Name: Margareth Menezes
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, minister of culture in the current Brazilian government
Nationality: Brazilian
Current event: Margareth Menezes and Ilê Aiyê will present a special night celebrating Afro-Brazilian music and culture at London’s Barbican on Friday 26th July 2024. Find out more and buy tickets directly on the Barbican's website.

If you enjoyed this Margareth Menezes interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, facebook, and twitter.  



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

The feeling I have is that I was born with this predestination of being a singer,  although I only got aware of it, really, as something definitive in my life in my teens.

My musical skills were very noticeable and my mother was the first person who understood me in this regard. On my mother's side of the family we had a local band founded by my grandfather and my uncles. They were Uncle Zezinho, Uncle Carlito and my maternal grandfather, who played guitar with the instrument lying on his lap. And they were all self-taught.

My mother told me that at the age of three I asked her for a guitar, influenced by my grandfather's guitar. She promised me  I would receive it when I turned 15.  When the time came, I insisted on the promise she'd made me. And that's how it came to be that I got my first guitar. I'll never forget the day she handed me the instrument on my 15th birthday. It was too beautiful.

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

I play the guitar mainly to compose. I confess that since I started my political career, I have not had time to play and even to sing. This first one and a half year have been very intense. An immense workload.

But I love the guitar, it is a fascinating instrument.

Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?

I am Brazilian born in Bahia, and many different forms of expressions of singing co-exist here. I think that if you're born such a rich cultural environment, you're musical style will inevitably be influenced by it.

My approach is percussive, but it has nuances. I learned to sing by singing. In adolescence I participated in the church choir, and then sang in bars and also in the theater. All this gave me a lot of valuable experience.

But the biggest influence was to sing in the electric trios at the carnival of Bahia which is a fantastic school for any singer. You learn a wide range of techniques because it is a job that requires a lot of discipline and stamina in the application of the voice.

It's three to five hours of uninterrupted singing for five consecutive days, practically. In addition to all the activities leading up to Carnival, which means months of intense singing activity. This happens in Brazil because it is in the Brazilian summer and music appreciation is at its peak.

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?

The challenges were many since the technique we develop here is unique. The arrival of the electric trio gave birth to a new approach to singing because it is a true “marathon of the voice.” To reach this level of performance, working with speech therapists and otorhinolaryngologist was very important. Singing with an electric trio requires that the singer and musicians develop techniques not to injure the muscles and hearing.

There are specific warm-up exercises and vocal challenges. During the journey, we have to take three-minute breaks followed by one and a half minutes of singing to cool down the vocal tract, stretch, and hydrate. During this break, we inhale saline solution and apply ice packs to the throat. These are advanced relaxation techniques so that there are no vocal quality problems.

After the marathon, there's a procedure for cooling down and draining the vocal tract, along with a suitable diet to prevent reflux, ensuring good sleep and rest. It's not advisable to consume alcoholic beverages or acidic foods during these periods.

Lip vibrations, diaphragm exercises and ascending scales of warming and vocal expansion. Today there are great exercises. In Brazil, we have the best speech therapists for this type of preparation, I mention doctors Valeria Leal, Janaína Pimenta and Natasha Braga, which I consider the pioneers on the subject. On the social networks I follow several sensational teachers of great quality with new techniques.

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?

This relationship defines whether or not someone is truly a singer or not. Today there are many artificially manufactured things. When a person has a real talent for music, they're impregnated with a feeling for rhythm and melody. Harmony is something one learns, because the study of harmonic relations is technical. But singing and your cadence of singing has to do with the person and the place where they were born. It is a brand.

The various languages and singing styles are native to a place. In art, technique is a consequence of the quest to explain an aesthetic.That is, the expression itself is really innate, the idea of studying how this happens is what we call technique. That is why creativity is inherent to the human being; creating is spiritual. Technique will always be relative, and creation absolute.

The more you improve your sense of rhythm, the more you expand your ability to enhance your talent, which is quite difficult, and if a person lacks rhythmic sense, it is very difficult to teach. This defines the singer.

For example, singing in India is very different from singing in Brazil. They have a rhythmic division that is completely different from ours. A Brazilian musician can learn Indian music and vice versa, but if neither has a sense of rhythm, they won't learn. This is because these are completely different languages. The perception of time is shifted. Both are beautiful but complex.

This is wonderful because it shows the human ability to create incredible things with our gifts and talents.

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

Timbre and expression. Emotion is the soul of singing. The emotion of life gives birth to the story that is being told. It can be a drama or a reflection, it can be a question or a complaint, it can be a cry or a declaration of love. Singing needs to translate this. For me, this is beyond technique, and it happens when singing comes from the heart.

The mystery of the voice! For me, if there is no DNA of the heart in the singing, it will lack soul. Some of today's technologies offer many effects that, if not applied correctly, can, in some cases, separate the voice from the singing. This is because having a voice is one thing, but singing is another.

Having a voice is the tool; singing is what is sculpted with that tool. That is why the voice is the vehicle; everyone has a voice, singing is the art.

How would you describe the physical feeling of singing?

Singing comes from the heart, and is all over the body. Where you feel the voice, you have a visual sensation/representation, there is a sense of release or tension, etc …

Head, heart, throat, plexus and lung, feet and hands. Expression!

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

I don't think about it, I sing when I want to.

On a professional level, you need to have everything technically required for a good delivery. The proper structure for a good performance.

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?

The voice belongs to the spirit, the vocal tract is of the body. It's that simple.

Both spoken and sung voices have variations, depending on each person's vocal range. But the voice belongs to its owner; they must master it.

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?

I have a good vocal range, and with exercises, I've always been able to have good dynamics. I'm not very disciplined, but I enjoy it.

I have experiences when I record a song. How much of your vocal performance can you and do you want to control?

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?

I have to be able to sing the music I writet. You have to remain in tune, or at least within the range of what the melody proposes and fill it with emotion.

A sung word can be rebellious and surprising once it is released. But I never thought about it, I'm an interpreter, and the Brazilian songbook is wonderful, a great school. I have no problem singing songs composed by other people – after all, internalizing things created by other artists helps us expand our vision of life.

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?

Of course if you are well and relaxed the show will be much better. I try to set aside time for myself before the shows. I center myself and like to pray.

There are exercises to recover the voice, to warm it up, expand it. It all depends on what you need.

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

If it is necessary to use some effect, I think well-applied technologies can be useful tools.

But they haven't been a concrete influence on my singing. Thankfully I came with a very special vocal timbre. It's distinctive, and I don't like to mask my voice.

I use minimal and balanced effects, but my voice is me; I don't want to change it. I don't need to.

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?

They are two different things: engineers fulfill their role in preparing the environment, but the quality of the voice depends on the singer. They can't work miracles if the person can't reasonably use their voice, or if the voice is hoarse or rough.

They may use technology to clean up the voice, but the singer has to do their part.

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?

Look, the origins of singing date back a long time. They were there even before we existed, singing already existed before us. It's in nature; birds have been singing forever.

The voice, speech, what is said and what is thought, and what is needed, what we are feeling when the being is natural. I think we really need to learn to listen. To listen and to hear the nature of things.

I've been fascinated by pure vocal recordings for a long time. Do you have some recommendations in this regard?

Come to Bahia!