Side 1: About the Technique
a. Which voice-techniques do you use in your performances? Do you have different modes of reading/ interaction/ improvisation?
I think the base is not to get hurt, I’ve found that you can do just about anything with your voice as long as you don’t force anything. Of course for some sounds you do use pressure, but the trick is to apply the right amount, and never more than necessary. The core of this comes from classical singing technique, where it is all about the resonances and the support. Both my parents are opera singers and I’ve been bathed in that world since my early childhood. Even though I did decide not to do conservatory I would be signing Mozart aria’s at home (when nobody would be listening) trying to figure out how to make the voice do the things I wanted it to do. I was lucky, and equipped with good genes and good ears, because my voice could really have gotten hurt by the things I did, I had to unlearn a lot of bad habits in the process. It took me years to figure out vocal support, and in fact what helped me most were not the few vocal lessons I got, but a week-long workshop with a French tai-chi master and choreographer, Thierry Bae. It’s there that I understood that support basically is breath, and not something like a muscle that one has to keep tensed in order to make sound. It happens organically.