Name: Rosalind Elizabeth Crane aka Rozzi
Nationality: American
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current Release: Rozzi's new single "Hold Tight" is out via Mr. Moon, Mr. Moon. It is taken off her upcoming full-length album Fig Tree.

If you enjoyed these insights by Rozzi and would like to stay up to date on her music and live dates, visit her official homepage. She is also on Facebook, and Instagram.

For a deeper dive, we recommend our earlier Rozzi interview.



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?

In preschool I preferred walking around making up songs over making friends, if I’m honest. I was a loser and I loved it!

And I decided to be a singer after singing “I’m Sensitive” by Jewel in the first grade talent show. Singing was and is the first love of my life.



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

I love playing piano and guitar, but sometimes I get frustrated because I’m so much more adept at singing than playing instruments. Like when I’m thinking too fast for my hand to write, it’s annoying.

With singing, there’s a kind of endless potential for expression because I’ve worked so hard to give myself options vocally. On an instrument, I’m more trapped.

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 best things that happened to my voice were: meeting Bay Area voice teacher Amber Morris in high school, meeting Los Angeles voice teacher Jeffery Alen in college, getting my first job as a background singer for Sergio Mendes when I was 19 and learning how to blend with Gracinha Mendes, learning live Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, and Ariana Grande albums note for note.

One day I decided that I want to be able to sing anything, so I’ll have any note at my disposal if the song calls for it. I would go off and find my own sound eventually, but learning from the greats first was crucial.

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

Emotion. The point of singing, in my opinion, is to express human feeling. So I am not moved by amazing technique or crazy runs unless it feels like they’re being sung for a reason. Like those notes were necessary to tell the story.

My favorite moment of singing of all time is Lauryn Hill on “Ready or Not” by The Fugees. When she sings “you can’t run away …” It’s literally dripping in feeling and I’m obsessed with it.



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 can feel the voice pretty much wherever I want to feel it - I just have to send the sound there. It’s literally a vibration you can move around which, I admit, does sometimes feel like a magic trick.

There are a few metaphors I use to get my head around it: throwing a baseball like a pitcher, the set up for catching a wave on a surfboard, that thing where you rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time.

But, not to be corny, it mostly feels like flying. When the vocals are hitting, I feel like I’m off the ground. It’s really therapy. I genuinely believe if everyone would sing there would be a lot less conflict in the world.

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?

Whenever I sing, someone tells me I sound different than they expected me to sound, so I think speaking voices can be very deceptive.

With “Hold Tight” and the Fig Tree album in general, I tried to bring a bit of my talking voice into the vocals. I really wanted to make people feel like they were right next to me and there’s an intimacy to just talking to someone. So I tried to sing that way.
 
What are the potentials and limits of your voice? How much of your vocal performance can and do you want to control?

I’m pretty obsessed with control as a person and I think you can hear that when I sing, haha! But like most things in life, it really gets good when you let go of the reins a bit.

I work really hard to get my voice ready for shows. I practice songs to death. Then I get on stage and my goal is to lose myself completely, and I more or less throw away everything I worked on, trusting it’s in my body and that I’m free to be free.

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.

It’s kind of this magical in-between where you get to be so close without feeling exposed. It’s a true, deep connection between people who have never met.

I think, at the end of the day, it’s that feeling that I’m so attached to. I love to feel understood and that’s what music, and specifically singing, does - it builds a bridge between you and the audience and you can sing things you’d never say. And I think that kind of liberates both the artist and the crowd.

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

The goal with this record was to capture my live sound. I’m more of a performer than a recording artist so we tried to make the recording experience as much of a “performance” as possible.

I recorded most songs to tape (including “Hold Tight” and “Fig Tree”), cutting almost exclusively full takes rather than recording sections at a time. As often as possible, my producer Mocky would play an instrument next to me as I recorded vocals, just so I could feel that feeling of live collaboration.

I sing much better when communicating with and to someone. Being alone in a sound proof booth has never been that inspiring to me.  

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?

The way things sound is half the battle. Lyrics need to sound the way you want them to feel. Sometimes saying a crunchy word that sticks out works really well, sometimes it ruins the flow.

I get stuck trying to fit too many words into a song sometimes - I mistake poems for essays when I really, really have a point to make. But sometimes that’s exactly what the song needs - the point is it’s a feeling.

The words sing right or they don’t.

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?

The best thing you can do for your voice is learn how to sing correctly. Technique is everything and, because I’m so obsessed with and focused on it, I find the more I sing the better my voice feels. It’s a muscle that likes to be in shape.

Talking, on the other hand, can be a killer. A loud party is no good for that reason. And I’m a bit of a hypochondriac because getting sick threatens one’s ability to sing and, not to be dramatic, but I’d rather die than not be able to sing.

That being said, I think it’s so important to have fun and live your life and not feel like a slave to your chords. Sometimes I’ll go out and have three martinis and laugh all night and the next day my voice feels amazing. I think it’s because joy is good for you!

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?

There are some songs that are recorded at just the right time. Recordings that feel like a snapshot of a moment.

From the stories I’ve read, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt is one of those. She did it once and it was done.



I feel that way about my song “Bad Together.” I wrote and recorded it in real time as I was going through a break up and, when I listen to it now, I can hear that. It’s immediate.



But my favorite vocals I’ve done are all on Fig Tree, largely because we recorded to tape. When Mocky played back the first takes I ever did on tape, it felt like I was hearing my voice for the first time in my life.

I can’t really explain it other than I felt like I was at my own show. It was so cool.

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?

Singing connects me to myself, to others, and to whatever God is.

I do think it’s simultaneously one of the most human and most spiritual things we can do. To me, the fact that we’re all born with the basic ability, proves we’re meant to do good and take care of each other, rather than the alternative.

If you can’t tell, I really, really love to sing …