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?
I’m often very surprised when I hear a singer talk and give an interview after I just heard them perform on stage. It amazes me every time how different those sounds in texture, range and dynamic can be. My friends from the US are surprised every time they hear me speak in Swiss German. Apparently, I use “mountain sounds” in my mother language and get way more excited with the melodies in wave forms I use when I speak with my family, for example.
My vocal range is used way more than when I speak English. I find that interesting since the speaking voice is part of one’s personality and that it affects it so much was for me quite an awakening. I guess I have to bring some of that “Swiss German mountain sound” into my way of speaking English? ;-)
Singing for me is experimenting every time I do it. I’m exploring sounds that I wouldn’t necessarily separate from the speaking voice since I use my speaking voice as part of the experimental ‘singing’. I rap in gibberish and tell stories with lots of dynamical and color changes and I sing in all kinds of ‘genres’ if that is the right expression to use here.
For me, it’s just like an instrument that one can be endlessly curious about in order to bring out every single sound possible to go deeper and deeper in exploring sound. I love it, since it seems sometimes endless. As long as I have my voice I will have a good life. It’s so much fun to go deeper with this instrument of mine.
And no one has the same voice. Every human being has a very unique sound and that is what makes it so beautiful!
From whispers to screams, from different colours to dynamics, what are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?
Obviously, it’s not infinite. We all have a certain vocal range and I guess this has always been something I wanted to keep exploring since I started singing. How much higher can I go? How much lower can I go? What are other possibilities to express a certain musical moment? What texture fits this composition best? Do I want to use lyrics here, gibberish or none? The use of dynamics …
The control really depends on the musical setting. If it’s not fully improvised as with my duo together with Maxim Lubarsky where you can let go of any possible boundary, then there is most likely a guideline to follow. If you sing for example with a big band or an orchestra you have to follow what’s on the sheet since you’re obviously not performing alone.
But within the musical settings, even if they are somehow pre-set and structured, you always have the freedom to express yourself with your own vocal quality, personality and sense of musicality. That’s the whole point of doing it and why you either get hired or fired!
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?
Since most of my lyrics on this album are written in the style of the incredible poet Gertrud Stein, it will be quite difficult for the listener to figure out what my ideas really are behind these sentences. And that's a good thing! I like to leave the interpretation open.
‘Alpha Bird’ and ‘The Circus’ from the album ‘STATES’ (2024) present this style most.
I always write the lyrics last, as I only record the melody first in a kind of 'gibberish'. Rhythm, flow, texture, phrasing etc. come first, the meaning of the actual composition only shines through much later in the process. I try to let the music guide me.
Singing someone else’s song comes with a lot of respect from me. I have in general a lot of respect from words. That’s why I often stay away from them or sing in my own little “gibberish garden of Eden”.
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?
Taking care of your body, mind and soul. It sounds so simply but I think we all know that it isn’t.
But if those three parts are in balance and healthy we can sing to our fullest potential. We are our instrument voice since our body is our voice. That is probably the main difference compared with an instrumentalist.
How has technology, such as autotune or effect processing, impacted singing? Has it been a concrete influence on your own approach?
It can be fun to try out some things in the studio, but it surely annoys me to hell when I hear it on every single pop tune on the radio.
Students will ask for this sound and even worse, they are imitating it to sound like ‘auto-tune’. Not sure if that’s a healthy direction in order to find our own voice and personality. But hey, maybe that’s not a goal of many young vocalists and then it’s up to me to adjust and get used to technical changes going on in this world.
The world surely doesn’t stand still. It’s quite the opposite with the increasing growth of AI. Good luck!
For recording engineers, the human voice remains a tricky element to capture. What, from your perspective, makes voices sound great on record and in a live setting?
Personality. The rough edges, textures and phrasing one can only do when singing natural.
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?
That’s a big question. How much time have you got? ;-)
Well, the human voice is something most people use in one or the other way. It is part of you, part of your personality. Some people use it more for their daily activities be it during work (teachers, preachers, customer service etc.) and some use it very rarely (quiet office jobs, handwork etc) for the same or other reasons.
We all have probably experienced how it feels or what it can mean when someone calls our name out loud, when someone is whispering in our ear, when someone mumbles something that we cannot really fully understand and we wonder what the couple on that bench over there talks about. The human voice is very personal, very intimate and very familiar to us as human beings.
That is also why singing can touch so directly and profound and gives many of us goose bumps when it’s done a certain way. It’s also a very subjectively beautiful and individual sound, just the way we choose our partner in life according to many factors that either draw us towards or away from a person.
The voice has also the possibility of using words that carry a message. No other instrument (other than the laptop) has that possibility. Words can obviously carry very positive and encouraging messages or the opposite, which can turn into manipulation and possible danger for society. That is why I personally have a lot of respect from using words and often either chose very open and free to interpret sentences or then chose to go with a gibberish version that eventually turns into a similar style of the poet Gertrud Stein.
If I don’t sing for a long time, it means something is wrong with me. I need to sing in order to stay mentally and physically healthy. In order to sing well for my ears and own taste and ambitions, I need to take good care of my own well-being. It’s all very connected and it all collapses in a circle if not nurtured accordingly. But if nurtured well, it’s a wonderful way of living and I highly recommend going that deep in order to discover the beauty within ourselves.
Our voices need to be heard and each one of us has something to say and sing.
