Hayley Westenra

by Hayley Westenra

  I had tried using in-ears myself only once before, when I was recording my own PBS special in Wellington in 2004. I had found it a very uncomfortable experience and, at the last minute, I asked for monitors to be placed on the front of the stage for me. That was never an option on the Celtic Woman tour because there were five of us performing on stage and each of us needed to be able to hear the other four clearly so that we could harmonise and perform in time with each other.

  The benefit of in-ears is the consistency it brings to you. Wherever you perform, no matter what the size of the arena or your position on stage, you always hear a perfect mix of your voice and the music in your ears. But, for me, the drawback is that they made me feel very cut off from the audience. We had a range of different-sized venues on the tour: sometimes we were in stadiums and on other occasions in theatres. I found it very hard that the in-ear monitors removed any sense of scale from the venue. It was also hard to make a connection to the audience in the smaller theatres when they were so close to me and yet I felt cut off in my own little sound bubble.

  I love to share the sounds that the audience are hearing, but with in-ears I find myself in a completely different world. So, as a compromise, I used only one of the earpieces on the tour. That meant I could still hear the other girls clearly in one ear, but I could also hear the audience and the venue's natural ambience in the other.

  The idea of travelling across America on a tour bus sounds great in theory, but let me tell you, it's very hard work in practice. We usually clambered on to the bus at about 11 p.m. at the end of the show. The next hour or so we would spend chatting and eating. This was a change for me because I usually eat before rather than after concerts. Then we would each climb wearily into our bunks and try to snatch a few hours' sleep before arriving at a hotel in the next city where we were performing, at about 4 a.m. The tour manager would wake us up and we would trundle bleary-eyed off the bus and stagger to our rooms in a zombie-like state before slumping back to sleep.

  The girls were all great fun and there was a genuine spirit of camaraderie, not just among the main singers but also among the choir, the band and the production people, nearly all of whom were Irish. The girls introduced me to the delights of American cuisine, a subject they had become experts in after spending the previous couple of years touring the States. There was Irish food on the menu, too, which was brought over by family members on their visits. I was introduced to chocolate mini-eggs, which were the regular after-show treat for the girls, as well as all kinds of cheeses, including Black Diamond Cheddar Cheese, or Extra Sharp Canadian Cheddar, as it's also known. In return, I tried to impart some of my own food knowledge to the girls. Much to my delight, Mairead took to the tamari-toasted almonds, but the goji berries didn't really go down so well.

  The girls enjoyed messing around, as I discovered to my cost on stage. At the very end of the performance we would all sing a song called 'Spanish Lady' as our final encore. One of the girls whacked me on the bum as she walked past me in the final piece of choreography. I nearly screamed with surprise. It then became a nightly event and they realised that, even though I knew it was coming, it never failed to surprise me. Finally, one night towards the end of the tour, I managed to guess that I was about to get a simultaneous double whack from two of them and I grabbed their hands before they could make contact. This only made them start laughing. I found that I was quite easily distracted on stage and I struggled to sing through the number without getting a fit of the giggles myself.

  I hate being told off and there were two occasions on the tour when I got myself into trouble – both times because I was late for the tour bus. Every day, we were given a call sheet and I found out very quickly that, when it said 'Departure 3 p.m.', it actually meant that we would leave at three o'clock on the dot and not a moment later. It was a sensible rule because there were so many people on the tour and, if there was too relaxed an attitude to timekeeping, we would never have left at all. Everyone had to be on time to keep the show literally on the road. The first time I was late, I was let off, but on the second occasion I received a stern talking-to from the tour manager.

  In my defence, while everyone else had been asleep, I had been appearing on the wonderfully named breakfast television show Good Things Utah. I was tired and so I went back to sleep when I got back to the hotel after the interview. I woke up late and I knew instantly that I wouldn't be on time for the bus. I just hoped that somebody else would be later than I was.

  Of course, all the rest had been on time and were sitting in the buses waiting for me. I felt pretty fed up. The last thing I wanted everyone else to think was that I didn't care. Kathryn is the person in my management team whom I always call first when I have this sort of problem, so I rang her to tell her about it. I was embarrassed that I had held everyone up. In reality, I'm not sure that the rest of the production were in the slightest bit bothered, but I still felt guilty for the entire day and I made sure that I turned up early to the bus every day from then onwards.

  There was one stage in the tour when I became quite miserable. Although I had felt homesick before when I travelled to London, I always had my family and my management with me. I became sick for a few days with a really sore throat during the tour. While I was feeling under the weather, it felt as if everything was getting on top of me. There was so much going on and so many commitments surrounding the tour that, basically, I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn't imagine how I could possibly get through it. There was a moment when I felt like getting on a plane and saying, 'You know what? I can't be bothered with all this.'

  But it quickly passed as my throat cleared up and I gained a better sense of perspective. One of my best coping mechanisms remains a telephone call home to my family. It's never easy getting hold of them, with the time difference usually forcing one of us to stay up late, but it's so important that we do stay in touch – not just to me, but to the whole family. Mum and Dad are great people to talk to and they are very good at calming me down or putting things into perspective. Whenever I'm on the phone to them, it always lasts for at least an hour. Luckily, they have discovered a cheap phone deal back home, so I usually arrange for them to call me.

  Other than when I felt ill, the Celtic Woman tour was a great experience. I know that I learned so much on the tour that will help me later down the track. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me do something different. It was quite weird to come back to London and to perform in entire concerts on my own afterwards, although it has given me a renewed appreciation of this way of working.

  While I was in America, I really developed as a performer and a person and I also got to know the American people and I feel completely at home in front of American audiences now. They are very enthusiastic and receptive, giving me an extremely positive response wherever I went.

  CHAPTER 13

  HOW TO DO IT YOURSELF

  Having a successful career as a recording artist and as a live concert performer was always the dream for me. There's no reason why it should be unattainable for anyone else, although the journey towards having a hit record or a sell-out concert tour is by no means an easy one. I'm often asked – particularly by the parents or grandparents of young girls aged between twelve and sixteen – what they should do to help their daughters and granddaughters along the way.

  The first thing to stress is that there's absolutely no certainty of success and, for every one person for whom the dream does come true, there are thousands of others who discover that it's not their destiny. There are also no absolute rules in this business: what works for one person may prove to be a disaster for another. What I can do, however, is share with you some of the observations I've made along the way.

  The very first thing that you have got to have is talent. I watch some of the talent competitions that have become so popular around the world and I find myself agreeing with the judges. You have got to have a basis of natural talent. People who think they can take singing
lessons to turn a complete inability to sing into a world-class level of singing are deluded.

  It's quite all right to take lessons to help improve your singing, but, no matter how good your teacher, you will not become an overnight sensation if you have absolutely no ability to hit the notes in the first place. It simply does not work like that. You have to be born with an instrument that can be fine-tuned by a teacher. It's perfectly possible to develop it in a disciplined way – but you do need an aptitude for music. You must be musically inclined.

  To get to a stage where you are making your career out of music for the long term, you don't just need talent, you need significantly above-average talent. It's more than just a technical ability to be able to put the right notes in the right place. It really does have to be a passion. Even when I was very young, I had that passion for singing.

  1 realised that people commented on my voice when they heard it. The feedback was so positive and so often that it became obvious that there were not too many people out there who could sing as I could. In a way, my decision to take it further was a very rational rather than emotional one. There are lots of things that I'm not very good at, but I thought to myself, 'OK, singing it is, then. This is what I'm here for; this is what I can offer the world.'

  One of the most important factors for a child singer is their parents. I'm really grateful that my parents let me try all sorts of different fields, so that I could be sure that the path I wanted to take was the right one. They allowed me to take dancing lessons, to try out sports such as tennis, just in case I discovered that I had a passion or a talent for something that I had not previously considered.

  So, although I realise that I've not had any children myself yet, my advice to a parent comes from the child's point of view. You just have to let your child explore different fields. Then, hopefully, the child will be drawn to one field, and that is then the point at which you give them the utmost support to enable them to follow their dream.

  You do have to create an environment in which they have space to develop on their own, while at the same time always being there for them when they need support. Remember that children develop talent at different speeds, so don't give up too soon. At the same time, don't push them too hard in one particular direction because that could just put them off altogether.

  Desire is a very important asset for any performer. Your child must actually want to become a performer. I've seen cases where one or both parents are living out their dreams through their child, who is not anywhere near as keen on the whole thing.

  You hear of tennis players who start learning tennis at the age of three. It may be in their blood to be great tennis players, but they end up being put off the sport altogether because their parents have ramrodded them down one defined route. Children must ask themselves, 'How do I know if tennis playing is really something I want to do and that it's not just something that I've been forced into?'

  So, you have to allow the child to choose the particular field that they want to be working in and allow them to try different things so that they can be drawn towards one field rather than another, based on an informed decision that they are making themselves.

  Dame Malvina Major was a wonderful inspiration and support to me during the period when she was giving me singing lessons. She gave me probably the single most important piece of advice that I've been given before or since: stay true to yourself. It's so important because, if you try to be something that you are not or to venture into something that you are not really comfortable with, people will pick up on it very quickly.

  For example, if I was to record an album of pop/disco tracks, I would know in the back of my mind that I was doing something that others could probably do better and with more conviction. I don't feel comfortable in that world and I don't think that I would enjoy the idea of a career that is very image-driven and dependent on radio airplay and raunchy videos. I think that, if I did release a record like that, I would fall flat on my face because the public would pick up on my discomfort. They would know that it was not really me, whereas what I'm doing now is very much true to myself. However, who knows how I'll feel a few years down the road? Maybe I'll discover a hidden disco diva inside me!

  There are things that you need to be prepared to give up to build a serious music career: heavy partying, for example. Just recently, I'm learning to be a little bit more relaxed about life in general. For so long, I've been so focused and I've not wanted to let anything get in my way to distract me. It's vital to maintain discipline as a singer, though.

  On the day of a performance, I can be quite precious about my voice. I take all of my live performances very seriously and every time I perform I want to be at my very best. You never know if someone is going to be seeing you for the first time and will be framing their judgement of you as an artist on that performance alone. There's always going to be a new member of the audience at every concert that you give, so going out and partying the night before and having a tired voice is simply not an option.

  I'm really pleased that England has now caught up with the rest of the UK in adopting the smoking ban in public places, because there's nothing that plays more havoc with a singer's voice than sitting in a smoky environment.

  The old adage says that practice makes perfect, and this is another big area for any budding musician. For quite a while, I have to admit that I didn't do much singing practice, but nowadays I try to do around an hour a day. Generally, with singing, there's no need to do hours and hours of practice, but I always make sure that I do my vocal exercises very thoroughly.

  There's a fine line to be drawn between enough practice and pushing it too far. It's a tricky one to get right because, when you're on a fully fledged tour, you could be performing every day for at least an hour, and you have your vocal exercises and the sound check on top. That's a lot of singing, so you have no time to do anything else with your voice, especially if you are doing a run of consecutive shows.

  It's always important to make time in your schedule to work on new material and to develop your voice. Scales and exercises are essential, as well as not being afraid to play around with different sounds. That said, you should avoid making sounds that strain the voice and be aware that, although it's good to be physically tired after singing, you should never be vocally tired.

  It's impossible to underestimate the importance of the songs that you choose to sing. If you will excuse the musical pun, they are absolutely key. It's really important that you be very comfortable with every song that you sing in public. If you are worried about a part of a song, then you are not going to be able to deliver it properly to the audience. I know that the songs that I perform best are the ones that I'm not in any way concerned about singing. I know them back to front and I know that they are in the right key for me. All singers do have notes that are, shall we say, not their favourites. But I'm not going to tell you what mine are, in case you listen out for them when you next hear me sing.

  You do need to keep on learning. For me, singing in West Side Story, which I write about in more detail in the next chapter, was a great opportunity to learn something new. There's a great variety of different styles, moods and emotions wrapped up in the score and it's the first time I've had the opportunity to perform in such an expressive way over such a concentrated period of time.

  When I first began singing, I simply enjoyed the act and process of making a nice, tuneful sound and I didn't really have a lot to say. I certainly didn't pay anywhere near as much attention to the lyrics as I do now. As I gain more life experience, I suddenly listen to songs and think to myself, Oh, now I understand what this song means. It's even the case with some of the songs that I sang when I was younger, and I sometimes wish that I had understood more when I regularly performed them.

  But, when you're just fourteen or fifteen years old, you don't have much experience of life and you don't necessarily have a lot to say about how you feel. So, I'm now really enjoying expressing myself through my song
choices and using my own experiences to better help me tell the stories.

  As I mentioned earlier, I've been doing some songwriting recently and I've found that my fans have taken really well to songs such as 'Let Me Lie', the first track on my album Treasure. I think this is because it's another example of my being true to myself. When I sing 'Let Me Lie', it's a particularly special experience for me because people are hearing my own words and music. Writing lyrics gives me the opportunity to express myself that bit more and, when I sing my own songs, the performance comes from the heart because I'm very connected to them.

  One of the hottest areas for me is ensuring that I stay healthy. Some people even think I err on the side of freakishness on the subject, but I really do believe that it's so important for a performer. One of my fellow singers on the Celtic Women tour said to me afterwards, 'You've had such a positive influence on me. I've been eating so much more healthily since.'

  Mum has always been interested in nutrition, so I've always eaten a healthy diet – even as a child. There are plenty of easy little things you can do to help, such as eating wholemeal rather than white bread. When I was younger, I used to find that I would get sick a couple of days before any big performance, usually with a sore throat, which would then develop into a chest infection. I started to take a keen interest in what sorts of things I should be eating to help build up my immune system and to help me become less susceptible to coughs and colds. After extensive research on the Internet and at the library, I began to understand the benefits of eating a diet rich in vitamins and minerals – particularly vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc and selenium.