vocal versatility Quotes

Paul McCartney has a voice that can do anything!

I've been singing my whole life, since I was a kid; but never formally as a career. I did it in plays when I was younger, and I sang all styles of music: everything from Italian opera to blues.

Robin Williams understands sonic performances. He understands what it's like to change your voice up.

If you call yourself a singer, then you must have the ability to sing anything, whether it's pop, classical, rock, sufi, or folk.

My voice gets recognized before anything else. It's always gotten attention. In choruses at church and school, I started as a tenor, moved to a baritone and finally became a bass. I knew then that my voice would be my instrument. Now if I want to hide, I just keep my mouth shut.

I sing in five or six different voices that are all part of me. It's not contrived.

I was blown away by Steve Perry's voice - you know, his amazing ability to change from a lambing voice to rock.

I had a hole in my voice. It's an area in the voice where it's air. It's just - there's no - it's just very airy. And my classical teachers were just so frustrated with me because I would have these deep, low notes that were really strong, and the higher register was strong, but right in that middle area, it was really hard. It was like a passage. And many singers go through this and work it out. But I realized in jazz, I could just take advantage of that and take advantage of having a voice that was very different in different areas.

I am comfortable with anything I sing: jazz, gospel, classical. It doesn't matter. I can do it all.

I can hit baritone notes, and I can sing in the soprano range if I wanted to. I did this thing a long time ago where I did a duet with myself. I sound like two different people.

As for my voice, it cannot be categorized-and I like it that way, because I sing things that would be considered in the dramatic, mezzo or spinto range. I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.

I always try to get to the point where I can do different things with my voice.

I do lots of weird voices and I kind of act out my raps. That's something that's always been in me.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, 'What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?'

The main thing is always try to find different voices for yourself. If you're in your car just driving somewhere you can try to start thinking about a voice you might want to do, like try a British accent.

It's not really difficult to go from one voice into the next. It's like asking you to sing a line of Happy Birthday and then Goodnight Irene - assuming you know the words to both those songs

I say with pride that I've done over a hundred voices or something, and some of them may have only had two or three lines, but I literally never ran out. I think I'm a bit of a savant that way. I kind of remember every voice I hear, famous or otherwise, and can imitate it pretty fast. I've enjoyed mimicking people famous and not famous all through my life, and they kind of remain in the memory banks, so I'm ready to trot them out.

I always believed a singer should be able to sing any kind of song. If I wanted to sing a Cole Porter song, I should be able to do that. Or 'Sherry,' I should be able to do that. Or a Dylan song.

With my trumpet voice, I love gritty, plunger, growly sounds. But vocally, I love Anita O'Day - a raspier but definitely softer sound. Part of the fun has been finding vehicles or writing for both of those sounds.

I actually had a bunch of songs that I worked on with Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed, but they were too heavy for me because my voice sounds good when I sing clean. It sounds good dirty too, but when I hear my voice sing really clean, that's a special sound.

I never called myself a jazz singer. I just call myself a vocalist because I love to sing all kinds of things.

A lot of my cartoon voices are basically just variations on my natural voice.

I always just want to do non-typical voices for some reason.

Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but my favourite is Sammy Davis Jr. He had incredible versatility in his voice, often doing impressions of people. It's always going to be classic, and you'll never get bored listening.

I'm not really a country singer, although I did make a couple albums and love its simple, straight-from-the-heart approach, but I have always sung a lot of jazz, show tunes, pop tunes, gospel and blues.