Name: Ida No
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Nationality: American
Current release: Together with Nat Walker, Ida No makes up Fawn. The duo's debut album Flamboyant NonViolent is out now.

If you enjoyed this Ida No interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit the official Instagram account of Fawn.  



Do you think some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in voice and singing? How and when did you start singing?

Yes. I’ve always loved female voices. When I was 15 I heard Nina Hagen for the first time at a dance club and I instantly knew I wanted to be her. Although whenever I would try to sing I could see that I clearly was not her, lol.



Singing has always been really challenging for me but I love it so much that I just had to do it. I really began trying when I started my first band at the age of 24.

If you’re also playing other instruments, how does the expressive potential of these compare to your own voice?

I play guitar but I’m not a master of the instrument so I’m not able to express through it the way that I do with my voice.

I do think really great guitar players convey as much nuance in mood and emotion as a voice can, though. But that’s the result of years and years of having a guitar fused to your body to the point that the instrument becomes an extension of you.

I’ve definitely never had that type of a relationship with the guitar.

Singing is an internal part of all cultures and traditions. Which of these do you draw from- and why?

Anything that I’m ever exposed to. But I love things that are exceptionally strange - the voices that require a trance-like state for the singer to nail it, like the Tuvan throat singers.

Also, the soprano coloraturas are totally from outer space, totally awe inspiring.

What were some of your 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?

The main challenge for me is that there's a genetic component to singing and I do not have those genes. There is a singing phenotype. The shorter, thicker and wider that a person is through the shoulder, neck and head, the easier it will be for them to sing.

Also, not all lungs are created equal. Just like with professional swimmers and endurance athletes, there’s only so much training you can do to enhance your lung capabilities and the mechanisms by which the lungs oxygenate the tissues. If the genetics aren’t there then no matter how much you train you’ll only be able to get so far.

The most helpful thing I’ve learned is getting my voice to come way, way forward, rather than stuck at the back of my throat. There are helpful videos on YouTube that teach things like nasal twang and “singing into the mask”.



When you have a dinky voice like mine you have to really optimize resonance and brightness.

Also doing a lot of core class (exercise classes that teach you to move from your core) has been amazingly helpful. This isn’t doing tons of crunches or anything like that - it’s really specialized exercises that help create habits of getting the shoulders to come down and relax, which they can only do if there’s a solid, engaged core to rest on.

When the shoulder, neck and jaw tension is released then the whole singing apparatus can operate more efficiently.

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?

Harmony, rhythm and melody all serve to reinforce one another in order to convey a song. My singing has improved since I started learning to tap my feet while singing.

In 2019 I spent about a year learning to play a full drum kit and that really did a lot for my brain. Visually, the different components of a piece of music all line up on a grid - I used to be oblivious to that and I sung separately from the music (because I didn’t know what I was doing).

I took drum lessons for awhile, and learning to coordinate both hands and both feet all at the same time was a huge eye opener (I remember I used to get so frustrated while learning it that I would almost want to cry and my brain would be feeling like it was going to explode, lol). But once I got that sensation of how it feels to be completely physically locked into a groove, I became much more obedient to the music while singing.

What are the things you hear in a voice when listening to a vocalist? What moves you in the voices of other singers?

Tone. I’m a tone addict. I love bright piercing tones burgeoning on shrillness.

What moves me is when a singer has those moments when their personality completely dissolves and the universe moves through them, which is something that can also happen in martial arts, dance, sports, and so on. It's those times when a volume of energy moves through the body that’s not your typical, ordinary, mundane human energy, and something happens that seems super human.

If you’re a singer and you’re channeling energy like this, you’re not going to look pretty at that moment, with your eyes closed tight and your mouth opened wide, probably making some weird snarling facial expression. You have to get all self awareness out of the way in order to go get that magnificent note, scrape it off the ceiling, and bestow it onto us listeners and blow our minds.

Sia is really good at it and so is Alanis Morissette. And of course my favorite, Nina Hagen.



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 of tension etc…)

Well, when all is functioning properly, there is no sensation. However, some days are better than others.

On a bad day I will feel tension in my neck, making it difficult for my jaw to move. And I get really annoyed about that. On a good singing day, my jaw comes down easily and stays down, which keeps my throat open, then my upper lip and upper jaw feels like it’s perpetually lifting away from that lower section and that’s when I get the best performance my scanty voice is capable of.

That’s when the singer looks like Dracula just before he bites your neck. It’s called widening the embouchure.

What kind of musical settings and situations do you think are ideal for your own voice?

Either by myself on headphones in my bedroom, being totally paranoid that anyone can hear me; or walking down the street or through the grocery store, totally not caring who hears me.

I have a split personality when it comes to singing, my attitude towards it is based on my mood.

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

They are literally one and the same and it is all psychological barriers that make singing feel so alien.

I had a singing teacher once, who in order to get me to recognize my natural singing voice (because I had so many bad habits going on at the time), told me to imagine I could see a friend across the street and that I’m happy to see them, and I shout “Hey! Hi!”, across the street, and boom - instant singing voice, so easy.

It’s unfortunate and kind of bizarre how singing can seem so impossible when it’s an instrument that we’ve all been practicing since literally the very first second we come out of the womb. We sing before we even walk or talk. Babies sing freely and it always sounds beautiful. But then we grow an analytical brain and it’s great for keeping us alive but not so great for singing.

From whispers to screams, from different colors to dynamics, what are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?

It’s like martial arts or ballet or basketball in that way; it’s something that I consistently practice to get a good working knowledge, but when the curtain goes up, it’s time to “just dance.”

So I practice taking aim during practice time but during performance time - this is not the time to practice. For me, performance these days is just during recording. So I’ll practice singing the song ahead of time and then on the recording try to just let it rip.

If I try to control my performance it just ends up sounding totally contrived and d.o.a.

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?

Yes, I write phrases that are suited to my voice and skill level. I never write long passages for myself because I know my lungs can’t do it. I give myself a lot of space to take a breath. My voice works best for shorter, punchier phrases.

Every now and then I find songs by other artists that I can sing comfortably but I think it’s best if I stay in my own lane and just do my weird little songs that I write for myself.

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

I don’t smoke, I eat healthy food, drink a lot of water, exercise regularly and get enough sleep.

I don’t know much about the technologies to rehab a seriously damaged voice but I did hear that Adele trashed her chords from all the chest belting she used to do and that she had to train to sing more gently.

I think time off from singing is probably the best way to heal a damaged voice.

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

It may be brought in at times but I try not to rely too heavily on it.

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?

Being an excellent singer; having the genetic component, the optimal psychological state (not necessarily insane but wild at heart), and being well trained for many years is what makes a voice sound great in any setting. It's a difference like night and day.

If a singer doesn’t have all that, then I'd say stacking tracks and using every trick in the book for recording and for live - let’s just hope you can dance and that the audience has had a few drinks by the time you’re going on, lol.

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

Music is a wonderful natural antidepressant.

I love hearing music in grocery stores on the overhead speakers. It transforms the mundane into the magical and everyone gets happy when there’s a little song to sing along to. Singing is also incredibly powerful at stopping ADD spin cycles and that might be why I’m so addicted to it.

To me it’s a crucial part of wellbeing although I know it might not be that way for everybody. I knew someone a long time ago who claimed she didn’t like music and I know other people now who say they would prefer AI music over the human stuff - so I don’t know about society as a whole. I think things effect all of us differently.