Adele Adkins' retro-soul debut '19' was striking less for her songs than for that voice: a voluptuous slightly parched alto that swooped and fluttered like a Dusty Springfield student trying to upstage her teacher or at least update the rules.
My mother was an actress and my voice teacher an incredible voice teacher. My biological father is an actor and my stepfather who raised me along with my mother is a psychotherapist. I was always supported in creative ventures.
I'm sure any vocal teacher that listens to me would rather cut my throat than do anything - I do everything all wrong - but I think for me that's the best - because I don't think I have a voice so I think what I project would be style - if I learned to sing I'd lose my style.
When a music teacher that I had at school was taken ill and we had a variety show and I had to fill in - that's when I realized I had a voice.
For one thing I teach my students what my teacher for twenty years Paul Gavert told me 'The voice follows... the voice follows everything about you... who you are.'
I feel so very grateful to have the voice God gave me. It takes a lot of rest and training to sing and I was lucky that I found a great teacher when I first moved to New York.
When I had my first voice lesson I was 15 years old. And I had a really good teacher. This is what made all the difference. A good teacher will teach you the technique but also how to listen to your voice.
No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.
My art teacher in junior high was a very out gay man and a mentor to me. He would tell us about Greenwich Village and show us the 'Village Voice' and describe his life but it was all sort of subversive and below the radar.
Without Arthur's voice I never would have enjoyed that success.
I love the music of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu and more recently the music of Laura Marling. All these women share a strength and a wisdom in their voices and music that really makes me want to make music and sing.
I hope to God that the inner strength that will vindicate my deeds will in good time spring forth from my own people. I have done as I had to on the prompting of my inner voice.
An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan.
I love to sing and I do think that my strength as a singer is... I think I have a voice that is certainly sufficient under most any circumstances... but I think my strength is that I really am an actor and I really do have to own what I am saying.
That's one strength that Stevie has. She's really not a strong instrumentalist in any way. Her instrument is her voice and her words. And it keeps her focused on the very center of that.
As you have fewer and fewer voices in a democracy in a free society it's not good to limit the number of voices.
A new sense of shared international responsibility is unmistakable in the voices of the United Nations and its agencies and in the civil society of thousands of supra-national NGOs.
Bob summed it up best when he was on his knees at the end of the night saying 'Don't trust in Guided By Voices.' You were there was the show awful or something? I know it was sloppy but they're not really that tight anyway but was it embarrassing was it sad?
It's always flattering when somebody you really respect and like wants you to be involved in their project - let alone writes a part with your voice in mind.
You should be able to voice your opinion and respect the voice of the other side. You should be willing to educate yourself and know what it is you're dealing with.
Well I don't know if this is true of everyone but I have this relationship with my parents where despite however mature or articulate or grown-up I think I've become as soon as I go home I turn into this petulant 13-year-old especially with the tone of my voice.
Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.
Protect IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are a step towards a different kind of Internet. They are a step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don't.
Censorship is saying: 'I'm the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say the conclusion is mine.' But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word - even if someone has a very weak quiet voice. Such power will collapse because of a whisper.