I think playback singing has a lot to do with voice acting. I would suggest to all the youngsters to understand the character, situation, and the story behind the songs. That is when you can add soul to the rendition which, I think, is missing in today's music.
I am open to playback singing, but only if my acting schedule permits. I would love to sing for myself in my films, but that depends on the director and if the makers think my voice is needed.
It's very important for singers to feature in their videos because when we do playback for Bollywood, we tend to become the voice of the character - whether it's the actor or a situation that we are singing for.
I love singing and I think I have a really nice voice, but I don't think I have an unbelievable singing voice. I think I have a great character voice.
It's so different going in the studio and singing your own music and you don't really think about making sure that the message of the song or the idea behind the song comes across to people. Because it's in your head, it's in your heart, whatever, but it's... different when you're playing a character and you're singing as the character. There's just a lot more involved in that, I guess.
I feel India thrives on playback singing and Bollywood music. It does not understand the culture of non-film music.
I think it's really hard to make songs that pursue an agenda. You can kind of do it a little bit through a character, so the character gives voice to something or their story, the story of the character tells you something, but, for me anyway, it's really hard to write directly about politics.
I think of myself more as an actress. I do my music because I'm very passionate about my music. I love making music. I love inspiring people. I love making great songs that are just really fun. But that's all it usually is for me. I love touring and singing great songs. I don't think I'll ever win a Grammy one day, and I'm totally fine with that. I do work really hard when it comes to acting and I want to do that for a long time.
I don't want to sing songs and write songs that need to have images behind them that are of a specific time. The times we live in today - I mean, there's a lot to work with. But I think that if I was my age in 1975 or 1985, I would have felt the same way because that's what I gravitate toward.
I think a lot of musicians play for the playback. I mean, that's the joy of recording - you want to hear what you've done and what you've contributed - but never listening to that playback kind of removes the intellectual part of making music, and it removes the tendency to be revisionist.
Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible.
The expectation is this low, gravelly voice for John, but I went through his early recordings and there were songs in there where the voice was so different, I wasn't even sure if it was him singing, ... So it was interesting to me that we would see him develop the Man in Black sound. I thought it was really important that his voice change as his persona slowly solidified. The music was really the doorway into the character.
I feel a composer should not crave to sing songs because songs itself decides its voice. The films where I have given music, I have kept my option for the last. I like to make music and not necessarily singing all the songs.
When people hear you singing songs which are done as playback, they don't see you. But when you perform live, they expect you to be interacting with them.
I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.
I am not against songs in films. We come from an oral tradition of storytelling. I have grown up listening to epics in oral rendition and oral rendition always had music.
I do create songs and play the guitar. But my focus is definitely on acting. I think, if there's going to be singing involved in my career, it would probably be in musical theater.