We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful ElizabethDarcel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with ElizabethDarcel below.
Alright, ElizabethDarcel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. 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.
Trial and error and just digging in and getting my hands dirty. I’ve always loved music. I’ve always loved to sing. I never knew how much time and effort went into producing one 3-5 minute song. Learning about all of the layers and steps that it took to build a song was overwhelming and fascinating at the same time. Blending harmonies together requires more that just hitting the right notes. Timing is everything. Volume is more of a tool than just how loud the song is. The more I learn the more complicated it gets and the more time it takes but the finished product is better and better until it’s professional quality. If I had of known how small the part is of a singer in a music production, I would have focused less on voice training and more on the technical side very early on in my music career. Being familiar with a DAW has been essential for me and I think it’s essential for any artist who wants to take their projects from demo to professional quality. The biggest obstacle is impatience. It’s not fast, and you’re not going to write the perfect song with the perfect production values the first time. Not even the first hundred times. Have fun and fall in love with the process of creating and be patient with yourself as you learn to perfect your craft.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am ElizabethDarcel. I am a singer/songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri and I write diary entries disguised as songs. I’m sure most can relate when I say life is painful. I do a better job expressing that pain in song than speech. So that’s what my fans love me for. Honesty. As brutally painful as it is. I want my music to be therapy for others as much as it is for me. I dive into the topics that make some uncomfortable but it’s how I cope with the unexplainable or uncomfortable parts of life and my listeners feel that same way. In a mix of genres I write about what I’m going through and what I feel. The funny thing is the more personal and specific the lyrics are to me, the more relatable they are to listeners. I always thought it would be the opposite. I struggled in the beginning trying to write “every man” songs but it was so in-genuine. I had to stop and ask myself, “Is this the kind of artist you want to be?” I realized I was just cheating my listeners and myself. So after working on 4 different potential albums that all felt forced, I scrapped everything and just wrote the truth. All the things that I was too afraid to say came spilling out and what I was left with was something that felt like my own personal Bible. The book of me. The real one, no edits, no sugarcoating. The most free I could possibly be. I hope my listeners get some sort of release from it. That’s my intention.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Self validation mostly. Each time I learn an new skill that improves my craft, I’m more proud of me than any other accomplishment. Plus if I don’t get the songs out of my head then I never get to really hear them in their entirety. I’m a really big fan of me and I want to hear the full song. If I don’t get it out I end up with it stuck in my head all day like a commercial jingle.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I’m not an artist by choice. It’s who I am. It’s wired into me. To deny myself music would be to try to turn off a part of myself which would amount to torture. The most rewarding part of being an artist is being allowed to be myself. I don’t know how to do anything else and be happy and at peace. I wake up every morning with the privilege to be myself, not shoved into a box or a uniform, just myself with no filter. It’s worth more to me than gold.
Contact Info:
- Website: bandlab.com/elizabethdarcel
- Instagram: ElizabethDarcel
- Facebook: ElizabethDarcel
- Twitter: ElizabethDarcel
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/user/MusiqSound
Image Credits
Micah Thompson