FM MOOV 76.1MHz KOBE JAPAN " Smooth Time"
DJ (personality): Yuko Tsukazaki (Vo)(interviewer)
Special Guest : Ms. Elisabeth Lohninger (Vo)(interviewee)
Theme is "Music around the globe ".
★The3rd Saturday ,
October 20 & December 15 , 2007 on the air
2007 on the air
「Ms. Elisabeth Lohninger down deep !」
( Today 's special guest interview Part 2)
【Professional life】
Q 10
・How would you describe your sound ?
☆Dark , Alto Sound .
My voice is lower , husky ,
it has an airiness to it .
Chocolate .
Q 11
・What genre do you fit into ?
☆Jazz , Modern Jazz .
Q 12
・What would you like to accomplish musically ?
☆Total freedom .
Jazz has the potential for a very very free expression .
That is my desire as a vocalist
to really have a free voice to do
whatever I want to do at any given time .
Q 13
・What hurdles did you have to overcome
to become a singer ?
☆Same with everybody .
My family wasn't excited about me ,
becoming a singer .
My mother didn't believe I would become a singer .
She believed I would become a high school teacher .
It is also personal as a person you need to know
what you really need to do
and have the courage to go for it ,
to identify this as your dream ,
it doesn't matter if you are a vocalist
or painter or an architect or whatever .
Identify your dream and go for it .
A big leap of faith .
Q 14
・What do you love about your life ?
☆I love the fact that I live in New York .
I think it's the greatest city in the world .
I love being a musician .
I love the fact that developing
as a musician is endless ,
I'll be busy for the rest of my life .
Working on my technique , writing ,
being creative .
Also , in New York ,
there is such a vast diversity of music ,
different styles of music
different kinds of art
and soak in it and embody it in your work .
・What would you like to change about your life ?
☆Have more money .
I would like to tour more ,
I would like to be performing more .
Q 15
I have all your CDs ,
most of the songs you wrote the music and lyrics ,
as well as performed ,
produced and recorded by yourself .
It 's amazing to me !
・What was the most difficult about the process ?
☆Every single aspect of making a CD is difficult .
And it is a different kind of difficulty each time .
The most difficult one is when I'm starting out
trying to find a concept for a CD ,
having the patience for the idea to come up
or writing the songs .
Writing the songs can be really great and easy ,
And so you must make sure you have enough songs
and that the songs fit together ,
that they have a nice sound together mood .
Recording process really
I think what is the hardest for me is recording
and editing my own vocals .
・How long does it take to make your CDs ?
☆Depends on the project .
Last one "The only way out is up"
we worked on that one , on and off ,
for about 2 months .
Q 16
・Please introduce a few songs ,
which are my favorites ,
「The only way out is up」,
「Both sides now」 and
「Journey of forgotten tears」.
"The only way out is up"
That song , the idea and chorus
actually came to me as I was walking down the street .
That happens quite a bit .
All of the sudden I have this thing in my head .
It's really like about how you have to get up
and start again .
Like , say you've been disheartened or disappointed ,
or suffered a huge blow ,
you thought your life was going to go this way ,
everything chanced , and you thought , oh , my god !
But the only way out of the situation is get up
and start again .
That is why , it is called the only way out is up .
"Both sides now"
That is actually a song that I didn't write ,
a song by Joni Mitchell ,
and I heard this song for the first time on her CD ,
I cannot remember the title ,
where she did all jazz songs
with orchestra arrangements ,
like a huge orchestra ,
and the last song on that CD is "Both sides now".
And I heard it and just fell in love with it .
So then I made a little arrangement for it ,
I changed the harmonies and I love it ,
it's one of my all time favorite songs .
It's also one of my favorite songs .
"Journey of forgotten tears"
That is a song that deals with grief ,
and it has to deal with when you basically think
you are done with something ,
Like in my case ,
my father died when I was a young child
and I moved that away from myself .
Because it was like , OK .
This was when I was a child , 15 , 20 years ago ,
whatever , so I'm done with graving ,
about this so you build your life around that lie
because if you do not deal with grief
it will not go away .
It will stay with you ,
it will stay in your soul
and so eventually I started looking at it ,
I started looking at the grief and I realized .
I had to go through it ,
that I couldn't go around it ,
I couldn't avoid it ,
and so that's where the title comes from ,
it's a journey of revisiting those feelings ,
of revisiting or actually acknowledging
those feelings and these tears need to be shed ,
you might have forgotten about them ,
you might have forgotten you still have them ,
but they will come out ,
That's what that sing is about .
・Please introduce a few songs
which are your favorites .
☆They have to be from my CDs .
OK , from the new one I really like "Mirage"actually ,
which is the first song .
Because it is very moody , very sensual ,
and it creates a certain mood ,
and we take it to a different place
when we play it live ,
that's always exciting when you're recording a song
and then you're playing it lives and it develops
into something a little bit different ,
into something a little bit more ,
we're taking it more into an Arabian knight
kind of thing , it's very cool .
And then another song from there that
I really like mostly for it's contents ,
but also it's a song that excites me
and I know probably a lot of people don't like it ,
but I like it and it's the last song ,
and that's called "Free to fall"
and it is not a typical jazz song
it is the groove is a drum and bass groove ,
in seven four and for me ,
when I do this song I usually call
it my ode to freedom .
Because it is the more you allow yourself
to be free to make mistakes for instance ,
free to fall . (fall=fail)
Free to get desperate and get angry
and do what you have to do .
And the more you can express your authentic self
And that is really what , to me ,
what that song is about and it also signifies
a very long journey in my life
and I think in most artists life that ,
and especially female artists , I think ,
where we feel that we need to censor ourselves
that we shouldn't really just lay it all out there ,
And I think that's exactly what we need to do .
To be completely authentic and confident
that even if we fail , we fail gloriously .
And I also really like "As the tides turn"
which is also , it's a balled on the new CD .
It's I essentially wrote it for a friend
who went through a very difficult break up
and I wrote it while I was vacuuming the house ,
actually or I came up with the idea
and I had to stop vacuuming and write the song .
Q 17
・Do you have any plans to come to Japan ?
☆I would love to come to Japan .
But I don't have any immediate plans .
I'm still trying to see how I would be able to do this .
But I would be very excited about doing it .
・What about future singing engagements ?
☆You mean in Japan , oh I would love to .
Not yet , it's basically I need an agent .
Yes . Hello , is there an agent out there .
(I hope you can get a chance to have Japanese agency .
I'd love to support you ,
if you come to Kobe , or Osaka , Japan .
Q 18
・Do you have any advice for our listeners
who are budding singers ?
☆Practice , practice , practice .
Yes , practice , work on your craft .
Thank you very much for your wonderful comments !
We have more interview right after this ...
Pink fairy ,
Yuko Tsukazaki ♪
