Behind: Alyssa Grace
Written by Orlaith Redmond
Alyssa Grace is a nineteen year old American singer-songwriter based in California. According to Songfacts, Alyssa began her singing journey at just two years old. Her parents signed her up for singing lessons when she was seven, and when she was ten years old she began to learn the guitar and by the time she was eleven she was writing her own songs. She said that most of her creative ideas stem from her notes app. She said that she always writes down “little phrases, quotes, and things people say” and then when she is overwhelmed she goes back and pieces them together, often starting with lyrics, and then working out guitar chords. She then went on to release her debut single, ‘Dog With A Bone” on February 27th of this year.
On July 24th of this year, Alyssa Grace released her EP ‘Spilling My Guts’ which features seven tracks including three singles: ‘Bloodstream’, ‘Picking Petals’, and ‘Dog with a bone’. Her style of singing is very gentle, airy and comforting, however, when she wants to, she raises her volume and puts more power into her voice to make her singing sound stronger.
She uses a series of vocal techniques, including vocal flips, to add more emotion and depth into her voice. Her songs are very raw and emotional, yet relatable, which creates a sad but comforting mood in her music. Her songs have a constant crescendo through them: they consistently get louder as the song progresses. In my opinion, this adds to her unique sound as it creates an image in the listeners mind that she gets more frustrated as she continues to sing because the topic or person she is singing about has not yet been accepted or forgiven.
Alyssa uses many instruments and sounds in her music but the ones that really stick out to me are the piano and the guitar that she uses in her introductions. Alyssa also uses a lot of backing vocals to thicken the texture of her music, and the song I can hear them the most in is ‘Picking Petals’. Her single ‘Bloodstream’, released on June 5th, went viral on TikTok, specifically the line “I’m cryin’ on my mommas floor, why don’t you want this anymore?”.
Alyssa Grace is a very talented singer, especially as she is so young. To have that level of fame at her age is a remarkable feat in itself and I believe that she has far to go.