Part 2

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.

As I perform more, I am becoming more and more in touch with the myriad ways my voice can be used to express myself. I think that when I was younger and less in control of my voice I would tend to push it and this could lead to a kind of loss of expression in the name of getting the sound out.

Over time I’m becoming more comfortable, and drawn towards extreme softness, or rather just really listening to the sounds around me, whether that’s my guitar or band, the lyrics of the song, how my voice is sounding and feeling on that day and kind of trying to honour how the sound wants to come out. I think it’s part of a process of becoming less nervous that the sound is even going to come out In a vaguely nice way, and moving towards really radically honest performances.

I feel in this way that performances tend to have so much more emotional nuance and space, space in many ways- between the musicians, ideas being explored, lyrics and audience feelings. I feel that creation of space really elongates time and things seem to hang a little bit more, enabling more considered exploration.

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

I definitely wanted to lean into the things that are subtly unique to my voice, I think that it simply sounding as much like me as possible was really important to me.

I think this is most noticeable in the more intimate songs on the record such as “Poem About Walking” and “Into The Water” as they are the most sparse.



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 feel that when I’m writing songs, as I often write in a kind of stream of consciousness way, improvising with guitar, that the lyrics automatically fit my voice and with the music, even if they’re lines that one wouldn’t typically put in a song or lyrics you wouldn’t fit in a line if you were writing it line by line. I find there is a big difference in the lyrical style when I write a more structured way, which is interesting.

Often when singing someone else's song it can take quite a while to fall into step with their specific intonation, timing etc. This is especially true if you’re trying to sing a Joni song, who is always playing with timing, pushing ahead of the line or pulling back, as part of her style of expression.

Also going back to the original question I think that when I’m writing, the right words come out of my mouth, even if they wouldn’t technically the best words to hear.

I’m thinking about putting words like ‘tenterhooks’ into my song “Please,” which is just not really a word I would choose if I were sitting down poring over the lyrics, but kind of just came out whilst I was singing.



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 have experienced a lot of vocal strain in my time, mainly from seriously not looking after my voice.

About five years ago I was in Australia performing in a one woman play with music which was performed outside, so required a lot of bolstering and rigorous warm ups, neither of which I did. Instead I spent a lot of time smoking and shouting in loud bars after the show and that on top of the vocal work of performing the show this led me to all but completely lose my voice!

This is obviously quite an extreme example, but I immediately went on strict vocal rest during the days and booked in an appointment with an amazing vocal coach, who gave me a series of exercises that literally brought my voice back to life. The main takeaway from that was starting to understand the vocal box as a physical thing with moving parts that you can oil and tune and support, rather than the voice as something abstract and almost mystical that is sometimes available to you and sometimes not!

Though I love smoking, I have very recently quit, and my voice is so much smoother and more reliable, with a much wider register now. I do not recommend smoking.

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

I prefer to engage as little as possible with autotune and effects on my voice as the thing that I am interested in with voices is the emotion evoked by the idiosynchrasies in voices, even if that comes with slight tuning disparities and imperfections. I’m interested in the imperfections, it’s human, and I think that we can feel when that’s been edited away, even if it’s really subtle or well done.

Of course there are times I’m tempted but more and more I feel a pull in the opposite direction. Oh, I also have to say that I do love reverb, though as time goes on I am trying to wean myself off it!

I do enjoy playing with effects on the voice when layering backing vocals or more in more experimental creative methods, I think that is extremely fun and liberating, it is interesting to turn your own voice into an instrument or tool.

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 think that finding the right microphone for your voice can make a world of difference in capturing your specific vocal qualities.

I have used some microphones in various places which have really enhanced the richness of my voice, which is always really exciting and tangible. I unfortunately am a microphone novice and don’t actually know what any of them are called but I know they made a difference! I should investigate that …

Weirdly I often really like the way my voice sounds on voicenotes on my phone, there’s something very pleasing about the fuzz and distortion, a bit like a 35mm photograph.
 
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?

I notice that I sing when I’m happy, involuntarily, when I’m going about my day. Then, noticing that I am singing increases my happiness and I want to sing more. Sometimes just walking around my house, singing either a song or a random idea evokes so much creative energy within me, it’s extremely generative and seeps into every other facet of my life, the way I walk around, the things I think, how I speak to people I encounter.

I think that as a society we should sing more together, it is and could me used more as a tool of togetherness and collective expression. Some of the most bolstering and inspiring creative experiences I’ve had have been in choirs. When we are young children we all sing,we are (hopefully) not told we are good or bad at it, we just accept it as something we can and probably want to do together, as it exists as expression without qualitative judgement.

I think that more of this kind of non hierarchical, non goal oriented, expressive collectiveness could be deeply beneficial for the wellbeing of our society. More choirs! Singing is for everyone! Music is for everyone!