Artist Profile - Hayley Miller
Hayley Miller - singer/songwriter
Music brings me comfort, sadness, excitement, passion, relaxation and energy. It allows me to dream, imagine and totally express myself. I love to write my own material and find it a brilliant way of being creative. Ive been singing from a very young age. My parents have both been a big influence. Some of my fondest memories as a child were of me and my mum constantly singing and making up songs at bath time and my dad always playing music from the likes of Aretha Franklin, Chaka khan, Sam cook, George Benson, Stevie Wonder and thats just to mention a few. My dad also had quite a good voice and would record reggae songs in his spare time but he never took it further than a hobby. This is where my love for music began. The foundation was forming and a natural talent was starting to develop.
From around the age of eleven upwards I would sit in my room for hours writing/singing/rapping my own songs and recording from tape to tape tracking my vocals and adding my adlibs, it used to take me ages but I would keep at it. Another thing I would do was take two popular songs and merge them together to create my own version. Finding backing tracks to support these songs were very hard but I would take any instrumental I could find and make it work I loved to create my own music. Around the age of thirteen I learnt technically how to sing and breathe correctly, attending various vocal workshops and one to one lessons. Going to concerts was the best thing ever and a great learning curb. I would watch attentively with amazement studying every movement and expression of the artist. Id always come away feeling Ive learnt something. Through out my teenage years Ive continued to write songs and perform as a solo artist in various talent shows and at one point with a choir. Ive had the experience of recording in studios, collaborating with other artists and performing live with a bands. Ive received great feed back and constructive criticism along the way. Over the years my voice has matured. I would describe my sound as a soulful jazz and my natural vocal tone is quite low and smooth. My CD collection consists of artists such as Eva Cassidy, Mary. J. Blige, Jill Scott, Billie Holiday and loads of others. This summer I went in the studio to record my latest single misunderstood. I was anxious to get back in the studio and was surprised when I was able to come up with the concept, lyrics and melody pretty fast. Working with what I had I decided to design and create the CD cover for the single. Since recording misunderstood Ive taken some time out to grow vocally.
I'm currently learning to play both the guitar and piano along with more vocal lessons to keep me in chack. Im also now listening to an even wider range of music to help me gain a better understanding of songs, the way they are structured and written to enhance my vocal ability and style. My aim is to be able to do music full time whether its writing, performing or teaching. Competitions and talent shows are brilliant for me, they give me the chance to do what I love do best which is to perform live in front of an audience which always helps me to grow as an artist and keeps me motivated.
