We recently connected with Camille Zhang and have shared our conversation below.

Camille, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learnt a lot of the songwriting and production on my own. I draw my inspiration largely from listening to other artists and breaking down their songwriting elements as well as production components. I also took a couple of songwriting classes back when I first started a few years ago but I think continuous self-study and reflection is more the key for success.

I also think being in a community of inspirational artists definitely helped in the learning process as well, whether it being listening to their stuff or sitting in sessions with them. A lot of the time I find that the micro-environment around me is super important when it comes to fueling artistic inspiration and growth.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a full-time product manager at Microsoft, part-time singer songwriter based in LA! During working hours I’m mainly focusing some building some AI features at Microsoft which I’m super grateful for, since I’m learning a lot each day! After work I’m mostly focused on improving my craft as a singer, songwriter and producer so I’m either nerding out on music by myself in my bedroom or nerding out somewhere else with friends :D My goal in the music are is really just being able to make really beautiful music that connects deeply to people’s souls.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I think music has great power in connecting very deeply with people’s souls, and I simply don’t want to miss the chance of doing that. When I’m really into an artist’s work I feel like I’ve known them my entire life, and maybe oneday my music will reach people like that as well. And the desire to connect with people deeply through such a beautiful medium is something that keeps me going.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect for me these days is being able to successfully translate the vision for a song in my head into the actual DAW. And when I hit that playback and the music sounds really good and is exactly what I’ve envisioned (sometimes even better) then that’s the moment when I’m very proud of myself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcamillezhang/