In November of 2005, I was born into a very musical home. Actually, before I was even born, my parents, who had their degrees in music, were playing Portuguese music to me through headphones on my mom’s stomach.
A lot of my confidence in music ties back to the way I was raised. Before I even turned 10, my dad curated a special playlist for my younger sister and me to fall asleep to every night. That playlist defined a lot of my taste in music going forward. I remember we even had an iPod, like, one of the really old ones that only played music for the car because we’d rarely ever listen to the radio. It was always some obscure indie music my dad was into.
Music was always playing around the house. I don’t think I’ve ever lived without a piano taking up a crucial space in the living room, where in another house you might’ve had a TV instead. A lot of people who don’t grow up this way but want to pursue music tend to feel embarrassed to sing too loudly in their room or play the piano, knowing the whole house could hear it, but it never felt like that for me. Before I even learned to play any instruments, I listened to my parents play. My dad would always play this one melody on the piano that he composed, which, if I heard it today, I could still sing along with it.
Because of these experiences, once I had picked up piano lessons, then eventually singing lessons, then eventually guitar lessons, it didn’t feel like there was ever a wrong or right time to practice. I didn’t need to be home alone to start belting Demi Lovato in my room. The same went for my sister, and we spent a lot of time singing and playing songs together, which we still do today.
Throughout elementary school, I switched around constantly between what I wanted to be. In the first grade, I wanted to be a basketball star…big dreams. Later on, once I had started voice lessons, I pictured myself as a singer, yet that didn’t last long. By the seventh grade, I had decided to be a photographer, and by the 11th grade, I was pretty sure I was set to become a film director.
During high school, I started taking songwriting more seriously. I was always the kind of person to see something or hear something and say, “I really want to do that myself”, so I did. I picked up the guitar, which I had maybe two months' worth of experience on, and I started teaching myself. The first song I learned on my own, though it was pretty ambitious, was “Blackbird” by The Beatles.
Then, I discovered Lizzy McAlpine and Phoebe Bridgers’ music, and that’s when my attitude completely shifted towards songwriting. I wanted to sound exactly like them. During the COVID quarantine, I had so much time to learn essentially every single song they both ever wrote on the guitar. That led me to write my own stuff, though a lot of them ended up sounding like copies of Lizzy’s music, but we all start somewhere.
Gradually, I started showing these songs to my singing teacher at the time, and every song was a more improved version of the last. I started to feel like maybe I was actually good at this. This was definitely the moment I knew I wanted to make music.
Still, I was only 15 at the time, and actually, I really had no idea what I was meant to do in my life. I studied film for two years in college before I realized that, even though it was fun to make movies all this time, I just wanted to study music.
Throughout this realization, I kept writing songs. I’d record them, but they’d never go anywhere. Finally, after my last year in college, my first single debuted on all streaming platforms. Seeing my name there, with my song title, with my picture, with my description… that was the coolest thing ever. That’s when it solidified for me. I want to make music. I want this to be my life.
All of this to say, I’ve been constantly learning about myself and what motivates me to work towards something. There are a lot of ways to get discouraged, to feel like everyone else is doing it better than you and even to sometimes doubt whether a passion of yours is really something you want to commit yourself to. It can be a lot of work, but then I go see an artist I like performing live, and I’m like, “Wow. I really want to be up there too one day”, and then I know it’s real.
