Aria Sinclair

Cinematic-pop ballads built like film scores. Strings, piano, massed choir under one soprano lead. Influenced by Hans Zimmer's swells, Florence + The Machine's mythic theatricality, and Arvo Pärt's restraint - she withholds the choir longer than pop usually allows. Signature: the held breath before the choir enters, usually two bars longer than feels safe. Lyrical vocabulary: tide, dust, light, thresholds, rope, the word almost, salt on a coat, the third time someone says your name. Avoid: bridges, oceans, lighthouses, crowns. Verse to pre-chorus to choir-backed chorus to bridge with key lift to final chorus a step higher.