We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Charla Murray a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Charla, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I’ve been a lifelong musician and started taking piano lessons at an early age. I attended public school in the small town of Brownsboro, Texas and at the time there was no school orchestra. We had a fantastic marching and concert band with woodwinds and horns, but there was no harp, violin, or any kind of strings. It was when I was an adult and in my 30s that I had seen someone performing on a harp around 2010 and was absolutey captivated. I researched types of harps, costs, technique and was bound and determined to learn. I found a teacher – a professional orchestra and performing harpist who I immediately clicked with and took lessons on and off with her over the course of about eight years. Getting the very base techniques such as hand position, placing etc. from someone LONG trained in proper technique and starting from the ground up was defininitely instrumental, if you will, in setting me up for success. I absolultely considered self-teaching from online videos and courses, but the relationship with my teacher and her personal guidance is something I will cherish and carry with me always. I think these very basic skills that sometimes have painfully slow progress in the beginning were most essential to being able to put my own unique spin on what a harp can do. My main obstacle was just time – I worked an office job full time when I started my delve into the harp, and it’s a difficult to prioritize that time for creativity when you feel beholden to the 9-5.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a multi-instrumentalist and play harp, bass guitar, piano/keyboards, flute, and ukulele – and those are pretty much listed in order of frequency in my work. I play primarily a Camac Little Big Blue electroacoustic 44-string harp, which I incorporate with guitar effects and looper pedals for a truly unique sound. I perform solo, and these days mainly as a duo with my drummer, Jason Solley – we perform under the moniker Eve’s Road.

Jason and I met in around the 7-8th grade at our junior high school in Brownsboro, Texas. We have collaborated on many music projects over the last 25 years, but only started performing live together around 2021. I had moved away from Texas living in Georgia, Arizona – where I studied the harp – and northeast Alabama, eventually returning to my home state of Texas in late 2019. After landing in Texas, I opened up a music lesson studio teaching harp, piano and flute, as well as continuing to provide music for weddings and other events. I offered online lessons when COVID closed everything down, and had to get a little creative with no live music venues being open. I did some online performances, took requests to craft special song arrangements, and took part in online music festivals and classes. I actually was able to give a looping demonstration and class to my own harp teacher’s current students which was a surreal full-circle moment for me.

Currenlty Eve’s Road performs 1-3 times weekly at venues across the East Texas and DFW areas. We perform at restaurants and bars, art galleries, festivals, parties, weddings – you name it. We love performing shows with other musicians and the creative energy that fills those spaces.

What sets us apart is our distincitve sound, and the visual appeal of the almost 6 foot tall, sleek ebony harp. People don’t typically see those antiquated instruments every day, and definitely don’t see someone sitting behind one singing Pink Floyd and Guns N’ Roses covers. Audiences definitley love our covers, but I’m most proud of our original music, and incorporating the technology with the typically classical instrument. I love to loop a harp part, then pick up the bass or another instrument and build a unique sound experience live for our audiences.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think COVID kind of required us all to pivot a bit. I had a busy music studio, a fully booked out rest of that year, and was extremely busy. When all of my summer wedding bookings were canceled in one fell swoop due to a venue temporarily closing, that required some re-evaluating of how the rest of the year was going to play out. I actually enrolled myself in an associates program for Paralegal Studies, to have a backup plan to my creative work. That turned out to be an excellent plan, since I can have steady income and choose only the creative work that I’m truly invested in, and not have to hustle for every single gig or opportunity that might not actually be a good fit for me or a good return on the investment of my time. Some of my biggest supporters of my creative work have actually been people I have met through non-creative daywork. While I seek to release that creative energy into the world by songwriting and crafting soundscapes, others come to fill their cup after their daily grind and we are certainly happy to pour!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being a musician is that connection with other people. When people come up after performances and it’s clear they really enjoyed it, they really experienced it and felt those emotions with us on the journey down our setlist – those are the moments I live for. When we see those familiar faces of people who love and support what we are doing – it’s just an amazing feeling to be connected with these individuals through music. It’s almost like we all are in on a little secret. I often provide music for other creatives such as visual artists at gallery and exhibition openings, and I also really love supporting the creative community in that way. It’s super rewarding to me to be able to hone our craft in those spaces, while doing so to celebrate another artist in their element.

Contact Info:

• Website: https:// http://linktr.ee/eves.road
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eves.road/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harpcharla
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtDSl3VjRvSAScyyx95u6Pw
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@eves.road