Natalie Gelman
Natalie Gelman is a talented singer songwriter with a bright future ahead of her. I’ve interviewed once before and love what she does. With a kickstarter campaign for her new material I need to know more again.
1. What does playing live mean to you?
I write songs with the intention of sharing them and one of the best places I get to do that is in my live show. When you’re booking shows, writing songs and touring all your time is spent alone for the most part. One of the only places I actually get to connect with people and share this craziness is when I’m in a venue and playing for people. It’s really one of the big reasons for doing this at the end of the day.
2. Do you think it’s all about the songwriting or does timing and the right place at the right time has a key getting your music out there?
I think it’s a combination of so many things but a great song is incredibly powerful in moving the needle forward – it connects with people and can help you find your perfect audience. A great song is also something people like to share which will also help you get your music out there. Outside of that, independent artists have a lot of tools in social media and can do a lot to grow their career.
It’s a hustle and it will get to you some days but if you believe in what you’re doing you can build something slowly without a big break, a hit song or any luck playing a part of it. If something like that comes along – awesome! But, you don’t need it and shouldn’t wait for it.
Your fans are out there, you just need to find them.
3. How important to you are music blogs in helping get your music out there?
Music blogs are incredibly supportive of independent music and I have been really grateful to be featured on so many. Blogs and podcasts were the first media to give notice to me and put their stamp of approval on what I was doing.
It’s also been a great lead in to some more traditional media as a lot of magazines and papers that didn’t have the print space but wanted to feature me and wanted content for their website, published something on their blog about me. I want to also add that blogs seem to be a more affective then papers and magazines at actually getting my music out there and getting people to listen.
4. What inspired you in the first place to give music a shot?
I just love music. It’s always been what I wanted to do. What I do now has developed more over the years as I learned what’s possible. I think more important then the initial inspiration is what inspires me to continue to make music. It’s a really tough road as an independent musician, and a lonely one as I explained earlier. My actual art is inspired by experiences, seeing other art and reading books or hearing ideas but I wouldn’t have the guts and worth ethic to see it through without a community to share it with.
I think the driving force behind it is really some combination of feelings – love, fear, wanting to be understood… both when writing and sharing the songs. To share that with another person and feel better in our mutual awkward lives always feels great for everyone.
5. Having tools like Soundcloud does it make your job easier when trying to gain new listeners to your music?
In some ways, I think it’s definitely a tool to find new listeners. I don’t really think it makes my job easier. I think Youtube might be an easier platform to share music on and be discovered through. Youtube also has a much larger potential audience so I think it would be easier to reach more people on there with lyric videos or just adding your song and a photo as a playlist…
I’m not the most active on Soundcloud but I think a lot of people have developed an audience through that. It also is a platform for connecting more with music lovers so that is a great reason to get on there and find your listeners.
6. How do you hope having a kickstarter campaign will do for your music and what do you hope the outcome will be?
I love kickstarter because it’s about the power of the community and it’s amazing what people can do when they get together and get behind a project.
I have a week left in the campaign and reached my first goal of $12,000 two weeks into the campaign which was amazing!! I’m pushing for $17,000 now so I can get vinyl mastered and manufactured which is a dream of mine and have a small budget for shooting a music video.
As I said earlier, I make music for people – for my community. Having them with me every step of the way is amazing and one of the biggest reasons I’m so happy to be sharing this project with my fans and friends from the beginning.
7. How does a song happen for you?
There are so many things that can inspire a song. I try to stay available to the muse and find that having quiet time where I’ve allowed the space for a song to develop and not be judged while I’m working on it is so important.
8. Are there moments where your just not in the mood for writing music and need to do something else before you jump back into songwriting mode?
Not really… I definitely have phases where I am writing a ton and then not writing for a while. I find that if I’m frustrated with songwriting it’s usually because I need to be doing it more but need to carve out that space and push the self-judgment aside to just allow for creative flow and see what happens.
9. Do you think YouTube has help save the music industry?
I think the industry never needed to be saved… this model we’re all freaking out over that’s “failing” was not really tried and true to begin with.
I think tools like Youtube are super helpful to growing your audience like I said earlier but I think the real thing “saving” the music industry is the empowered artist. Artists connecting directly with their listeners is saving the industry… but, it’s not new.
If you look back past record labels, there was a pretty similar model to the Kickstarters and crowd funding platforms hundreds of years ago with patronage and various individuals supporting the arts in their own community and country.
10. Do you think being serious with your music at a young age has helped you?
Yes, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing with music but I loved it and definitely developed a lot of my musical skills and musicality over time growing up. It allowed me to play with a lot of different genres and learn something from them all too.
