We were lucky to catch up with Carleen Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carleen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My upcoming record, catalyst, is really meaningful to me personally. It has themes of social anxiety & imposter syndrome sprinkled throughout it. It also uses mythical & fantastical metaphors to address those themes which I think is really cool. So I hope that it’s meaningful to others as well!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My main areas of focus in music are as a singer, songwriter and educator. I got into this discipline simply because I’m passionate about it. I recognize that may sound cliche, so more specifically- my dream has never been about “Oh, look at me because I’m so talented!” I’m actually quite the introvert so most days I’m very much “do NOT look at me!” This has actually made it difficult to do even the stereotypical side jobs that other artists do when they work for other people. There’s so much rejection in any industry. So I decided that since there’s the risk of rotten tomatoes being thrown at me regardless of my occupation, I might as well work toward my dream rather than someone else’s dream. I’m happy to be a team player and partner for others, though, if our missions serve each other. Right now, my products are my songs, merchandise and tickets. I provide singing services for church, weddings, funerals, etc. I also provide vocals for the sessions of other artists & producers. Additionally, I’ve been teaching private 1:1 lessons for over 25 years now. I teach mostly piano, but occasionally there’s demand for voice or guitar lessons, too.
There are a couple of things that set me apart from others. The loudest thing is just that my background is so dark, that I truly shine bright in contrast to it. My strength is in my ability to understand harmony. I know a lot of talented people who are very gifted at performing harmonies, but they sometimes express inadequacy because they “don’t know music theory.” Well, I’m here to say that I *do* understand music theory. It’s like a tool box. So for example, if my students run into problems while learning their repertoire, I’m able to give them the music theory tool they need to solve their problems.
I’m most proud of getting my degree through merit and scholarships. I was raised in an environment that discouraged higher education -especially for women- so getting my degree was challenging in ways beyond just academics. It was an emotional battle of challenging beliefs instilled in me at a young age… as young as I can remember.
Music has truly helped me solve a lot of my life’s problems. It’s helped me understand myself which then leads me to understanding others better. So my intention is to share that gift of compassion with as many people as I possibly can through my harmonious and sometimes humorous song.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

This is an interesting question! I think the biggest myth is that music should be a hobby. Like a lot of other singers, I was given the gift of exposure to music through the church I was born into. My mom was also like Maria von Trapp from The Sound of Music. She’s been on a journey to make singers out of all 15 of her kids, all of her ex husband’s kids, and all of her new husband’s kids. She was also a private piano teacher and taught me my first note or so. I guess I had an advantage in that sense. As a tween, I remember feeling like I needed to work harder at my craft in order to be as great as I wanted to be. I remember being punished and shamed for playing the piano when I “should be outside pulling out weeds!” My mom would preach “First we work, then we play!”
“I AM working, mom!!!”
“It’s called *playing* the piano!”
When I first told her I wanted to be a recording artist, she said “That’s great! You can make a record of yourself for our community (only)!”
Even when I was considering getting my BFA, I made the mistake of consulting with her.
She said “No! You should get married and have babies instead.”
All of this is to say that there is a cultural belief there that hard work equates to physical labor. It certainly doesn’t help that all of my siblings share this belief. It has led them to be critical of what I choose to do with my music. It even led to some of them being little bullies when we were all kids.
I would say that I’m still unraveling the beliefs that were planted out of these experiences.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I lived in my car. I certainly didn’t have to. My dad asked me to move back home once it had gotten that bad. The problem was that once I thought about it, I realized there really was nothing there for me anymore. To me, I viewed going ‘home’ as a sign of giving up. At the time, that sounded worse than sleeping in my car.
I was working five jobs at the time as an effort to fix the situation. So I quickly made enough money to change it, but since I was working that many jobs while studying 20 credits at school, I then had little-to-no *time* to actually search for a place.
I would get free week-long memberships at gyms so I could shower. The idea worked better in my head than in practice, so when the plan would fall through, I did have a couple of generous friends I could call in order to use their showers. I would spend a significant amount of time at coffee shops to do my studies and homework. From there -and from gas stations- I’d get hot water in my refillable cup so that I could pour it on my ramen noodles.
It only lasted about a month, though. I knew it wasn’t permanent. To me, recognizing that it’s temporary is definitely resilience.      

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carleenmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carleenmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carleenmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@carleenmusicstudios

Image Credits
Michelle Williams Jason Lowrie Keven Suttle Matt Orso Tiffany Williams