It is interesting when i choose or make the split second decision to call myself a vocalist or a singer.

After spending a long time being allergic to both and saying ‘musician whose main instrument is voice’, a decidedly much worse, confabulated and self aggrandizing choice that to me at the time, appeared to be more open, i have finally settled or resigned to ever be referred to as singer. I guess in a way it was even a humble choice internally to me at the time. After the era of being ‘musician specializing in voice’, i also spent time wandering in the territory of ‘i sing’, from the attraction of describing an identity as activity rather than existence. The flip side to this was of course, that i don’t sing many a time. Even for weeks. That voice is the first thing that breaks in me as soon as my mind is having a difficult time.

The reason for both of these was also that गायक seemed far too accomplished. I was insistent upon establishing already at introduction – that i was not accomplished. That i was learning somehow that i was aware of my developmental metamorphosis, that i was in difficulty over whatever it was that was vocally relevant for me at the time. Singer – far too enthralling and dramatic to me at the time. I needed something milder. To sing. Like to sing. I needed everybody to know this is how i felt. In many self aggrandizing sounding gestures, there is an enormous lack of self belief.

At some point after wandering a while in experimental waters, i have written vocalist about myself. At some point, the world has to browbeat you into brevity. Can you sing or no? Vocalist – another weightless intangible term. Works quite well in the context of a band – guitarist, percussionist, vocalist. Works quite well in experimental work – electronics and voice, vocals – vocalist. A singer is supposed to do more. A singer is somehow supposed to be direct, it seems. A singer is supposed to talk to you in the way you can listen.

I guess there is some split between the implication of song in singing. Singing is to sing song. Song is decidedly not voice. Song is a whisper between people, song is shared between you and i – much more than ‘vocals’ are. Vocals are neither speech nor song, neither melodic nor particularly poem-like. But having a voice – it is certainly much more than being able to speak. Maybe ‘vocalists’ want to imply training in their description more than ‘singers’ do.

‘The ladies go quiet – the judge has no choice – a singer must die for the lie in his voice.’ – simply does not work for a vocalist. The vocalist must not die, and the vocalist did not lie. The vocalist is a clinical actor. Something about the very word is dispassionate and cold. A lab technician of the oscillating folds. A deliverer of precise pitch-timbre percepts, but not necessarily someone who will sing a warm song to you.

Yes it doesn’t really matter what we call ourselves except we do think a hell of a lot about what to call ourselves?