Once upon a time, wasn’t singing a part of everyday life as much as talking, physical exercise, and religion? Our distant ancestors, wherever they were in this world, sang while pounding grain, paddling canoes, or walking long journeys. Can we begin to make our lives once more all of a piece? Finding the right songs and singing them over and over is a way to start. And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.

The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."

I think, when singing, one exposes one’s soul,” I said. “How so?” I struggled to explain. “Dancers can look at a mirror, a writer can look at a page, and a painter can look at a canvas and see their work reflected back at them. But singers can only hear and feel what they are doing. After all the training, technique, use of breath, and placement of sound, it boils down to an emotional response to music and lyrics — and the way they touch one’s heart and soul.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

Singing is a very crucial tool for delivering the art I create, but it is not the main one. All the words and melodies that come to me have a need to be sung out so that’s how I got into it and I’ve been working hard on upgrading my skills over the past couple of months. I don’t want to be the world’s best singer though, I believe the feels are more important in a piece of music.

Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing.
Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this
attend strictly to
the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered
to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and
reward you when
he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

I guess that singing is probably a very selfish thing. I guess it doesn't matter what you do. It's selfish in a way 'cause there's satisfaction involved and so. As a singer, you sometimes have to justify your reason for existence in a sort of a way because: what really are you doing for people, they say?

This evening heard Carmen on the radio, and reflected how hard it was to vamp a man while singing at the top of one's voice. That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a head of stream while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of verisimilitude.

I couldn’t wait to pursue my love of singing again. Music helped me through a lot in the hospital, and it seemed like I was far away from my troubles when I was singing or listening to music.

So I sang out the barbarous words - karaoke from Hell.

When I was a boy and I sang, my voice felt to me like a leak sprung from a small and secret star hidden somewhere in my chest and whatever there was about me that was fragile disappeared when my mouth opened and I let the voice out. We learned, we were prisons for our voices. You could want to try and make sure the door was always opened... We weren't something struck to make a tone. We were strike and instrument both. If you can hold the air and shake it to make something, you learn, maybe you can make anything. Maybe you can walk out of here on this thin, thin air.

When I’m singing I embody a character and adopt a certain attitude. I think of a story and really try to get into character to help get certain vocals out. I feel like acting and singing often go hand in hand – you’re really just telling a story.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain't natural, it ain't right.

"Sing to me," she said. "That would be valiant, to raise your voice in this dark, lonely place, and it will be useful as well. Sing to me, sing loudly-drown out my dreams, keep me from remembering whatever wants me to remember it. Sing to me, my lord prince, if it please you. It may not seem a hero's task, but I would be glad of it."