We were lucky to catch up with Teni Rane Butler recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Teni Rane thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
There is always an opportunity to “do something” – and in our society we are fueled by the need to “do” and to “cross it off the list” and generally to recount our days in vein of all the things that we accomplished in the past 24 hours. For me, a lot of times I’ve found that what I am doing is just a dopamine hit of crossing that thing off the list and then there is this following feeling of emptiness because that “thing” didn’t provide much of a meaningful change in my life. And so then I’m off chasing the next dopamine hit of getting *something* done. That’s a sad cycle and feeling – and I’m sure I’m not the only one that has felt that way!! I’ve been growing and trying to make sure that how I am spending my time is meaningful to me so that I can be there with more energy and motivation and also leave there with energy and motivation to come back again the next day.
For a long time, making music has been meaningful to me and has given me a way to write things down and get them out of my head. My recent project has been extremely meaningful to me because it is helping me rescue and reclaim my place in the holiday season! I spend a lot of time trying to puzzle out “my place” in the world. I think it’s a very human thing to think about and I know a lot of friends and folx that struggle to varying degrees with the question of “where do I fit?” in the context of society, ritual, and relationships in their lives. I’m no different! The release of three original holiday singles gave me an opportunity to share some of the stories and the images and feelings that I value highly during the holiday season. And it’s given me the foundation to work forward from to release a whole holiday/winter themed album down the road!
I am always excited when I get to connect with people and when there is an opportunity to see the cross-section or overlap of where our stories meet. Story telling is one of the most basic human tendencies, and it is deeply meaningful to create spaces to share common storylines and themes with new and old friends.
Teni Rane, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a folk-country singer/songwriter with Appalachian influences, a love for 3 part stories, and emotions as big as the sky. I also teach yoga and am on a journey to share stories through song about mental health and to carve out space to care for the emotional needs of myself, my friends, and my family.
I’m a Tennessee girl even though you may not hear too much twang in my voice! I grew up around music and singer-songwriters and listening rooms and looking back on it now maybe it was inevitable that I’d end up trying my hand at it eventually. I have a little bit of an old country, story-telling style and my main instrument is my voice even though I pick a little guitar too. The people and stories I’m most drawn to center on kindness and finding simplicity in the quiet chaos of a summer garden growing and the fall leaves changing color. Most of my writing inspiration comes from the scenes of everyday life, the emotions present in them, or from the easy pace of nature unabashedly cycling through its seasonal dance.
I used to sing with my sister all the time in the car. If we were singing we weren’t fighting – that was good on long road trips. We played many benefit concerts together and always enjoyed harmonizing. In 2020, I released an EP, Heart in Tennessee, and I’ve since been hungry for more opportunities to record and release my work. In the summer of 2022, I took up a musical residency at Kneippbyn Resort Visby on the beautiful Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea.While there I created the opportunity for myself to work with Sandkvie Studios to record 4 singles that are releasing over the fall months of 2022. I also taught yoga there all summer by the sea! Truly a beautiful place.
I love the listening room setting where the story and the conversation is at the center! When playing live, I am often accompanied by my partner and spouse, Jonathan Shumaker, on the bass.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I care a lot about balance and emotional/energetic stability for myself and the people around me. An important underpinning of what I want to communicate through my music and my life is that we do have some choices in life and that it is HARD to develop the momentum we need to choose what is available to us. Those choices probably look really different from person to person depending on what advantages each of us were brought into the world with. I don’t want to lose myself into something that isn’t lifting me up and I don’t want others to lose themselves in that way either. Creating conversations around this and also doing my best to live unapologetically and authentically and defend the fact that choice needs to be preserved isn’t simple but I do think it is important. I hope to keep music in my life in a sustainable way: sustainable both in the energy it gives me and the energy it takes (which is quite a lot!) and also sustainable financially. Music and songwriting have become important to me because they help me communicate and tell stories in a way that feels true to me. I’m always really gratified when my stories and the things I see and feel and share through song connect with others in a meaningful way to them. I want to be able to keep doing that without draining myself. Music can be really helpful in prioritizing and talking about mental health and it helps me get some ideas, emotions, and thoughts out of my head. There is a dark side of it too though – the endless pressure to be active on social media, to become someone that is fit for the algorithms and not necessarily fit for life. I want to find the balance in that with music so I don’t drive myself crazy.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
One of the biggest challenges (I think many artists face) is balancing my energetic/emotional/financial investments in music for a sustainable path forward. As an emerging artist I am an employer – of musicians, studios, publicists, photographers, creatives – with very few established revenue streams. In the modern landscape of being an artist, social media platforms are “the way” to grow my following and audience and (hopefully) expand my ability to create passive revenue streams that give me a financial base to move forward from. Social media can be powerfully good and also powerfully toxic. As someone with a history of high anxiety, it’s a really hard space for me to participate in safely. I find it mentally challenging to be in that space to grow this thing I love (music) while trying to be a person that is fit for a life in the real world and not just fit for an ever changing algorithm. I am committed to continuing to find ways to play safely including learning scheduling tools and leaning on my mindfulness skills and practice through yoga, mantra, and meditation.
There are so many different “phases” of getting music out into the world and independent artists are often doing all that work on their own – including the (for me) icky social media work. It is always great to get to write a new song and to share that with others in the live setting. It is not always a simple path to getting there though! There is booking management, project management during recording, promotion management… It’s a lot of pieces and parts. A lot of times it can leave an indie artist feeling scattered and crunched for time!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tenirane.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teniranemusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teniranemusic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tenibutler/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/teniranemusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbo6Bf38w1xaAuMkPrE1Yog
- Other: Bandcamp: https://tenirane.bandcamp.com/releases Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1LgYsLK1CCquN54uMTANVM?si=Z2P3DRIwR6CAsB3U1c5Z6w&dl_branch=1 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tenirane Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/teni-rane
Image Credits
Jess Astacio, Jonathan Shumaker, Izzy Nelson – Sweet Grit Photo Yi Chen