Growing up, I was always surrounded by music. We had an upright piano, several guitars, and my parents were always listening to the radio station Gold 104.3, meaning a lot of Australian classic rock, and playing The Beatles albums along with a lot of Burt Bacharach. I was the kid who preferred 60’s, 70’s and 80’s music rather than the current hits. Largely I still am that person although I listen to a wider range of music now.

When I was either 3 or 4, it’s hard to remember exactly when, my parents started showing me how to play the piano. I made it up to a Grade 2 AMEB standard before stopping at the age of 8. I picked up the piano again when I was 13 so that I could accompany myself singing.

I started getting singing lessons when I was 9, but due to some bad experiences with teachers my lessons have sometimes been sporadic with 1-2-year gaps between lessons; 9, 10-12, 13-17, 19-present.

I also started teaching myself how to play guitar when I was 14 when I found pictures of chords and how to play them, with the first song I ever learned being Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’. It wasn’t long until I was able to seamlessly swap between accompanying myself on piano and guitar.

When I was very young, just like lots of other little girls, I wanted with every fibre of my being to be a famous singer and that was it. That would be my path. But as I got older, my vision shifted more and I wanted to become a singer/songwriter. Alongside the music I grew up listening to, Ed Sheeran became a massive influence on me and my song-writing. Listening back to the songs I wrote during high school, I can hear bits of Ed Sheeran, Crowded House, and Josh Pyke all mixed together in an acoustic pop-rock blend.

I wrote countless songs during my high school years and performed a lot of them too at different concerts and varying gigs. I gained a lot of experience and was able to tell a lot of the stories I had experienced during my life so far. I began recording these songs with my boyfriend who is an audio engineer at the end of high school.

Once high school finished and my living circumstances changed, I found it very difficult to write songs and find the creative flow to even record the ones I had already written. This was not a good thing as I had also just started a Bachelor of Music at Victoria University with the intention of realising myself as a singer/songwriter. I also got more of a taste for what the music industry was actually like, and the idea of gigging late at night with no guarantee of when the next paid job will be coming through really didn’t appeal to me. I began to seriously consider what I wanted out of my degree, even questioning if I was good enough to be there.

After a year of feeling lost, my creative outlet and new motive for the Bachelor of Music came to me when I was listening to some songs on shuffle, harmonising with them, and thinking of how I would have made different creative choices to the ones released on the recordings. It was in this moment I knew I wanted to arrange vocals in an A Cappella setting! This became my new creative outlet while I was struggling to write songs, and it has helped me grow into the musician I am today, and even encouraged me to begin writing songs again in more recent months.

I also began running my own Music Tuition business where I offer singing, piano and guitar lessons. Like any small business, it takes a while to grow, but eventually it found its feet and I now have close to 20 students of my own. This has become a big part of my life, and has greatly influenced how I view music education, my own musicianship, and my role and responsibility as a musician in the community.

So far, I am loving my life as a musician and everything I have been involved in. The highlights of which have been:

• Countless high school concerts/presentation nights/functions from, 2013-2016
• Playing in and winning sections of a local song-writing competition, 2015
• Being the feature act at the Cancer Council’s Relay for Life, 2016
• Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gigs at local wineries, 2016-2017
• Working on my own original songs 2015-present
• Running a music tuition business and always encouraging myself to learn more so I can pass on my knowledge, 2016-present.
• Playing for a charity event run by The Shining Future Foundation, 2017
• Collaborating with musicians and being part of their large projects 2017-present
• Working on my large Portfolio of A Cappella Arrangements, 2018-2019

With all of my experience being a musician in various different roles and contexts, I now know that I want to be well versed and experienced in all aspect’s music has to offer. I feel it is my responsibility to share it, teach it, create it, arrange it, challenge it, evolve it, direct and instruct it.

In 2020 I will be beginning a Masters of Secondary Education at Melbourne University to realise a lot of the aims and ambitions I have as a musician. I will also continue writing more songs, arrangements, compositions and scores to share with whoever wants to hear them. It is not my intention to be accoladed, but just contribute to the world, culture and art-form that I love so much.