A Quote by Alexander Chee

My singing voice had rescued me from the scene I was in at school - I was an unpopular, bookish kid who had an indeterminate ethnic background. I became fascinated with women sopranos because they had a future that I didn't as a singer.
As a young kid, I had a great background. My grandfather was a minister; I have two uncles that were ministers, and so I had that spiritual background. I accepted Christ early as a kid.
The whole thing of singing on my own has been accidental and random. I sang a huge amount as a kid, and I was a boy soprano. I didn't do that much classical music; I did a little bit. I had a lovely voice. And then when my voice dropped, I didn't worry about it consciously because I wasn't that invested in my singing at the time.
I come from probably many generations of singers because my grandmother had a really incredible voice and sang in church. And my mother had a gorgeous voice and was always singing around the house.
I had these fangs because I had jaundice when I was a kid and I was put on so many antibiotics that my teeth rotted. They had to cut them out. So I never had milk teeth. That was tough, you know, being in school having photos taken while I was pretending I had teeth. It was hideous.
She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice.
I had a voice - I had an instrument - I loved singing and I had an inspired singing teacher, Miss Sleigh. I went to her every Saturday, and I now possess the upright Steinway piano beside which I used to stand in fear and trembling if I hadn't done my breathing exercises.
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.
When I was young, my voice was so strong, and I would annoy people because I had such a loud little voice. And then it changed, and I thought I wouldn't be able to sing again, because I thought you had to sing like Christina Aguilera to be a singer.
When I was younger, I definitely wish I had felt more... I just wish I had started actually putting out my music earlier because I didn't do it until I graduated high school and felt like I was leaving. That's mostly because I have never liked my voice a lot or been like a particularly great singer.
I was a child of the women's movement. Everything I had learned was from my mother and my grandmother, who both had a very pioneering spirit. They had to, because they had to change flat tires and paint the house - because, you know, the men didn't come home from the war or whatever else, so women had to do these things.
I had had a huge background in the nuance of the accent because I went to drama school in England for four years.
Because of my voice, speaking words which had been carefully chosen, women had used money they had set aside for other purposes to buy war bonds.
I had four or five years in school training as a soprano. I fell into pop singing because of economics. I got out of high school and had to go work, and they weren't hiring opera singers.
When I was in elementary school, we had the kid who threw chairs, the kid who stuttered, and the kid who went to the bathroom on himself ... but we never had the kid who came in one day and started shooting everyone.
Coming from a technology background, I mostly worked behind the scenes or let the men take the lead. I had to learn to assert myself, communicate and be heard. I made sure that once I had my voice, I spoke for those who didn't - especially women.
I had rescued the moment by using my camera and in that way had found how to stop time and hold it. No one could take that image away from me because I owned it.
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