We recently connected with Gabrielle Pitchford and have shared our conversation below.
Gabrielle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
As an Adjunct Professor of Voice and Private Voice Teacher, I’ve taught as many as 20 students at a time of various levels and genres. At the start of each semester, I found myself procrastinating on repertoire assignments because of the amount of time I was spending on them. It’s important to me to continue expanding my knowledge of vocal repertoire instead of assigning the same pieces to my students each semester, but searching for music AND making sure it was appropriate for each student could take me hours that I simply didn’t have. In an attempt to make my search quicker and easier, I’d sometimes try googling things like, “upbeat English art song,” but unfortunately a magic list of all relevant pieces didn’t pop up and I was still required to do more digging.
One evening, while expressing my frustration to my husband, he proposed an intriguing idea: a database that could generate curated song lists based on specific criteria. Normally skeptical of his frequent business ideas, this concept resonated with me on a deeper level. I always know what kind of music I want to assign and what technical challenges it needs to address. What if I had a database where I could be as detailed as I wanted with my search that would give a list of curated songs that fit my criteria perfectly? No need to spend an entire lesson (which, any voice teacher knows how precious that time is), or hours outside of my lessons on choosing repertoire. This would be a dream resource for me and it would be worth creating just to make MY life easier!
I have suffered from perfectionism and imposter syndrome most of my life, so the idea of creating something to share with others and opening myself up to criticism made me uncomfortable. The more I shared the idea with my trusted teacher friends though, the more I realized I’m not the only one wishing there were an easier and quicker way to search for repertoire. That was all the validation I needed to move forward. Rep Finder wasn’t created simply to start something new. It was created to fill a gap in the voice teaching industry. I don’t know one voice teacher who doesn’t have at least one other job, whether it’s performing, or something else entirely because they need to make ends meet. There’s a lot expected of us as teachers, and I just want to create something that can bring a little more convenience to my colleagues lives.
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 passionate musician with a background in vocal performance, having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rollins College in 2016 and a Master of Music degree from The University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2018.
After pursuing my studies, I’ve had the privilege of exploring various avenues within and beyond the music industry. It was during these ventures that I discovered my knack for creating structure and resources to simplify complex concepts—a talent I’ve since honed into a valuable asset.
As a detail-oriented and organized individual, I’ve always strived to find ways to enhance the learning experience for my students. This led me to develop voice and repertoire journals, meticulously crafted to guide my voice students through their practice sessions and music learning process. Now, I’m thrilled to bring this passion for organization and efficiency to life through our vocal repertoire database. This platform is designed to alleviate the challenges faced by music educators and singers alike, streamlining the repertoire search process and empowering users to find the perfect pieces with ease.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
From a young age, my dream was clear. I wanted to be an opera singer, living the glamorous life of performing on the stages of Europe. However, life had other plans in store for me. As I embarked on numerous study abroad adventures, I couldn’t ignore the pangs of loneliness that accompanied my distance from family and familiarity. I came to understand that although I had a deep desire to pursue a career as an opera singer abroad, I felt a compelling pull in another direction. My heart longed to be close to my family, to partake in celebrations, and to provide support during challenging times. Additionally, I felt a strong pull to create a family of my own
In the midst of grappling with this newfound awareness, I found solace in exploring alternative paths that sparked my interest. From diving into education to delving into the realm of social media and marketing, I ventured into uncharted territory, driven by a desire for new experiences and a life full of variety (I wasn’t made for the 9-5 life.)
Yet, with each step away from my childhood dream, I struggled with doubts and insecurities. Was I betraying my true calling? Was I veering off the path I had set for myself so long ago? It was tough for me to let go of.
However, as I navigated the self-discovery my twenties brought me, I came to the realization that dreams are not static. They evolve, shift, and transform as we journey through life. It was a lesson in embracing change and trusting the intuition that has always been there.
Today, I stand firm in the knowledge that it’s okay for dreams to change, for paths to diverge, and for journeys to take unexpected turns. My pursuit of fulfillment may have led me down unexpected roads, but with each twist and turn, I’ve grown wiser, stronger, and more attuned to the ever-changing melody of life.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Our journey into website and software production began with zero experience in web development or coding. It was a rollercoaster ride to say the least. Initially, we opted for a simple solution that we knew well: Google Forms & Sheets. As we started to compile our database by categorizing and assigning different pedagogical attributes to songs, we tried to sort and filter through the data like we envisioned a teacher would. It immediately became clear that google sheets was going to limit our ability to filter and sort the data properly to make it useable for other voice teachers.
This lead us to our first “no code” platform. Immediately we started to fall in love with this new platform. Our new database was not only visually stunning (compared to our google sheet version), but it allowed us to apply the tags and labels to the songs, which we could then filter by. But as we started to think about how to offer access to the database to potential customers, we hit another roadblock. The way that this platform charged us was based on how many users were in our “workspace”, and some quick math showed that this would drive the price point of any subscription we created much higher than we wanted. So, we found ourselves back on the hunt for a new software to build Rep-Finder on.
After hours of research on Google, with few answers to show for it, we started paying consultants on Fiverr for 30 minute calls to explain what we were trying to do. After several more dead ends, we finally found someone with answers – it was actually two separate softwares we would need to tie together! We engaged with the consultant to build the foundation of our website while we learned as much as we could from Youtube tutorials about the new platforms. A few months later, we had the best version of Rep-Finder yet, and from there all we had to do was continue to add new songs to the database.
Ultimately we had to learn about the entire technology ecosystem as well as how to work with consultants and contractors to keep them on track during long projects. We had to build systems to stay organized that have played a huge in role keeping this project moving forward and get it where it is today. We also had to recognize how much we didn’t know, and we will continue to look back on this process as a reminder that oftentimes when something doesn’t seem possible, you just don’t have the right knowledge or tools, and that fortunately today, the internet makes both of these accessible to everyone.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rep-finder.com
- Instagram: @_repfinder_