We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claudia Robin Gunn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claudia Robin below.

Hi Claudia Robin, 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 taken a roundabout path learning the craft of songwriting, mainly self taught but with some notable mentors who gave me courage to try and keep on trying.

As a teenage poet, and singer of other people’s songs in bands, acapella groups and musicals, my own melodies started to speak up for themselves early on, and demand my attention. I began by simply listening to them, trying to figure out what they wanted to say, recording them on my walkman and later a dictaphone, my flat’s answering machine (with warnings to flatmates to NOT DELETE) and the minisdisc player I was so proud of acquiring back in the early 2000’s. My mother Deni’s own songs, and my singing teacher Louise Britzman’s compositions were early inspirations.

I taught myself guitar so that I could figure out what the underlying harmonies were, and filled up songbook after songbook of stories all the while studying fulltime in my fields of performing arts and communications. My mum taught me 3 chords and told me to go for it – valuable advice, as every new chord I learned, I would write a song that included it so I would never forget.

Though I recorded a few early songs on 4 tracks, as a video producer by training, I got comfortable with NLE’s so worked on setting up my own mini studio a long time ago with ProTools to start laying out better demo’s. Life was always busy though, and I was mostly just writing new songs all the time not focussed on perfecting engineering skills. if I knew enough to get a track down that was enough for me.

I met the Substax crew in my 20’s and was invited to join the band as a songwriter and vocalist. we have continued this collaboration for 20 years now through a number of albums, many breaks as life got in the way. Learning the craft of collaboration has been a key stepping stone for me in seeing my work as interdependent rather than in isolation. And working with producers Nick and Jason I learnt to trust first takes, and pursue the feeling of a song in its recording, rather than getting lost in technicalities.

When I had babies everything slowed down, but I also began a new songwriting path, inspired by them and the new life of parenthood. A notable learning experience was meeting Arthur Baysting, an incredible songwriter in all ways, including in the field of children’s music. Getting to know his catalog, and philosophy has been a big influence. I also joined some MOOC’s hosted by Berkeley College of Music, with Pat Pattison, on songwriting and harmony and they were super enlightening for me, and to be able to log in and work on this at night when my babies slept was a game changer. When Pat Pattison visited New Zealand a while back I signed up for a masterclass with him which was deeply helpful.

Now after 6 albums of kids music, and many new collaborative songwriting experiences, I feel like I’m always learning, but also unlearning, and trying to stay close to the inspiration of the songs and melodies that peep in my ears and demand me to find out what they want to say.

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 songwriter, illustrator, video producer, and mother of two in Auckland, New Zealand. Little Wild Music is my independent label and publishing company through which I release my work, which is kids and family content.

The reason I’m passionate about creating this music is the absolute joy I have in performing for and listening to the stories, inspiration, and motivations of young people aged 3 to 8. My own children began this pathway, and I loved writing for them and their little friends, performing at their kindies and school classrooms.

Combining my working life as a creative producer in advertising with my passion for songwriting has been my raison dêtre for the company, and slowly but surely, things have been coming together over the years. I’m no overnight success story, though – I first pitched an animated musical series back in 2011, another in 2013, and then decided I’d rather have control over my own destiny and self-funded the first album, Little Wild Lullabies, as a stand-alone audio project on CD.

New Zealand has some groundbreaking arts funding initiatives that I’ve been grateful to be supported with since then, including broadcast funding agency NZ On Air helping me make my second album, Little Wild Universe, along with a couple of animated videos in collaboration with my friends Kat and Simon, past colleagues from my TV days. They have also invested in helping create my latest album, Firefly, which was released recently, in collaboration with GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and songwriter Dean Jones and featuring friends Little Miss Ann and Suzi Shelton. This project has been a career highlight, spreading my wings (metaphorically) to connect and create with like-minded folks on the other side of the globe. It is getting released on vinyl, too, this November.

Creative New Zealand is our national arts funding body, and with their help, I’ve also made 3 big arts projects working with an illustrator friend – Elise De Silva, my sister Melissa Gunn, who is a scientist and author, and producing partner Tom Fox at The Sound Room. These albums, Sing Through the Year – A Little Wild Childhood, SIng for the Sea – Little Wild Ocean Friends, and Sing for the Earth – Little Wild Animals, were all released alongside digital songbooks. You can also find Sing Through the Year published as a Yoto card. I’m so proud of how these albums, in particular, bring science and nature learning together with the music as a whole.

Working with Kat and NZ On Air support, we have also just wrapped up a multi-year collaboration creating an animated series featuring a little blue penguin family, bringing to life 12 of the 24 songs from Sing Through the Year. These episodes are all on my YouTube channel, and I hope to continue this content strand to further explore these characters’ stories. Overall, they are gentle, calming, and soothing – a little different from the mainstream. Much of what gets produced for kids aims to grab attention and hold it with quick cuts and rapid changes – something that is increasingly being shown to be detrimental to growing brains.

As a producer and creative, I’m following the changes in our industry closely and hope to hold anchor to the human-made, the reason why art matters. and I see myself continuing to create, collaborate, and mentor others who hope to stay true to the same North Star (or Southern Cross as we see it here in Aotearoa).

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

There are many obstacles that come with the territory of motherhood, women’s place in society, and the pressure of economic realities, so what drives me these days is, first and foremost, staying true to the creative voice inside me, finding genuine ways to make my work and also help support my family, and ultimate serve the littlest audience that matters most of all – the young minds of the future. I hope that the songs I share inspire young creatives to listen to the voice in their head and in their heart and know that art is a valuable and worthwhile contribution to our society. I believe in children’s potential to shine – as parents, teachers and communities our job is to encourage, lay stepping stones and allow them to bloom in their own unique ways. Music is such a magical way to sow those seeds of hope. And have so much fun along the way.

Beyond that, I am seeing that if I can make any headway with my work, it is also incumbent that with that success, I bring others through with me, so one of the things I am doing is being a mentor with Music Managers Forum NZ, helping fellow artists with their release strategy, digital marketing planning, and project rollouts. I aspire to help my fellow musicians navigate what can be a complex journey both on the creative and songwriting side, as well as the industry, publishing, and recording aspects of the business.

I was also grateful to be recommended to join The Recording Academy some years back by a peer in the children’s music world. The power of music is utmost, and I am glad to be part of an organization that upholds the value of this art form and works to protect its place in the changing landscape.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Want to know something funny? I never knew songwriters used rhyming dictionaries! I was an absolute purist for most of my songwriting life, relying on my memory and my own vocabulary. But I learned in the Pat Pattison courses I did about how he uses them, and so do many major artists. My grandmother (100 years old this year) is an absolute crossword fiend, and she has the widest collection of lexicons, word finders, and the like I had ever seen, yet a rhyming dictionary somehow wasn’t on the shelf. Now, I see these resources as essential tools for helping one move past obvious rhymes and help create better internal rhymes, near rhymes, and all the fun, technical pieces of a songwriting puzzle. Complete convert, thanks Pat!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://claudiarobingunn.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudiarobingunn/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claudiarobingunn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-robin-gunn-2a58265/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/littlewildmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ClaudiaRobinGunn
• Other: open.spotify.com/artist/1Dnn2mwwu3QwyQjXJFqyZN

Image Credits
photographers include Maddy South, Charlie Rose, Michelle Sokolich, Melissa Gunn