The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #39407 Message #1238904
Posted By: Vixen
02-Aug-04 - 10:29 AM
Thread Name: singers: who do you emulate and why?
Subject: RE: singers: who do you emulate and why?
Interesting thread--
I agree with Jerry; everyone who does anything has to admit to some sort of "influence"...
Diction is a curious thing--I certainly don't want to "mumble" my songs, a la Natalie Merchant (though I like her voice and how she uses it).
When I was younger I wanted to sound like the young Joan Baez, Mary Travers, Carol King and Joni Mitchell.
Now I want to sound like me, but I don't really know what I sound like. What I hear in my head is certainly different from what I hear I press "play"! And with a bit of "tweaking" during the recording process, Tim can do things that make me sound like Enya.
I've only recently (in the last few years) learned that it's ok to sing in my chest voice, that it's ok to have notes that "break", that volume and projection come from my being relaxed and solidly full of air in the middle of my body, that curling around my guitar kills my voice, that practicing scales and exercises makes notes and intervals easier to produce and hold onto.
So now I want to add ornaments, and emotion, and dynamic range and other interesting things to my singing, and I'm listening to Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton and others so I can hear how they add ornaments, convey emotion, and use dynamics to be such effective singers.
For me, every aspect of music is a learning process, and I'm one of those people who has to learn from others. I figure I'm learning what the tools are and how to use them--as I get more adept, hopefully I'll be able to use them creatively for my own purposes.
Just my $0.02, fwiw.
V