As Maria Duque steps into the experimental world of Cries of Redemption, we explore artistry, psychology, and the bold Broadway-infused evolution behind “This Is What It Feels Like.”
1. You’re a
formally trained musician, producer, psychologist, and music therapist. How did
you first approach collaborating with an untrained musician in an experimental
Nu-Metal/Modern Rock context, and what surprised you most about that dynamic?
My focus when
working on collaborative projects has always been not only to listen to the
music we’re making, but also to the message the creator wants to convey through
it. So, one of the things I’m most interested in my work is how to deliver said
message in a way that truly represents the “reason why” of the project. And, on
a more philosophical level, I also believe that every human being has their own
musical identity that is worth exploring and creating, so I usually put my
skills at the service of people who need to make it happen. So, when I first
listened to COR’s music, I was amazed and awed, and immediately wanted to jump
in!
Ed’s musical
ideas moved me from the very start. His way of making music feels very honest,
raw and organic, and that translates wonderfully in his composition. I think
his use of texture to create a dynamic experience is very smart, and the
contrast of female melody with male screamo seals the deal for me. That
contrast between melody and rawness is just out of this world!
In all
honesty, my singing experience has been very eclectic through the years, with a
range of genres under my belt including Pop, Pop/Rock, R&B, Latin,
Rock&Roll, Indie Rock, EDM, Musical Theater and so on. However, NuMetal was
kind of a pending genre for me to try, and when Ed came along with COR, I felt
it was a chance to take on the challenge of singing these kinds of songs. I
tackled the task with lots of enthusiasm, because above all, I really enjoyed
singing these tracks and discovering the role of my voice in them. Through
these songs I eventually found a new way to give power to my vocals, which came
out to be very enlightening.
Actually, the
thing that surprised me the most was when Ed told me he wasn’t musically
trained, because his music has a wisdom that is not often found in music
nowadays, as well as a technical expertise and precision that most trained
musicians wouldn’t even dream of having! So it’s always a joy to work with
someone who has such a clear vision about what they’re aiming to achieve.
2. When you
were initially hired by Ed Silva, the goal was purely functional—vocals for
copyright purposes. At what point did that relationship shift from “session
work” to genuine creative partnership?
It’s hard for
me to pinpoint a specific moment in time, but I did notice that as our work
together grew, Ed started to ask more of my creative input in terms of the
vocal production for the tracks. What started as recording only leads became
full vocal ensembles with doubles, tracks with effects and then came the actual
mixing of my vocal tracks by my own hand! I was delighted to have the chance to
showcase a little bit of my audio engineering experience and put it to the
service of the sonic requirements for each song.
Eventually, I
started having Ed’s blessing to try a few creative choices of my own for the
vocals, and that’s where I realized that our business relationship had evolved
in a way that had practically sneaked up on us, in a great way. I felt deeply
valued by the way he embraced the work I do with the vocal tracks, and I always
feel really inspired by his musical ideas, so it was only natural that a
creative partnership emerged!
Now that I
think about it, there was a turning point in our work together that
definitely made it clear it was not just some random transaction. We started
working back in early 2025 via a freelancing platform, and we worked like that
for a while, until I felt the need to stop using that platform for a number of
reasons, as I was really burned out from working under that platform’s
conditions. And so, one day I said “screw it”, turned all my gigs off and left
the platform to start working on a few personal projects that required my full
attention at the time. And I made a terrible mistake in doing so: I didn’t give
Ed a heads-up about me leaving the platform. A few months later, his wife found
me through social media, and when they told me how they missed me and how
impactful my work had been to COR, and that they didn’t want to give up working
with me, I realized “wow, ok, this was not just a regular copywriting gig,
we’ve got something really special right here!” and so, we resumed working
together, now in a more direct manner and with the mindset of making things
happen.
3. You’ve
worked with hundreds of artists as a freelancer. What made Cries of Redemption
stand out enough for you to emotionally invest in the project?
One thing that
makes this project stand out for me is the honesty in its lyrics about pain,
addiction, recovery and how non-linear healing is, but I love how the lyrics
convey all of this in such an elegant way. It’s very rare nowadays to find
musical projects that speak from truth and unadulterated experience, who are
brave enough to show their scars and inner dealings. The projects I have been
most passionate to accompany along the years have been the ones where people
have used music to give an outlet to struggles and pain they carry within. And
I felt from minute one that COR was just that.
Most of the
work I have done as a freelancer feels like a staple of one particular moment
in time, in which someone needed a very specific thing that I then delivered,
and that was the end of it. But with COR, I grew more and more invested with
each song that Ed sent me, and even though I haven’t gone through some of the
topics addressed in the lyrics, I could definitely connect to the feelings that
are underneath it all… So it was a matter of time before I was fully invested
into what we’re doing with this project.
4. Ed has
described your performances as “storytelling” rather than just singing. How do
you personally approach lyrics—especially when they aren’t drawn from your own
lived experience?
To me, there
are some universal truths in every song I perform, whether I experienced what
is portrayed in the lyrics or not, and I do my best to identify them and
connect with them while I sing the songs. I may not have experienced some of
the situations portrayed in the lyrics, but I can relate to feelings like
sadness, loneliness, inner turmoil, insecurity, and the eventual acceptance of
all these feelings as part of my experience as a human, so that is what I aim
to express with my voice, while honoring and respecting the topics directly
addressed in the lyrics.
I also tend to look at lyrics as stories with a beginning, a middle and an end, and I ask myself some questions about each of those parts, like “what is happening in this verse? What kind of emotions are present here?” That allows me to work in contrast: i. e., how different is the intention between verses 1 and 2, what are the subtleties that identify each round of chorus, and so on. Then, I arrange to record the lead vocals, which will be the backbone of my interpretation. I play a lot with tension and release when I sing the verses, and I do my best to analyze which verses require a more intimate approach, and which ones need me to belt my life off to give them enough power. That part of my performance is really fun to me, although if I get a little too picky, I’ll find myself doing around 20 takes of a given section, at which point I have to stop myself so perfectionism doesn’t take over and to avoid any kind of frustration. I try to make a unitary lead vocal track with all the dynamic changes it needs within it, so that way it becomes easier to edit and mix. But the most important thing for me when performing will be hitting that sweet spot where I can “feel the feels”, so to speak.
After that, I start building the harmonies around the “backbone”, as a way to support the intensity of the message at specific sections. I love adding layers and layers of harmonies because I feel they frame the message of the lyrics in such a beautiful way, and I love how it feels like the lead singers are not alone, like there are a lot of people who are also going through what they’re singing, and so they decide to join with their voices. That mental image just gives me chills every time.
5. COR has
often been compared to bands like Evanescence and Lacuna Coil. As someone who
understands both musical theory and perception psychology, how do you deal with
comparisons that may not reflect artistic reality?
When I hear
these comparisons, the first thing I understand is that people always draw from
what they know to try to understand a piece of music that they’re hearing for
the first time, and I also understand that bands like Evanescence and Lacuna
Coil are super, mega known and they are a reference frame in the lives of
millions of people. I think It’s inevitable to some extent, however, I am
confident in the authenticity of our material, and I’m glad that through our
“Broadway element” with vocals and strings we managed to create our own
reference frame, since I feel it gives COR a unique sound that stands on its
own.
I feel that
the standard with this kind of format is highlighting a sole lead vocal, which
is great of course, but I feel the more symphonic approach we’re taking gives
something extra special to the songs. It’s not something I have heard often,
merging Broadway with Metal, and I love it!
Also, I
believe that nowadays, the model of comparing emergent projects to famous ones
is kind of outdated, because there’s so much creativity and so many new ways of
handling music out there! We need to make space for embracing every proposal
for its uniqueness instead of by who it reminds us of. Having a reference frame
is good, but valuing the uniqueness of every project can be a much richer
listening -and creating- experience. I understand that on an editorial level,
music genres and comparisons are helpful for cataloguing music on streaming
services, but as consumers, we really need to transcend the categorizing and be
more open about the things that make musical projects distinct from one
another. It is in that aspect where we can really appreciate what music in
general has to offer in our everyday life.
6. “This Is
What It Feels Like” marked a conscious shift in vocal identity. From a
technical and artistic standpoint, what specific choices did you make to
decouple the vocals from genre stereotypes?
For one thing,
I decided to add vocals like my life depended on it, which is what I do most of
the time. I felt there was power in having not just one, but six voices in a
three-part harmony arrangement chanting “This is What It Feels Like When!!!”,
so I decided I needed at least that number of tracks to start with. And we at
COR feel that building choirs made by the same singer is not something that you
see frequently in these kinds of genres.
My vocal production style is deeply impacted by my experience with choir singing, which I started at the age of 5 and never stopped. And in the minds of many people, there’s no way you can blend what they think a choir represents with the aggressiveness and grit of NuMetal music, people tend to see them as opposite sides in a musical continuum of sorts, but not me. I always thrive in adding choir parts to EVERYTHING, especially because I feel that a choir can be very versatile when you give your choir singers the freedom to explore how far they can take their voices, how playful they can get with them.
That is what I
keep in mind when recording multiple voices; I always try to vary the way I
sing each track, to give the illusion that there are more people singing there;
some tracks will be more nasal, some tracks will be sung with chest voice, some
tracks will even have me babbling nonsense off-key or reciting the lyrics in a
spoken voice just to add up to that “mob” feel. It’s all about creating
something cinematic with the vocal arrangements.
All of that to
say, I feel that it’s refreshing to have a Gothic, NuMetal project where the
female singer can play chameleon and multiply herself tenfold just for the sake
of getting a message across. So I doubled down on that once Ed gave me the
blessing to put my imprint on the track.
7. You
juggle multiple professional identities—psychologist, music therapist,
vocalist, producer. How do these disciplines inform each other when you’re in
the studio?
I’m not gonna
lie, sometimes it feels a little crowded in here when all of those hats need to
work together. But I feel that by blending all these aspects of my professional
career, my creative experience is a thousand times richer.
Singing was my
first way of making music, and my choir experience showed me the fundamentals
of music theory and vocal technique. I also went to the conservatory for a few
years, which did wonders for my comprehension of music in general. As I got to
my 20’s, I had a period where I sang with bands, in which I did my best to
decouple from the choir sound and find out the true potential of my voice. That
taught me to trust my talent, and to not be afraid to fool around and make
mistakes, because happy accidents came from these experiences that gave my
performances a versatility I didn’t know I had. This was the period in my life
where I sang a truckload of genres just to see what I was capable of.
Then, I
realized that I needed tools to put my musical ideas out there, because I never
majored in any particular instrument, so I started studying audio engineering
and music production during the pandemic. That opened a new door for me with
which I could let out my feelings and ideas, and I eventually did with my two
singles: “Analysis Paralysis” in 2023, and “Canto” in 2024. And with these
singles, every musical decision I made was entirely based on what each element
would mean in terms of my history, my feelings and my evolution as an artist,
so I added a lot of psychology to the process by mere intuition (and a little
bit because of my college education).
I feel the
need to clear the record on something: I’m not actually a music therapist.
However, my area of expertise as a psychologist revolves around research in the
place where music and psychological phenomena converge, and evidence shows the
connection is enormous! I normally try to stay up-to-date with research
regarding music and psychology, I often read articles on the subject, and
whenever I see a book with research papers on this topic, it’s an instant buy
for me. I actually did some investigation on my end on the relationship between
music and subjective emotional responses in my thesis back when I was
completing my bachelor’s degree in psychology at the Universidad Central de
Venezuela, which was groundbreaking at the time because no one had thought
about linking these two elements in a thesis project before in my faculty.
Like I said, I
majored in psychology, but these days I don’t work as a psychologist anymore. I
found that my calling was more on the music side of things, and on figuring out
how my background in psychology can help me shape my music creation, as well as
other people’s. I find it fascinating how you can express and reflect inner
dwellings through sounds beyond what lyrics might say, and how people have
tried to find correlations between specific notes and feelings, about
instruments and their psychological role in music and communication, as well as
many other things, because at the end of it all, music is one of the most human
things we can do.
All these
experiences and ideas coexist with me in the studio for sure. I feel they’re so
ingrained in my way of working that the process usually goes pretty smoothly
when recording songs. If anything, I feel that my background drives me into
finding the “reason why” behind every element I bring into a musical
production, which helps deliver the best performances I can, and it helps keep
a fun sense of curiosity in my everyday routine.
8. You live
in Argentina, collaborate long-distance, and work across cultures and time
zones. How has remote collaboration shaped your communication style and
creative boundaries?
It has been a
very formative experience on customer service to say the least. Remote
collaboration has ingrained a sense in me to always do my best to understand
where the other person comes from, especially when they come from a background
very different from mine. Also, it propels me to being clear when defining the
scope of collaborative work with clients. I have had all sorts of experiences
during the years that were prone to misunderstandings, which taught me a lot
about boundaries (I even had someone once hire me for a gig, and then propose
to me, asking me to marry them out of the blue after completing the job, can
you imagine that? I couldn’t believe it, and it was obviously an instant
block).
Another thing
that remote collaboration allowed me to do was polish my skills in English
communication. My mother tongue is Spanish since I was born in Venezuela, but
from early on I developed a kind of passion for the English language, I
remember listening to music in english since I was very young (my dad is a huge
Beatles fan, although he didn’t understand much of the lyrics), and that
sparked my curiosity about it. I did a couple English summer classes and from
then on I started to frantically consume English-made art: music, books,
movies, etc. I learned much more of the language from all that media than from
all the classes I had at school during the entirety of my formative years, and
when I came to it, I did a IELTS test and confirmed I had become bilingual. But
there are some subtleties you can only get if you speak to natives from that
language, and that is where remote collaboration came in. I learned a lot about
some nuances and codes that I could never get from just listening to music in
English, as well as work-related communication skills. So it’s always a joy to
me that English allows me to partner up with so many people from around the
globe to make things happen.
And on the
creative side, what I love about remote collaboration is that it constantly
invites me to push my boundaries further. I have found myself working on things
that I never thought I could do that make me immensely proud of accomplishing
them. It makes me more confident when trying something new, and it gives me
more resources to try new things in my own creative work.
9. After
briefly losing contact with Ed, you eventually reunited and took on a larger
production role. What did that pause teach you about creative chemistry and
timing?
When I left
the platform I worked at, I felt the need to reset and regroup, because
sometimes the load of work on commissions can make you forget all about putting
time into personal projects that are really close to your heart. I needed to
step away from collaboration for a time to figure out my next steps, and to
pursue creative projects with my husband, who is a musician as well. And I also
needed to find a way to engage in collaborations without an intermediary that
took part of my earnings, truth to be told.
Having said
that, I was truly honored when Ed’s wife found me and told me that what I had
done with their tracks was beyond what they expected any vocalist could do with
them. They told me they missed the way I expressed feelings with my vocals, and
they told me that they hadn’t found anyone else that could do what I did. I
also did some soul-searching and found out that of all the projects I left
behind on the platform, COR was one that I really missed. So I remained open to
keep working with Ed, and from there our creative relationship took a new turn
where I know I have become a crucial part of the new sound for this project.
It’s not often
that I have felt this kind of validation from other projects I have worked on,
and I definitely think that as a group, we have a great understanding on the
creative aspect of things, so the timing was absolutely right to pick up where
we left off.
10. You’ve
expressed interest in moving away from session work and more into producing.
What kind of artists or projects do you feel most drawn to supporting in that
role?
The people I’m
most excited to support are those who have lived their life and are somewhat
functional adults now (if such a thing even exists, am I right?), yet they have
full notebooks of songs they wrote years ago, about issues that were (and
possibly still are) challenging to them, and never had the chance to turn them
into complete productions, be it for lack of knowledge about the production
process or because of some gatekeeping person or company that didn’t value
their ideas and discouraged them from pursuing their dream.
I have worked
with people who have told me “now I feel I can get closure with this song, you
understood my vision perfectly and delivered it, you helped me make it sound
even better than what I dreamed it could!” That always blows my mind!!! The
people who need to express their truth through music are the ones I’m most
excited to help, there is something so incredible about the full circle moment
of bringing to life a song they dreamed of for years that allows them to heal a
little bit of something within themselves, it’s just sublime.
11. Cries
of Redemption is described as experimental and uncompromising. How do you
balance structure and intuition when pushing a project into unfamiliar sonic
territory?
I often find
that structure and intuition are not so alien from one another, since having a
structure provides a scaffold from which intuition can work in a more agile
manner. I implement structure in the decision-making of how many tracks to
record: there is a setup that I go to by default: lead, doubles and a harmony
set of around four to six tracks, depending on the requirements of the song I’m
working on. I can extend the structure to include one or two tracks with
specific plugins and effects, but the ground work will always be with lead,
doubles and the harmony set.
Once I have
that structure clear, I go ahead and experiment with the vocal parts around the
lead. I record a couple takes where I basically go to town and try different
harmony lines, and eventually, the best arrangement always comes through from
repetition, because I instinctively keep the best from the multiple tries and
arrangement options, and that’s what ends up in the final vocal arrangement. I
find that way of working very fun and less stress-inducing, because the
structure is there to provide some sense of grounding, while intuition allows
me to create freely.
12.
Finally, looking ahead, what would success look like for you—not just with COR,
but in your broader artistic and professional life?
I’ll tell you something, by my standards, I am already successful. I am able to earn a living from doing what I absolutely love, and on my own terms. My life changed the moment I realized that music could be profitable beyond the idea of becoming a billboard artist with sold-out tours all over the world. I am much of a family woman, and being able to be a session musician or producer from my home studio while taking care of my six-year-old daughter has been everything to me. And I also like the fact that she can see me first-hand loving what I do for a living, hoping that she learns to pursue working on whatever she loves, whenever she figures out what that will be.
I am also
working on developing my “psychological music production” method (that’s not
the official name by the way, but it’s a good phrase so people can understand
my style), to accompany people who need to express themselves through music
making, and I’m hoping to start offering it to the public later this year. It
will be launched in Spanish for starters, but I’m open to offering it to
English-speakers as well! I will consider myself even more successful if I can
help at least one person complete a song through this workframe. I'm really
excited about this new stage on my music production journey.
On my artistic
side, I’m looking forward to working on more songs with Cries of Redemption,
because some of the stuff we have already recorded is just out of this world,
and I would love for everyone to hear it!! And I also want to resume making
songs for my personal project: duquesamusic (which would translate to “dutchess
music”, it’s a wordplay with my last name, Duque, which means “duke” in
Spanish). I see this project as a treasure vault where I pour my feelings and
struggles through music in it, very much like the COR philosophy (that’s one of
the reasons we work so well together, I think), but in a more
eclectic/pop/Latin/R&B way. Since releasing “Canto” in 2024 I haven’t been
able to complete more songs, but I feel the time is right to add a few new gems
to that treasure vault.
Of course, if a grammy comes along the way, I wouldn’t be mad at all! It’s just not something I’m actively pursuing. I’m just thriving in the joy of creating, helping others with my creation, and earning a living from it in the process. Who knows what great places that will take me someday, but I’ll be definitely looking forward to finding out.
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