A fresh voice on the scene
Amy Jiang's unique vocal tone has always made her a natural singing talent, the hard part though was finding time to flex these abilities to the world. Whether its due to a resurgence in creative juices or a renewed sense of purpose and inspiration, Jiang is back on the scene and for fans of her videos, it is music to our ears. Without dropping an official project, she dropped on our radar with a mixture of covers and performance posts on her IG. We caught up with her to discuss her upbringing, her musical style and more. Enjoy!
1. You've been everywhere from Beijing to Cali. How does these different cultures effect your music?
To be honest, living in China for so long did not really effect my music, because I went to international schools the entire time I was there. The international schools there are very similar to regular high schools in the states. The only thing that might have helped me with music was the language, Mandarin. Learning Mandarin allows me to sing Chinese songs from time to time. Some Chinese sad songs are very beautiful.
2. What's one thing we should expect when we hear your music? What are some of your favorite themes to explore?
One thing you can expect is a combination of jazz and pop. My voice has a naturally jazzy tone that sounds kind of thick, which helped me become the soloist for the jazz band at my school. I'm so thankful for that opportunity because it really exposed me to the style of jazz. My favorite themes to explore is melodic variation. In many of my covers of songs, you'll find that I try to add in my own licks or just variations to the original melody. I do this, because it makes it fun for both me and the audience.
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3. Any future projects, performances of collaborations you'd like to speak on?
I applied as a jazz voice competitor in the National YoungArts Foundation competition for 2018, and I was awarded as a merit winner. I will be attending their LA regional in late March and performing with them on the last day of the program.
4. What's the biggest obstacle you've had to overcome this far?
I think the biggest obstacle is keeping motivated. I've always loved to sing, but to this day, I still struggle with practicing vocalization regularly. If I'm honest, the first time I was able to practice on a daily basis was when I was preparing for the YoungArts audition. Before that, I never really had a schedule for practicing because I always got lazy. Another major thing I've struggled with is balancing my academics with the music. In Junior year, I feel like I wasted my life away just studying, and I barely improved. However, this year I've been trying to get myself more involved by auditioning for things and restarting my Instagram singing account.
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5. What are your dreams & goals going forward?
My number one goal with singing is to nail down the technique to the point where I don't have to worry about straining at all throughout a song. My dream is to still be able to perform no matter what job I end up getting in the future.
