From Édith Piaf to Charli xcx, a moving study of the ways women express themselves – and the obstacles they face
W
hen Lauren Elkin was a child, she took lessons with a voice teacher in Northport, Long Island, who would get her to perform in front of a mirror. Singing songs from the Italian classical repertoire, Elkin – who was a soprano – was required to smile and lift up her eyebrows as she sang since “it helps with placement”. She was told her breathing should come not from the chest but the diaphragm, and that she must smooth over the vocal break, which is where the chest voice changes into the head voice.
Elkin practised hard to make her voice “nearly featureless”, even though she secretly wanted to rebel. Looking back, she wishes she’d understood that she could “work with, not against the imperfections in my voice … with its different colours and resonances, its scratches and cracks like skips on a record, its atmospheric flaws … Embracing the flaws can strengthen the work; through vulnerability can come power.”
In Vocal Break, Elkin examines the female voice in all its forms and with all its imperfections. Using the singers who have shaped or moved her – Cyndi Lauper, Cynthia Erivo, Tori Amos, Beyoncé, X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna and more – she examines the rules and expectations foisted on female vocalists and the ways they have fought against them.
