Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cathy Segal-Garcia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Cathy, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My life has a series of taking risks, continually! Being an artist involved risks creatively. Getting gigs involve risks. Surviving as an artist involves risks. Til the day you die! One thought/memory is when I decided, in my 20s or 30s to not do any kind of straight job anymore, and put the same effort into music. Big risk. Right decision! :)

Cathy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As far back as I can remember, I thought there was a deeper world than what was around me. Hidden, mysterious and wonderful. The door to something else, behind the nail in the wall. Nymphs and elves in the woods by my house. Something important hidden in a wonderful book, read while sitting in our green velvet armchair in the living room…so lost within the story that I didn’t hear my mom talking to me right by my side. Maybe it was because I learned to read by reading Through The Looking Glass/Alice In Wonderland…

My dad was a sax player, and he loved jazz, and I was his buddy, so he taught me about it. He took me to big band rehearsals from the age of 4, and I helped him put his band book together on Sunday mornings after the Saturday gig. I sang with my twin sisters all the years after that.

After high school I went to Berklee College of Music. Even though I was a singer, they didn’t have vocals at the time, so I played flute and studied arranging and composition. I was young but I soaked in the being-ness of a musician.

There were milestones along the way. Why I decided to keep singing, why I decided to sing jazz. From when I was child through college, that was a dramatic time in popular music. The Beatles, Woodstock, Cream, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendricks, Motown artists like Aretha. Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat. And on into the ECM Label, Weather Report, Pat Metheny, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Miles Davis, John Coltrane. The music was mind and soul altering.

I used my voice to make money, and to learn and have fun. I started writing, and found that my music writing was like my word writing. It usually reflected an intangible essence that I seemed to be reaching for. The way I expressed myself was in more ethereal concepts, rather than simple direct statements. I had to get used to that coming out of myself. It turned out to be a long life lesson, taught by music and the rest of life.

My mother and my sisters taught me about liking people and communicating. I taught myself about fearlessness. The ladies taught me about gathering people together. I taught myself about getting people into action. We were about giving help and love to our peeps.

When I started to teach, a large door opened up for me. I was forced to explain what I saw, in a way that could be understood and applied. I wanted to be truthful and kind, but get a result.

I started experimenting with my own states of mind, and decided that one was responsible for one’s own existence. Responsibility, for both the good and the bad, was challenging. But I came to the conclusion over the years that if I could confront anything and take responsibility for anything…then anything would be possible.

I saw close singer friends receiving opportunities that logically I could have/should have gotten. I suddenly “learned” that every person has their own individual path, with their own challenges, their own karma.

I decided to settle in and learn to recognize what lessons the universe was laying at my feet. I’ve had great lessons.

Just like the pianist has abilities and a job to do in the band, the singer has one too. We are responsible for things like emotions, ideas, concepts, hopes, horrors. Doing all that with tone, rhythm, notes, speech and ideas. The more honestly we do it, the bigger theeffect. We are capable of changing the people who are listening. If you think about that…what could lead us to being great at doing that?

Philosophy of life

Philosophy of music

Voice technique

Musical theory information

Active ability to be free, to communicate, to be in control, to be controlled.

That’s a lot of things to find lessons on. This is what I do all the time. Look for those lessons, and share them.

The more I go through life, the more I understand what life is really about for me. I can’t speak for everyone. But I can speak from my experience and keen observation. There are relationships that match up across the board of experience. You probably have a few things you do as well, that you could match with this idea.

If you’ve ever done any action … riding a bicycle, water or snow skiing, golf, art, music, meditating, driving a car… you know Balance. Balance is not Force, it’s Focus resulting in effortless action; a Flow. I have for a long time understood and teach that balance and focus are the key necessities for singing well, even just technically.

I call the very basic actions “ABC”
Air. Body. Vocal Cord.
The 3 must be rebalanced all the time, to end up with Resonance which is the queen item in using the voice well.

And then of course, comes the expansion of the idea of where else balance and focus affect you…within your vocal performance, your life, your abilities, your temperament. When your balance and focus are off, something is amiss in your life. When they are ON, you exist in a state of Flow. You know what it feels like, you’ve felt it. It’s when you’re the happiest and most comfortable.

So how do we build these various muscles? The vocalist’s walkway to truth is in expression. Voice is elemental, fundamental.

For 99% of us, our natural talent is not the primary action that brings us to success in singing. We actually DO have to be a student and map it out. We DO have to think about the actions and practice them. We must free up our resources so that we can start moving into the realm of balance, focus and flow. Otherwise, our artistry will end up in a lower level of quality.

I am a “glass 1/2 full” type of person. But I also want to tell you honestly, you must confront the work and take responsibility for it. Most likely, since this is not only about the action of the body singing, you will find some personal, emotional issues rising up in your face. The bottom line is: can you confront something and take responsibility for it?

If you can, you will win.

The day the pandemic started, I started doing a two hour interview with music people mostly, from across the world. I did this on Facebook and Youtube.  “Cathy Segal-Garcia’s Noontime Hang”.  To date, I’ve interviewed over 550 guests!   They’re archived too:  ARCHIVES:

I’ve also finished a small philosophy book, called “The Act of Becoming”.  You can find it through my website.  It ties together Life, Jazz, and Voice Technique.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

These books blew open my mind, and affirmed what I was drawn to in my own thinking.

Along with these, I am an avid listener to Eckert Tolle and Abraham Hicks.
And a reader of self-help philosophy books.
I find I do better with these stimulations consistently.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I was 17, my family home life was in turmoil, and my relationship with myself and with my boyfriend were in danger.

I “tried” killing myself…didn’t work, and the next day I was placed in a “home” with all aged people, female and male. In those two weeks I learned life lessons that immediately transformed my life, from being a victim, to the person in control of my own life…taking real responsibility for my own decisions.

The biggest lesson I learned, and carried with me the rest of my life, was that anything can get fixed…by being able to confront (look at) it, and by taking full responsibility for it – the creation of it and the fixing of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cathysegalgarcia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathysegalgarcia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cathysegalgarciamusic/ https://www.facebook.com/cathysegalgarciamusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-segal-garcia-93bba14/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-segal-garcia-93bba14
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CathySegalGarci https://twitter.com/CathySegalGarci
• Youtube: https://bit.ly/CSG-Youtube https://bit.ly/CSG-Youtube
• Other: https://linktr.ee/cathysegalgarcia

Image Credits
L.Aviva Diamond, Craig Cochrane