Name: Billianne
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current Release: Billianne's debut album Modes of Transportation is out now via No Wonder.
Recommendation for Milton Ontario, Canada: Rattlesnake point, and Springridge farm store! Larose Milton is also a great spot.
Topic I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: Dogs!!!!! I love dogs and talking about people's dogs and seeing photos of peoples dogs. I am the right person to show photos of your dogs to. I will not get tired of them.  

If you enjoyed this Billianne interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok. 



When did you first consciously start getting interested in singing? What was your first performance as a singer on stage or in the studio and what was the experience like?

It was more subconsciously! I can’t remember not singing, I’ve always loved it.
 
What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer/vocalist? Which practices, exercises, or teachers were most helpful in reaching your goals – were there also “harmful” ones?

The main challenge was figuring out my voice had many limitations.

This wasn’t until recording this album where I wasn’t just singing folk music. I had to figure out new ways to hit notes. To properly belt high notes. I realized quickly how important warming up is for me and warming down.

These were all harsh realities but the process of this album left me feeling like I have less limitations than I started with.

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 natural voices. I think everyone has a unique natural voice and showcasing that is always interesting and ear catching for me!

I love when a vocal sounds like it’s coming from a deep connection to the lyrics being sung. That’s also important for me when listening.

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 …]

I feel my voice mainly in my chest and jaw area maybe?

Lately though, as I perform live more, I feel the sensation moving to different places! Maybe it’s growing up or maybe it’s understanding how to use my instrument more.

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?

Kinda like I said above haha! I believe they are. I think it’s easy to tell when someone is trying to “sing.”

Singing is closer to talking then people realize. There are melodies to everyday conversations!

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?  

Yeah 100%. I have amazing collaborators who helped me with this. I think I had a natural “flow” when I started recording but it was very set in its way.

I think rhythm and groove are a song by song thing. You have to get to know the song and I think finds the groove or “flow” or “pocket” is an important step and definitely changes how a song is sung.

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

My voice is low which is nice for some genres but was a challenge for some of the pop melodies we were writing. You can some what control this but really your range can’t be stretched too much over  time.

I can control my vocal strength which I find the best place to learn and address that is performing songs  live over and over.

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.

Singing is the best connection I have to people. I always say I feel like people don’t know me until they’ve heard me sing. I think they get me more or something.

It’s such a big part of me and a main form of communication and connection for me at this point.

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

On this album, I was using my voice in ways I hadn’t used my voice before. A song that comes to mind is a song like “Future Emma.”



In this song I’m belting some of the highest notes on the record.

I think, as much as I wanted to showcase these qualities of my voice I was also learning the capabilities of my voice. I think I always knew I could do more, but it was really fun to prove it to myself.

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?

When writing song lyrics, there’s a big connection to the voice and the text. Some words actually do feel better to sing, and so while writing will decide on one word over the other because of the fact.

When talking certain lines I mean, yeah, every line has to align for me and I want to feel each word deeply. This counts for the pop songs too, doesn’t matter if it’s a sad feeling, a happy feeling, a goofy feeling ... I just wanna make sure I’m feeling it.

So this is all thought out in the writing process.

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?

I’m actually not very good at taking care of my voice. Throughout my early 20s, my voice has been changing and getting deeper actually.

The best thing I do for my voice is the straw method which means kind of blowing air into a straw with the melody you’re about to sing. There gently warms up my voice and I find it works nine times out of 10. I feel way more warmed up after doing it.

I need to get better at taking care of my voice while on tour. I find that where it goes through the most.

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

Yeah, when we first started using any form of autotune, I felt a little opposed to it at first. Mainly, it was an ego thing cause I wanted to be perfect.

Then I realized almost every pop song you hear has at least some autotune on it. Without it, it actually sounds incomplete in my opinion. It’s not like I would be completely off tune, but even a hair flat or a hair sharp would throw a vocal stack off balance.

So we kinda had to use it to make the song sound extra polished.

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 love recording a double which just means matching another take to the chosen main take. So it kind of sounds like one person, but there’s little moments where you can tell it’s two vocal takes at once. I think this doesn’t work for all songs but it’s one of those things that we tended to always try on a song because it can make it sound so good, just so rich and full.

I think what makes a vocal sound good live has a lot to do with the vocalist. I also think sometimes there’s too much river being thrown around on a live vocal, and it can get lost in the mix of things. It’s easy to make a voice muddied and buried underneath a band.

A skill is making a voice pop and come out clear. I think that has to do with the front of house engineer, but also I think it has to do with the vocalist and how they are using the microphone and using their voice.

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?

My voice is such a big part of who I am.

I think singing for people has been my main form of connection with other human beings since I was really little. I’d make people laugh with singing, and as I got older, making people cry with singing, making people feel something. It’s just always kind of come to me naturally that way I think, yeah, it’s my main form of connection with other people.

Creatively, connection with other people is so important for song writing and keeping the heart beat of what I do alive!