Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Courtney Harrell performs her save song on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Working mostly as a background singer and composer, she hadn’t been the main attraction on stage for more than 15 years before the show’s blind audition round.

So that makes the question of what comes next a little more intriguing for her than other artists who look to the show as a launching pad toward bigger and better things as performing musicians.

“I’m still questioning where it’s going to take me,” she told Voice Views in a conference call Thursday. “I didn’t come here with the intention to win the show and/or once I do well, I’m going to just start off with this big musical career that I never got to fully live out. I do think there is some singing in my future. I don’t know in what capacity.”

Having toured as a background singer with John Legend and written songs recorded by Chris Brown, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson and many others, Courtney said she’s well aware of the challenges of being a performing artist.

“It’s a lot of work and lot of putting yourself out there,” she said.

But she’s loves teaching — she was a music teacher in the Boston school district from 2005 to 2009 — and said she might expand on that post-Voice.

And she does plan to record original music.

“I think I owe it to myself and to the people who have followed me and have grown to love me to release the songs that I’ve written and to just to share my heart in that way,” Courtney said. “I just am unsure on how my career as a singer is going to look.

“You know, is it something that I’ve put out just to say that I’ve done it and I go back to writing. Or is it something that I’m going to go full throttle with. And I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Courtney Harrell performs en route to a Top 10 finish on The Voice Season 11 (NBC Photo)

She describes herself as a pop singer with soul and says the three song choices that best matched her artistry were “Let it Go” from the blind audition, “River Deep, Mountain High” from the knockout round and “God Bless the Broken Road,” her save-me song from Tuesday’s show.

But her song selections varied greatly and included Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” John Mayer’s “Gravity” and Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

Courtney said she wasn’t shocked to find herself in the bottom three this week, partly because she read comments from those who didn’t like some of the song choices, partly because she was battling a vocal injury that led to some pitch issues. And she admitted there were some contestants “that I felt were not better singers, but I think stronger than me at that time that I was there.”

In hindsight, “maybe I’d go back and show more of me, my artistry and less of what my voice is capable of doing.”

As the same time, Courtney said she appreciates The Voice for its “loving, nurturing, encouraging, affirming musical environment” and for showing her how much her own voice can do after a vocal injury a few years ago put her in a position where she simply couldn’t sing.

“It truly was a reality show for me in that sense where America was seeing in real time how someone was developing,” Courtney said.