I don't want anything to get in the way of me and my singing. I want my mind as clear as possible.

If I stand there, appreciating the world around me as full of amazing sounds and the possibility of new ones, I think that invites other people to see the world that way, too. I love sharing the experience of singing with people, and I love sharing my stories. But when it comes to teaching, I have a lot of help.

If I can bring joy into the world, then I'll be successful.

I couldn't do anything without faith. I couldn't open up my eyes, I couldn't walk, I couldn't speak, I couldn't sing.

Inviting audiences to open up and hear things differently is an important part of what I do. But I still love to sing songs with words, too.

My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.

When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.