela Martina's new album States is out now. Order the album on her official webstore.
Pure Vocal Recordings Recommendations: I prefer it when voices are mixed with instruments. But one recording that has a lot of voices in it that I just came across lately is ‘In Paradisum’ by Ēriks Ešenvalds performed by Liene Klava (viola), Eriks Kiršfelds (cello), State Choir Latvija and conductor Maris Sirmais. It somehow brought me back to when I grew up in Switzerland and used to go to church every Sunday and sang all these classical choral pieces. I loved singing. I hated going to church and sit still.
If you enjoyed these thoughts and insights by Gabriela Martina and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook.
For a deeper dive, we recommend our earlier Gabriela Martina interview.
Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in your voice and singing? How and when did you start singing?
Absolutely! We were always playing music together with my family on a Sunday afternoon in our old wooden living room on the farm Grämlis in Switzerland where I grew up. Mum was playing the piano and accordion and us children were dancing and singing around the living room and jumping on the sofa in funny looking clothes. My Dad sat there quietly, content, observing and simply amused by the lively happening, yodeling every now and then a little line for us.
One of the reasons that motivated me to become a musician happened when I was about 17 years young. I was part of a choir school performance at the ‘Kantonsschule Musegg’ in Lucerne and sang the piece ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ by Antonia Carlos Jobim. At the end of the show, the audience liked it so much that they wanted to hear it as an encore.
That applause stayed with me and was a sign, that my voice can reach something I wasn’t aware of myself. Probably still not aware of…
If you're also playing other instruments, how does the expressive potential of these compare to your own voice?
I used to play the violin for about eight years, joined many choirs, was part of a youth musical and started voice lessons at the age of fifteen. Since my oldest sister Kathrin played the piano, that instrument was kinda out of question even though I would have loved to learn how to play it. I tried to catch up with starting to take lessons at the age of eighteen but I never really got a full grip on it. It’s still one of my dreams to get better at it. Well, it’s good to still have some dreams, right? ;-)
I can express myself with my voice to a degree where I feel it extremely physical, yeah, spiritual indeed. And I can tell that the audience reacts to it as well. Therefore, I guess I must be doing something right.
I’m trying to get better at singing with every concert I have. It’s never too late to reach higher and higher since music is and remains an infinite journey.
Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?
Well, I grew up on a farm in Switzerland in a family of six total. Already at a very early age, I was constantly exposed to music making … from since I was born. We used to yodel as a family and had some performances in the traditional Swiss yodel costumes (yes, I do have pictures. Visit this page
https://www.gabrielamartina.com/projects scroll down ;-)
My album Homage to Grämlis that finally came out in 2023 (it was supposed to come out in 2020!) is about the story of my childhood and pays homage to my dear parents’ hard work on the farm Grämlis in Switzerland.
The time during childhood is something you will always be reminded of, no matter where you live later in your life. Having had such a natural, true paradise around me for so long feels like gold in my heart and soul. No one can ever take that from me.
I am more than grateful for this priceless gift and I can still nurture so much good from it to this day. Also with a thousand thanks to my amazing, loving and incredibly supportive parents and siblings!
What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer/vocalist? Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals – were there also “harmful” ones?
Main challenges? Being taken seriously as a vocalist in a male dominated environment was for sure something that I have experienced as something where the feeling of ‘I have to prove that I’m different and I’m actually a professional musician’ was always somehow there.
Practises that I found most helpful? Active listening. Ear training. Trying to understand what is happening on stage with all instruments and what it is that moves me as a listener.
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?
Oh, yeah! Rhythm and groove are everything for me! I have a really hard time listening to singers that don’t have a sense of time. Being rhythmically confident is half of the deal while performing on stage. It’s the ground, the earth, the home while doing everything else above or within it musically speaking, really.
I think I would actually be a drummer, but I didn’t have the patience nor courage to really go for it. Now I play for fun the brushes on a “rough surface music stand” and keep promising myself to invest in a cheap second-hand drum kit one day. Maybe when I turn sixty I play the drums while rapping in gibberish?
The relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? That’s only one part of the music. But yeah. It’d better be there ;-)
What are the things you hear in a voice when listening to a vocalist? What moves you in the voices of other singers?
I love low voices, both men and women. Mature, deep and honest voices that crackle when a word moves the singer him- or herself.
I love when I hear that it touches themselves with their own sound. I think only when that happens they can truly touch an audience as well.
How would you describe the physical sensation of singing? [Where do you feel the voice, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or tension etc …]
When I sing it vibrates in my whole body. We exist out of 70-80% of water, so all the sound waves that we produce while we sing flow literally through us. Which is the amazing sensation we all feel when we talk or sing and that is why if it feels good, we want more of it!
If I would have to define a center, I do feel the most in my chest. When I’m absolutely and completely into a piece of music and almost trancelike finish the piece with a last note, I feel a huge sense of release in my legs and feet and could actually suck down and lay on the floor. It’s very moving and exhausting at the same time.
On the other hand, if a concert was full of those sensations, it can give me such a burst of energy that I have a really hard time falling asleep afterwards. Singing is very physical, music making is very physical. Just watch us and you'll see the sweat ;-)
What kind of musical settings and situations do you think are ideal for your own voice?
Passionate, honest and loving people to surround myself with during my working, creating and performing phase is the key point number one. If they are too kind, only please me and never truly criticize me I won’t be able to learn, grow and become better as a musician and human being. I need to face challenges, face mountains in front of me and the “yin and yang” of life.
The environment for me personally cannot be purely city-like. The older I get, the more I realise that I need nature around me in order to get inspired for new musical happenings. I grew up in nature and I think that sense for green, bees and sunflowers has never left my deep inside.
As much as I do love the city life, the speed of things and the cultural and other activities around me, just as much do I need silence, bird’s singing and the calming sound of a clear water creek somewhere close by. It feeds the need of my mind, body and soul.
