KT Tunstall Quotes

If I get a song - a good song - I just sing it the way I hear it in my head. If anybody else wanted to add whistles and bells and chains rattling, that's fine. Just not too much. I actually just do things as straight ahead as possible.

There's nothing quite as raw and honest as one person and one instrument.

For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.

I learned by listening to other people sing and doing impressions of them. And there are things no one can ever teach you, like phrasing. By listening to Sinatra, for instance - you felt that everything he sang had happened in his life.

I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.

Sometimes when you belt, it kinda makes the song more dramatic than it really needs to be. There are certain songs that you hear, and you're like, 'Wow, he's singing about his girlfriend, but he sounds kinda mad the way he's yelling, 'You're so pretty!''

I just go out and sing my songs. I don't put on elaborate stage shows with ridiculous fancy dress.

I did everything I could to not bring in any of the - any of the technical things I got from classical into jazz. And I did everything to really base it on my speaking voice and to just not try to make it sound pretty.

In my opinion, there is a huge lack of imaginative, unconventional music being created by artists today and what little there is, goes widely unappreciated by the masses. 'Port Blue' is my attempt at re-creating the music I want to hear and the emotions I want to feel." "If by chance you ever feel as though you’ve come to know these songs, please consider yourself a friend because in a manner of speaking, you know me. This music is my heart and soul. This is who I am." (Adam R. Young, 2006)

I think listening to a lot of Lou Reed when I was a teenager is what encouraged me to just sing however felt good to me.

I'm just a man, not a hero. just a boy, who wants to sing this song.

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

I think the way I can sing the way I sing is because of the way I talk to my animals. I hit some really high notes.

So much can be gained from watching other singers, seeing what they do and what they don't do, seeing how they look when they breathe, how wide they open their mouths for a high note.

I try to play the bare essence, to let everything be just what it's supposed to be in that particular spot...You have many things to pick from when you're playing, so you try to train yourself to pick out the best things that you know.

I think that the best way you can get honesty across in your music to connect and relate to people is to be motivated by personal emotions, stories and feelings.

The one radio voice that I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words.

I don't have a Jersey dialect. So when I approached the singing, I approached it the same way as an actor I approach a dialect, just as a singer.

My playing is fairly straightforward, really, and everything's pretty much standard no frills or special effects.

What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.

Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air.

I used to need the character but as I've gotten older I need it less and less - I prefer to play some version of myself. To approach any acting job as me just being me.

When you're just singing a beautiful melody with a story that's true to the heart, you don't need a lot of embellishment.

I don't like to intellectualize about my acting. I don't sit around and study the pages of a script over and over again. I don't worry whether the period is contemporary or three hundred years ago. Human beings are all alike. The main thing in acting is honesty, to feel the humanity and get to the essence of the character. You can't put anything into a character that you haven't got within you.

I was happy but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you.