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

Missy , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Earning a full-time living from my creative work came fairly naturally to me especially being born and raised in Los Angeles where art and creativity runs high. I was privileged to have a mom that taught me discipline and drive needed to be a concert pianist, which I pursued for a few years right after I received my masters degree in piano performance. That definitely did not pay the bills so my career didn’t last long. I did however learn how to start my own piano studio and at that point in my life, it was the longest job I had stuck with. I taught my first piano student when I was 18. My mom had major influence in this decision because she was the one who was guiding me and teaching me how to be a good teacher and have a good work ethic. It also helped that my cousins were my first students so it wasn’t as nerve wrecking exploring & discovering my beginner teacher instincts on my family. Because I developed the skills on how to run a one person business, I developed a certain lifestyle that paved the way to where I am today. Right out of college with my Bachelors I immediately started teaching as the music director for Holy Redeemer School in Montrose CA. Teaching over 200 students for one year made me realize that this type of lifestyle wasnt right for me. I immediately quit teaching elemtary school to teach piano privately and invest more in my studio. Fast forward

Missy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Missy Alcazar and I’m a professional traveling dueling pianist, a singer-songwriter and full time Twitch partnered music streamer. I’m also many other things but don’t advertise it as much because naturally being a small business owner I have to wear many hats. Some have called me “renaissance woman.” I’ve been in the music industry since I was a child. My entire childhood/adolecense was in the classical piano competition industry, whereas my college years was spent as lounge pianist, gigging concert pianist and keyboardist for bands. Teaching industry naturally gravitated towards me too because it comes with the territory. You have to pay it forward by teaching since that’s how wisdom was passed on to me.
I didn’t become a dueling pianist until 2013 when I moved to San Diego with a piano studio roster of 30 students.
My training as a dueling pianist could be another interview in itself.
I do feel like dueling pianos is where I was able to really explore the potential I’ve wanted to reach.

What sets me apart is my multi-faceted skill set in most things creative. I have covered most creative opportunities offered to generate income as a pianist & musician. I’m well seasoned in experience as a recording session pianist, concert pianist, accompanist, keyboardist for bands, dueling pianist, composer, songwriter, event production, fundraiser, piano teacher, I even have experience as a dueling pianist at Disneyland where I was deemed their first female dueling pianist at a show called “The Showdown At The Golden Horseshoe.”
What a lot of people don’t know is, I paint, draw, write poetry and non-fiction, dance, do my own graphic design, produce, direct, film, edit, act and model.

Types of products and services I offer and specialize at the moment are live dueling piano entertainment, songwriting, piano teaching, producing events, consulting, and art and merchandise.
Problems I can help clients solve are learning piano, music event production, music video production, live stream troubleshooting, and mental health/life coaching.

What I am the most proud of is the community we have built on Twitch and the collection of original music composed and released thanks to their support.
The main things I want people to know about me is that I’m here to use my skills and talents to make the world better. I want to be known for my kindness, my humor, my philanthropy and my positive uplifting message of peace and love not war. I want to make people laugh and feel good about themselves. Of course being know for my talents and skills would be a bonus.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Actually I had a major life changing decision back in 2013 when I was offered to train as a dueling pianist at The Shout House in San Diego, CA. At the time I had 30 piano, students, teaching and I was sitting in observing the dueling piano show about 1-2 times a week. At the time the dueling piano gig was my dream job because it was the push I needed in order to get over the crippling stage fright I got whenever I would sing and play my original music at open mics. Open mic life was rough because you’d be lucky to get a decent time slot of 5min after waiting 3 hours. I saw the dueling pianists and instantly knew I needed to learn that gig.

But to make matters even more difficult, just a few weeks after the beginning of my training, I found out my mom had been diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. I was conflicted on whether I should quit my training and move back home to be with mom, or just continue the training and visit mom on my days off. So for months I was juggling San Diego & Los Angeles commutes once a week to give my mom healing massages and care, while managing a 30 student piano studio and late night 3-6 hour training sessions at the ShoutHouse until 3am. I was so exhausted. I could feel myself getting burned out and wearing myself thin. I needed to give up something. Clearly I couldn’t give up seeing my mom, so it was between my students and the ShoutHouse. I remember the conversation I had with the creative director at the ShoutHouse very vividly at that time. He convinced me that learning this gig was something I shouldn’t pass up because of the timing. They were eagerly looking for a “green” female pianist to train. And if it wasn’t going to be me, it was going to be someone else. So I chose the ShoutHouse over my students and let go more than half of my students. I kept 8 students and taught 1-2 days a week. And that’s where all the dueling piano training shenanigans started.

I don’t regret my decision one bit. I’m the entertainer and musician I am today because of the experience playing at the ShoutHouse for 7 years. In fact, I know that I wouldn’t have gotten that Disneyland Dueling Piano gig if it wasn’t the ShoutHouse.

I do regret not spending more time with my mom when she was sick though. To this day I feel like 1-2 days a week was simply not enough time with her. I miss her so much and wish she was here to see all the great things I’ve accomplished thanks to her teachings.

Either way, I chose my dreams and even though it was a difficult decision to make, ultimately I’m really happy that I did because I can now say that I’m living my dream life.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I learned about Twitch during the start of the pandemic from my sound engineer that wanted to do a dueling piano show for his channel called Live From Riverside. At the point I was furloughed from Disneyland and all my gigs had been cancelled so I had nothing else to do. Our first show was a success and it ended up being loads of fun. I ended up listening back to hear the sound quality and it was top notch in comparison to Facebook & Instagram.

So starting around Mar/April 2020 I started teaching myself how to live stream from research I found online. Youtube, reddit and google were my best friends at the time. It took me around 2 months of research to give me the confidence to press “start streaming.” My new 9-5 was reading articles and watching “how to” Youtube videos on how to live stream and which broadcasting software to use. I still have my very first streams available on my YouTube channel under “live stream vids” if you want to see how I started out. They were 3 minute long tester streams that makes me cringe every time I go back and listen. I’m sure my community enjoys seeing that though.

My first live streams were quite short because everytime there was something not functioning properly. Either my bitrate wasn’t high enough, or I didn’t have the correct FPS or my ethernet cable wasn’t working, or I didn’t have the right capture card. It was a learning experience. And to top it all off, I had to figure out how to stream to zero people. I had to learn how to be ok with the thoughts that came up whenever I was streaming to no one. It was a challenge but I stayed consistent and did my best to not let the viewership get to me.

I decided that I was going to try to stick to a Monday schedule and call it Missy Mental Health Mondays. I wanted to have a stream that helped anyone with ptsd, anxiety or depression. I wanted to give them a space to feel good and forget about the pandemic for a while. After a few weeks of playing piano request Monday streams there would be 3-4 people watching. It wasn’t until I found my first mod that I began really building the community at a faster pace. He helped me by introducing me to other streamers he modded for and inviting me to their streams. I would hang out their chats and introduce myself. He also taught me about Twitch culture, emote meanings, discord, Twitch etiquette. He was truly a godsend for the amount of time he invested helping me learn Twitch and understand the ins and outs. So I spent a lot of time mingling in other streamers chats while my mod was promoting me as a new streamer to check out in other streamers discord channels. It was a team effort building his community at that time.

I noticed that during my streams my mod would invite people to join us. So every time someone new would join in I would make sure to make them feel welcome. I made sure to stay consistent with my schedule. Every Monday at 6pm I streamed. And as time passed, every stream had grown 1-2 people. I got to know everyone that was showing up in my chat. And as I got to know everyone they started inviting their friends and my stream was the spot where people would gather every Monday to listen to my music, request songs and laugh at each others jokes.

My advice to new streamers is to stay consistent and don’t let the numbers get to you. Focus on the people that show up chat. Focus on building relationships with these viewers because ultimately your engagement with them is what truly matters.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://missyalcazarmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missyalcazarmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missyalcazarmusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/missyalcazarmusic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/missy_alcazar
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/missyalcazarmusic
• Other: https://www.twitch.tv/missyalcazarmusic/about

Image Credits
Stephanie Girard Holly Rone Amy Priar