Barbra Streisand Says She’ll Make New Music ‘as Long as I Have a Voice’ (Exclusive)

Barbra Streisand has no plans to stop singing.

The legendary singer, actress and director may have put her voice to work while recording the audiobook for her hefty memoir, but she has no qualms about returning to the studio, she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

Streisand’s upcoming album, The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two, is her first new studio album in seven years. The project arrives after she felt the recording process for the Grammy-nominated audiobook for her 970-page-long memoir My Name Is Barbra left her feeling “hoarse.”

“All the wonderful people that I was going to sing with wanted to sing with me. And they were all so special and I hadn’t sung in a very long time,” Streisand, 83, tells PEOPLE.

“I didn’t know if I had a voice left because after I did that, Jesus, six weeks, six days a week, five hours a day of talking, speaking into a microphone for the book. So I was hoarse.”

This won’t stop Streisand, who has won eight Grammys throughout her decades-long career, from making new music. “As long as I have a voice, I love the privacy of recording,” she says when asked about the prospect of another album in the future.

“I love standing there in front of the mic with the music in my ears and singing, and there are more songs I want to sing. And I even have my original list of songs I wanted to sing.”

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Streisand’s upcoming album, a follow-up to her 2014 duets album Partners, includes collaborations with Paul McCartney (who recorded “My Valentine” with her first for the album and was a “no brainer” to feature), Bob Dylan, Tim McGraw and Mariah Carey with Ariana Grande.

The album’s title was inspired by her family, which includes her son Jason Gould, stepson Josh Brolin and his four children. “It’s wonderful to have family. That’s how the Secret of Life title came—[the secret] is several things, but one of them is family,” Streisand says.

“I asked my daughter-in-law [Kathryn] to bring the children over and take some pictures with me. The joy that I was feeling whenever they come over . . . it’s just joyous.”

Streisand mentions how Westlyn, who is 6, tells her that she loves her in a special way. “The oldest one, before she leaves, every time we do a thing like point to our eye, I. Even when she was a little tiny girl, barely speaking, I, love, patting the heart, you, pointing to the other person.”

One of the songs calls back to when Streisand was 13 — the age she was when her career started.

In “Letter to My 13 Year Old Self,” her new duet with jazz-pop star Laufey, she offers words of wisdom during the “very important stage in your life.”

“The first time you’re a teenager, you’ve moved ahead to another level,” Streisand says, reflecting on what she would tell herself at 13 years old. “Believe in yourself, believe in your choices. Believe in what you hear, what you feel.”

“I mean, I did it instinctively. You know what I mean? I don’t know why I did it. And it’s the first time I ever did an improvisation even. I was standing in front of the mic at 13 and what I rehearsed with the guy, the piano player, I did something else,” she adds.

“And I thought, where did that come from? Where did improvisation? Where did I… I don’t know. It came out and I liked it. I went, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.'”

The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume Two is available on Friday, June 27.