We recently connected with Tim Eletto and have shared our conversation below.

Tim, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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.

I’ve always had an interest in music. I’ve been a band kid since elementary school and I would occasionally fantasize about arranging a piece myself. Eventually, I realized that I could use my phone to emulate the music I’ve been playing, which then evolved into creating more modern melodies. I’ve also been writing lyrics since middle school but I was never bold enough to make full instrumentals for myself so I would use beats I found on YouTube. Eventually, I wanted to wing it at making my own music from start to finish. From there, all I had to do was learn little by little as I went. I don’t think I would want to speed that process up. If I did speed it up, I wouldn’t have retained it all. I think the most important skill in learning anything is being able to take your time and really learn what’s typically done and why people do it. With that mindset, nothing really stood in the way of learning everything. The only obstacle I had to face was going to school and dealing with personal struggles while keeping up with music as a potential career.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Aside from music, I’m a TV/film major at Hofstra University. I’ve always loved working sound and music into a film, but I never thought that I was very good at making music myself. I also figured that finding a job in television was much more realistic than finding a career in music. For those reasons, I always saw music as strictly a hobby. That only changed when I showed my friends some lyrics that I wrote, accompanied by a beat that I made myself. They went crazy for it and encouraged me to release it. That’s how I decided to release “Life is Great.” I got some great feedback on it and decided to continue releasing music. Now, I take pride in being an indie-pop artist without the cliche, predictable indie-pop vibe. I like to take the approach of writing how I feel and turning it into a song that anyone can jam out to. Most of my music is actually pretty introspective, but I like the idea of people not realizing that until they really listen to the lyrics. It gives it a cool melancholic feel since the beat and the overall vibe don’t match what I’m actually saying.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

With everything I do, I do it to make other people feel a certain way. I always want to give them an experience they’ll never forget. When I showed everyone my first song, during the last chorus, everybody screamed, “Fuck it, life is goin’ great” along with me. I didn’t shut up about that for months. I could not believe that everybody was screaming something that I wrote. It only gets better when people tell me that a melody of mine has gotten stuck in their head. I really geek out over that because that melody did not exist until I wrote it. I still can’t quite grasp the fact that I thought of a melody, played it on a keyboard, and it’s now stuck in someone else’s head. That’s just insane to me. So that’s what I strive for. With every song, I hope and pray that someone will come back to me telling me that it’s stuck in their head. That’s easily the most rewarding part of what I do.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Even creatives struggle with this: You have to do things for yourself. It gets hard, especially when it’s other people’s reactions that drive me. It’s easy to start chasing those reactions. That’s why the music that an artist thinks will take off is always the worst performing. At least for me, I never judge the quality of a song based on how I feel about it, I only judge it based on whether it’s mainstream enough for everybody else to enjoy it. The problem is the audience can see right through that without even thinking about it. If I do something for them, they always know. Imagine your grandmother getting you a shirt with Fortnite on it for Christmas. If you don’t really like Fortnite, you’re gonna say, “damn she’s so out of touch… Does she really think all kids just like Fortnite?” But what if she gave you an heirloom that’s been passed down for generations? Then, you’d probably say, “this is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life but I can’t believe she really gave me something so meaningful.” It’s similar with music. If it’s not as good as you think, everyone’s gonna say, “this is so predictable… I want something unique.” Whereas if you put out a song that really speaks to you, and you make it clear that it means a lot to you, then the product becomes something meaningful, rather than some half-assed gift that’s been given a million times.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timeletto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimEletto/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TimEletto
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@timeletto
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@timeletto Linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/timelettomusic

Image Credits
Jillian Gray