Maxine Vulliet

Which musician has influenced you the most? 
Billy Strayhorn, his harmonical work is grandiose, graceful, deep in an unexplainable level. His lyrics are still today some of the best that exist in black american music as the music he’s written.

What can you teach me about your instruments different than any other teacher?
To be rhythmically adequate in what you’ll sing. How to accept your voice as it is and make it sound as comfortable as possible. I will also teach you how to vocally improvise.

How did you learn to play your instrument?
Watching and hearing my grandmother giving singing classes and singing was probably how it started, then my parents making me clap the rhythm on all the songs they’d put on helped to have a sense of rhythm.

How do you go about writing a song or composing a piece yourself?
I go on the piano and improvise random chords that appeal to me. I repeat and then melodies come to me. Recording helps to fix the ideas before I write them, replay, re-record and have a final piece. 
I also take parts of my favorite tunes and create something out of these sections. 

On what equipment do you play today?
The piano: I was always able to play on it and spent hours improvising on it. 

The guitare: it’s been a great tool to find harmonies and chords via open tuning.

What personal trait has helped you when you practice the most?
To love music so much and play in the name of this art. Its unexplainable beauty and to all of the what music contains. By making music myself, I am looking to give back what I’ve felt with it. This is my biggest drive and reason for being a musician today and to be willing to teach.

What does your instrument have that others don't?
The voice is an amazing and radical tool that defines who we are. It is unique to everyone. To use it musically brings the voice to another level where we can find ourselves in different contextes that are extremely deep and beautiful. 

The voice can be shared in groups, alone, so many possibilities exist around it. It’s magical!

What you pay special attention to when you teach?
Understanding the possibilities of our breath, the ear training and how to be as relaxed as possible but also as consciously as possible. 

How do you build up your music lessons?
We will always do some warmups, if you want we can work on deeper technical aspects. 

You can also bring songs you want to play (it can be anything), we see what you want to get from them by talking about them, checking your pitch, and finding ways to make it sound as you’d want. 

We can also have listening sessions where we talk about the music you bring.

What do you do with children?
I’d ask them what they want to play and we’d go slowly without ever pushing the voice to not build wrong ideas of what singing is. Working on their musicality comprehension by doing exercices like playing and repeating, to build their auditive memory. 

And we would of course learn songs they want to learn.

What was until now your greatest experience as a musician?
One night we managed to make everybody dance, some of our friends were even able to recite the lyrics I wrote with me, the sense of unity was amazing.

What was the largest stage that you've performed on?
Das Zelt as a backing vocalist.

Which musician would you like to play with?
I’d love to play with David Virelless, Terreon Gully, Michael Ode, Sam Gendel, Vinyl Williams, Réka Csiszér, Jules Martinet, Julien Dinkel, Lorraine Dinkel, Gary Wilson.

Which record would you bring to a desert island?
I would engrave a CD with the maximum number of songs it could put on. They will be low quality so I can have as many as possible. The low quality might sound harsh but the feeling a good songs brings me doesn’t have to be at its best if the musical intention is there. 

On which stage do you prefer to perform?
The one where all the people I love the most will be. I love to play without a stage and as close as possible to the ones who listen.

After music, what is important in your life?
Visual arts.