Quotes & Sayings About Vocals

I like to sit in front of the computer, going through files of music, and recording the final vocals, guitars and what- nots. But the windows are always open and you can hear the crickets, birds, chickens, and even the sound of rain hitting the studio. The farm is a great place to hang out in, learn from and create music. — Jason Mraz

I still do one song by myself onstage. it gives people the extremely personal thing where it's just me on guitar. But, I think the songs are better as a band. I think with all of the extra little hooks and backing vocals, it just adds to what my initial idea was. — Butterfly Boucher

When making the first album, I think I wrote a song about every six months. The first album was so much about the vocals carrying it. — Florence Welch

Remixes come very quickly, because you already have the melody and the vocals. I have a great passion for music, so it doesn't matter to me if it's a remix or an original production. I don't think about it as, 'Well, I have to spend three hours on a remix or I have to do something all original.' — Tiesto

I started doing some demos and got online and bought a refurbished laptop, bought a microphone off of eBay. A lot of folks said you can't really do it that way at a pro level, but I did some vocals that way, turned it into the label and they said, 'Wow, where did you record this? The vocals sound great!' — Rodney Atkins

Sometimes when you cut your bed tracks right off the bat, you don't really know where the vocal is landing and where the background vocals are, and other loops and stuff that are going on. — Tommy Lee

My son is in a band, and he's a singer, and his vocals ... they're screaming-growling stuff ... and he's got a pretty reasonable voice. Yet he practices really hard to get the screaming-growling thing without losing that voice every five minutes. So I'm, like, 'Hats off to you.' — Bruce Dickinson

I played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college. — Oscar Isaac

I've always wanted my music to have that desperation, where you just want to strip your clothes off and run down the highway. I want the feeling where you don't really know what to do with yourself - in the vocals, in the production. Everything. — Tove Lo

When we talk about my music, it's a cross between Tina Turner, Alanis Morrisette, and Diana Ross. It's the glamour and the showiness of Diana Ross; the ferociousness and pain of Tina Turner; and the vocals of Alanis. — Wynter Gordon

I do most of my vocals - aside from a couple of little one-shot vocal samples. I record everything into the Saffire with an SM58 then scratch it with loads of plug-ins. I don't do much vocoding to be honest. All my vocals are usually done with Melodyne and a ton of other plug-ins to make it sound weird. — Skrillex

I do sing a bit, a solo called 'Rubies,' and the female vocals on 'In Paradisum,' 'The Sound of Silence,' and 'Sapphire Clouds'. — Catherine Asaro

I've recorded a lot of vocals so far and I think they're kinda still in my own world, but I do have that urge sometimes. You want to push yourself to do other things. — Spencer Krug

The soothing vocals of "Ave Maria" serenaded from the small speaker, and Austin looked at me and shrugged in embarrassment. "It makes her smile," was all he said. I lost a piece of my heart to him right then. — Tillie Cole

The dilemma of the eighth-grade dance is that boys and girls use music in different ways. Girls enjoy music they can dance to, music with strong vocals and catchy melodies. Boys, on the other hand, enjoy music they can improve by making up filthy new lyrics. — Rob Sheffield

I can remember the first time I ever recorded my vocals on to a beat. Cat Coore from Third World - a legendary Jamaican band - had a little demo set up at his house. I'm very good friends with his eldest son, Shiah, who plays with me now. So we were rhyming over a track by the dancehall artist Peter Metro. I've still got it somewhere. — Damian Marley

I'm obsessed with choirs, and always have been, because of that sense of overwhelming vocals. — Florence Welch

Anna's voice wasn't a beautiful voice - rough edged and sorrowful, a bit used, somehow male and female at once. Yet it had more vibrancy to it than most Danish voices, which were often thin and white and too pretty to trigger a shiver. Anna's voice had the heat of the south; it warmed Einar, as if her throat were red with coals. — David Ebershoff

I can draw with sound. That's the most useful thing I learned in terms of what my craft is ... The arrangements were mine. They were little lines and stuff that I had written myself ... And I was locked into this idea that vocals didn't count, melodies didn't count, songwriting craftsmanship didn't count. The only thing that counted was high arching guitar solos. — Linda Ronstadt

All of my favorite records have vocals high in the mix, even if it's music that wasn't necessarily mainstream. — Dee Dee Ramone

In hip hop, it's a lot more about lacing a hot track. I start it, I help mix it, I help write it, I help produce it, I cut the person's vocals. I'm involved from the beginning to the end of a song. I'm not just giving someone a beat, you know? — Benny Blanco

There's not a day that I don't work on vocals, have vocal coaches, go to acting classes, read books. — Aaron Carter

It's great, because we've had some really great people playing with us who really have studied the record and been able to recreate a lot of what was done. But I would need a choir of eight, probably, to do all of the backup vocals. — Zooey Deschanel

The music that I listen to is very minimalistic. I listen to a lot of old blues that is just guitar and vocals. — Lykke Li

The original vocals had an awful lot of work put into them at the time, and I wasn't really sure that I could better them - I don't know if I have bettered them. — Kate Bush

When you've got insane drums and a lot of guitar, it's really hard to mix the vocals, to mix it all well. — Marnie Stern

The vocals are what immediately draw people in and sell the song. — Jerry Harrison

The boarders have changed. My vocals explore different elements and you know it was really important for me to transfer the atmosphere of the songs with my voice. — Heather Nova

I'm tired of being around men all the time. I'm going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I'll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses. — Brian Molko

For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?" — Ryan Adams

I don't think it's important to be that good at singing. I think people who are good at singing sing backing vocals for pop stars. It's about how you project. I wouldn't consider myself to be a singer. — Robbie Williams

The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric's vocals. There's never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together. — Alan Price

I feel connected to every song on this record [ 'Modern Vampires Of The City' ], but yeah I think there's something special about 'Young Lion'. It's pretty different from any song that we've had before because the vocals are kind of between two different very simple instrumental piano melodies and it's almost like something that we call a vignette, it's sort of like a miniature. — Rostam Batmanglij

The vocals are the very last thing I do. So, it's kinda the opposite: with country. it's singing and guitar first, but with rock, I worry about the riff and music, vocals last. — Hank Williams III

I do the work with friends who are musicians as well. I'm working on a piece of music and I have an idea of who I want on the vocals, but I don't really have a list. — Paul Van Dyk

Yeah, I'm just blessed to have this very strong thing, my vocals. I'm very healthy in that regard. — Bob Seger

I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I'd been in, and I'd gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, 'Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!' — Chris Cornell

Whenever I'm home, I haven't got any makeup on. But even in the studio, before I do vocals, I put makeup on. — Robert Smith

I grew up writing songs in my room on GarageBand, and I would make the beats just out of layering my vocals over and over again. Very Imogen Heap-inspired. — Ariana Grande

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn't even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake. — Dave Grohl

Surf is that music which is entirely about evoking something. There's never any vocals, so it's not about the lyrics, it's about the reverb. — Stephin Merritt

It's a particular skill, I think, doing backing vocals. You're blending the vocals between the gaps, between the music. — Lisa Hannigan

It's always amazing seeing the song-writing process. A song just starts off as just an idea or a story you want to tell. It keeps building and building when you add the lyrics, the instruments, the vocals until you finally reach the finished song other people can enjoy. — Manika

I really love the EMS Vocoder 2000, which is a pretty nice little box. You put one thing in one end and another in the other end, and you're able to change vocals by the sound and do a lot - it's just got a great sound. But the thing is, it's a bit clunky, so it's kind of hard to use it. — Tim Gane

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water. — Neil Young

I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West African music, based on huapango drums, and it's kind of like a 6/8 time signature, but it really is a very syncopated 6/8. And that's how I attack vocals. — Linda Ronstadt

Inside, upstairs, where the planes are met, the spaces are long and low and lined in tasteful felt gray like that cocky stewardess's cap and filled with the kind of music you become aware of only when the elevator stops or when the dentist stops drilling. Plucked strings, no vocals, music that's used to being ignored, a kind of carpet in the air, to cover up a silence that might remind you of death. — John Updike

I don't care if he hangs out with Skream/Benga or whoever," he spat, "it's just pure nonsense to ruin a hardcore genre with gay synths, chopped chipmunk vocals and cheesy poppy shit just so you can make a shitload of money and be an icon to a fanbase that consists of 13 year old wannabe dubheads and doesn't know shit about music. — Skrillex

Oh man, I love what the South brings as far as the soul, and I really have noticed from even the early days of listening to OutKast and Goodie Mob that Atlanta and the South has a diverse sound to it. You have bounce music. You have soulful musicians. You have artists with vocals who try to do different things. — Common

I don't think I'm a singer that likes to flex my vocals. I'll do some runs and a bunch of high notes, but that's it. I really pride myself and I really work on just trying to sing. Like emotions. Just using my voice, not doing anything extra. — Shamir

Use a condom. Those Reed men breed like rabbits." Then she walks into the booth with the others and we get set up to record some vocals. Rabbits. Little Reeds. I have to say, that's not an entirely bad thought. — Tammy Falkner

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound. — Brian Wilson

What we look for when we need to find someone who can fit in with our music, the vocals and the harmonies and the way they blend are very important to us because if you listen to Beach Boys music, the harmonies, not only are the notes being sung, but there's a blend to it. The voices have to blend. — Mike Love

I don't believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that's dishonest. For example, I'm not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don't, what you hear is pretty much what I sing. — Malcolm Wilson

I used to put the vocals on top and piece it together. Now I start with the vocals and the string parts I write; the drums are kind of an afterthought. And who knows, maybe that will get boring, but right now that's the most interesting way for me. — Hamilton Leithauser

I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn't matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you've taken it out on the road a bit, you learn more about a song. — Peter Gabriel

Vocals do not make a worshipper. — Temi Peters

The only rumors worth listening to have Stevie Nicks on vocals. — Chris Jericho

The first thing people look at with Four Seasons records is the vocals. But for me, the drum fills and rhythms are as much a part of it as anything. They're the base on which the harmonies were built. — Bob Gaudio

I had this weird, nomadic little tent with a rug over it, like a booth where I'd sing the vocals. — Neneh Cherry

A lot of the album is made of love songs I've written over the past three or four years that have lasted the test of time. It's probably the thing that connects the songs together other than the sound of my vocals. — Vance Joy

I could always hold a melody, but I was never like, I'm going to be a singer. So I'm able to use that when I write. I'm actually playing the beat with my voice. Instead of thinking about coming up with melodies, it's like filling in the instruments. So sometimes it's better to have beats with less melodies in them, because then I can play more with my vocals. — Kid Ink

I could definitely rock out to Kraftwerk's "Tour De France," Tubeway Army, or Gary Numan. All of that stuff has an infectious beat, but with "Oh Yeah," I can't even identify what's going on. It sounds like typewriter keys, a couple of synth notes and then this really deep "Oh yeah," which I always picture as Andre The Giant on vocals. — Margaret Cho

It was way out in the woods in a beautiful, huge log studio. Keith Richards came in and did the vocals with Levon. Again, a big party, but we did get a good cut out of it. — Scotty Moore

I actually produced other people's vocals for a long time when I first signed my publishing deal and I had just sort of decided that I only wanted to be a writer. I would be in all of these writing sessions, and a lot of times my publisher would say, "You should get a demo singer to sing it because then it doesn't identify as a Solange song." — Solange Knowles

Upwell is one of the most terrifyingly great bands I have ever known out of Seattle. Their musicianship and songwriting is monstrous ... They're heavy like Soundgarden or Zeppelin with killer female vocals, but with their own unique style. — Jack Endino

After 10 years, I have been touring for 20, playing basically the same type of music, a four-piece or three-piece type of music with loud, crashing drums and screaming vocals. It gets to the point where you're looking for something new, and you don't want to do something that's way too left-field, for fear that it might seem contrived. — Dave Grohl

It's fun singing with other people who are really good singers. There's something kind of poignant about braiding a couple vocals. — Eddie Vedder

The irony is that I don't think we took a step backwards to make 'Group Therapy'. I think we took a step forward because it's a lot more complicated to make that kind of album. I think that album was far more produced than 'American Apathy', and it had a lot more harmony vocals and lots of intricate parts musically speaking. — Brian Ebejer

There's a few times in the past when I wrote a song, and I put the words together, and they were very clear pictures, and I felt like I was putting together a really good story. But I don't think I was ever really able to stay on that. What I've sort of developed lyrically is more about the sound of the vocals and what they are. — Justin Vernon

There's Eddie's conviction and his lyrics and his ideals, and he can just rock straight out. His vocals are incredible. And we all are really competent musicians. — Mike McCready

I usually prepare a track and then I work with the artist when it's time to do the vocals. — Kenneth Edmonds

You want to hear vocals? Go sing it. — James Hetfield

My vocals are bad, I can't sing, hey man, I wouldn't ask you to do a drum roll if your arm was falling off. — James Hetfield

Sometimes silence become the most excruciating sound; sometimes the mind becomes a musical symphony of clouded thoughts, questions and clarifications but the vocals fail to present the sound of conversation. — Sumrit Shahi

I pay such close attention of the record making process that most people would assume are very little and wouldn't be that big of a deal; the packaging, the title, and the harmonies, I think, are arguably as important as the lead vocals. — David Nail

Background vocals during her song "I Hope You Dance" ... 'Time is a wheel in constant motion always, rolling us along. Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder, where those years have gone.' — Lee Ann Womack

I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa. — Grimes

It's just a lot of fun to be able to see your ideas come into fruition. And to see people translate the things that come out of my mind vocally. And to be able to produce vocals and give people my point of view musically. And to be able to sit in the crowd and see people sing the song that I wrote, it's an amazing feeling. — Rico Love

After so many years of whispery, DIY vocals, there's this new generation of voices that are really starting to burst through the seams. — Zach Condon

I like adding little elements into the final mix. I'm more fond of the '70s glam than '80s. I have that style of vocals ... there are a lot of pop artists who are using the glam vibe in their music. I'm part of that wave. — Adam Lambert

But when I record my next studio album, of course I'll do the lead vocals. — Lita Ford

We were gradually playing larger venues and in the early days PA systems were kind of non-existent. So to play loud, we had to use louder equipment. The PA systems back then didn't mic the instruments - only the vocals. — John Entwistle

It's no longer necessary to slave over the vocals. I don't sing the lyrics until I write them, and singing is the very last thing I do. I record the entire track, and then I worry about lyrics and vocals. The music will suggest where the words are going to a certain extent. — Todd Rundgren

There are a lot of people using technology that are playing to a click with backing vocals already stuck in there on some computerized thing that runs along in time to the show so they have these amazing vocals that are only partly the guys on stage producing them at the time. — James Young

No one really listens to the drums, I don't think. They're there, but it's not a conscious thing to listen to. Everyone listens to the vocals, of course, and the words. — Patty Schemel

Love it or hate it, thrive in it or still getting the hang of it, the recording studio is the place where your main product is going to be captured, recorded, mixed and created. You need a clear platform from preproduction to the schedule, tracking to the overdubs, vocals to the final mix. The best-laid studio planning will save you the most money and greatly reduce stress. — Loren Weisman

Caitlin Cary and I were always talking about X when we talked about whiskeytown, before it became an actual band. We like the concept of there being no real front person in X, yet this kind of switch up of vocals and really their sheer power, and their ability to sort of bastardise punk rock and midwetsren rock and even country into their own sound. — Ryan Adams

I can't really sing and play live, because I can't play bass efficiently and sing at the same time. If I concentrated on the vocals, I'd mess up the bass, and if I concentrated on the bass, I'd forget the lines. — Bill Wyman

I was able to apply ukulele to whatever I'm trying to write. It's become part of songwriting for me, the knowledge I gained from hearing the melodies come out, and then applying that to guitar or vocals. — Eddie Vedder

Nine Inch Nails' sound is dominated by clanging synths and sardonic, shrieking vocals. — Michael Azerrad

But I would lie on the floor and analyze everything. I'd listen to all the strings and the background vocals on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and try to pick out the different instruments. — Kevin Richardson

Private listening really took off in 1979, with the popularity of the Walkman portable cassette player. Listening to music on a Walkman is a variation of the "sitting very still in a concert hall" experience (there are no acoustic distractions), combined with the virtual space (achieved by adding reverb and echo to the vocals and instruments) that studio recording allows. With headphones on, you can hear and appreciate extreme detail and subtlety, and the lack of uncontrollable reverb inherent in hearing music in a live room means that rhythmic material survives beautifully and completely intact; it doesn't get blurred or turned into sonic mush as it often does in a concert hall. You, and only you, the audience of one, can hear a million tiny details, even with the compression that MP3 technology adds to recordings. You can hear the singer's breath intake, their fingers on a guitar string. That said, extreme and sudden dynamic changes can be painful on a personal music player. As — David Byrne

I used to do more melodic stuff, and I used to do more actual rap - like traditional hip hop vocals. I think my method of storytelling has led me to this point, at which I want to pare down my style. I think I give the lyrics more thought, and then when I try to perform the lyrics over the track I'll try it over and over again, and eventually the lyrics will sink into the track by the way I project them. — Galcher Lustwerk

There's not a whole lot to do in Athens. When I was 13, I just started entertaining myself by writing songs. I'd sit in my room for 10 hours playing the same song, stacking vocals, trying out different drum beats, realizing no one would ever hear this but having so much fun. I guess I got my voice from just doing that so often. — Brittany Howard

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it. — Axl Rose

All my vocals were recorded at home, which was great for me. You can actually have a studio in a computer program called ProTools. I did half the record with ProTools. — David Coverdale

[The Real Thing]
But when it came time to Patton to lay down his vocals, Wallace was surprised to hear that Patton had opted to utilize a peculiar singing voice. Wallace: He was singing really nasally and also, his pitch on record was not as good as I knew it could be. I was just like, 'Why don't you just hit the notes?' And he goes, 'No man, this is my style.' Because he'd sing the song on tape, and he'd do this amazing, really full voice. I'm like, 'That's the voice! Get that on the darn tape!' He was like, 'No man, I don't want to do it'. — Greg Prato

The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song - layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion's sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir. — Greg Graffin

Suffice to say that the TG2, Germ pre and EQ, and TG1 are there anytime I track drums, TG2 for guitars and the LTD-1 is there whenever I do vocals! — Billy Bush