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The year that was 2014

Singer Greta Stanley describes her year that was 2014..

Describe what happened during 2014

2014 was a great year, ‘One for the poolroom’ you might say.

Moving from my family home in Mena Creek to a share house in Cairns opened me up to a world of opportunities. First on the list of cool things was attending BigSound in Brisbane on a government-funded scholarship after sending in an original song to Spotlight Cairns program. Bigsound is a conference full of important industry heads, daily panels and live music showcases and made for a few days of listening, learning and watching all about the music industry and what it takes to break in (a lot of hard work apparently). After Bigsound, I landed two awesome support gigs, playing alongside British India, then in the later months The Beautiful Girls. It was a pretty dapper feeling, I tried my best to play it cool backstage.

After a public vote, I scored a spot for opening at the Cairns Festival ‘Sunnydayz’ (Violent Soho, The Preatures, Dan Sultan). I was pretty chuffed with myself, even if I was on at 10am and the crowd was the opposite of raging. To share the stage with acts like that was pretty surreal and I hope to perform on one again sometime. November saw me play a few shows in Melbourne thanks to some friends down there. The year ended with a successful crowd funding campaign. With the support of all my wonderful friends and fans I was able to raise $4,400 to fund my Debut EP set to be released for early 2015, containing 6 tracks recorded with local producer Mark Meyers (The Middle East, Emma Louise).

 

What support has helped you so far?

Every opportunity and success I’ve been lucky enough to have wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my friends and family. It’s clichéd’ and a little cheesy, but true none the less. I’ve made so many new friends and am so grateful to have been surrounded with so many likeminded people in the past year. I was also lucky enough to have a wonderful mentor, Fleur, who I can ask all the tricky questions that I don’t have a clue about! TAFE provided a good platform for meeting likeminded people and for getting my music out there. I studied Cert III & IV there over a year and I owe a lot of what I achieved to the network I made there and the encouragement from fellow classmates and teachers.

Some challenges faced are the obvious, not knowing where to start, who to talk to, who to trust. There’s so much out there to learn and being fresh into the music scene I don’t have a lot of knowledge and I’m still learning everyday. I’m lucky I have a good network of people whose advice I can trust. If you’re not sure do your research. I think it’s important to always maintain creative control of your works. There’s a lot of great websites and online platforms to help emerging artists. Trust your instincts, and if it goes wrong, you know for next time!

 

Have there been any unexpected highlights or barriers?

The barriers and highlights go hand in hand. The overall barrier was money. I really wanted to have an EP to sell, a bunch of professionally recorded original songs all nice and pretty in a little packet, but there’s a few costs involved in having a successful EP, more than I initially thought. I overcame this barrier by launching a crowdfunding campaign through Pozible, and the unexpected highlight was in the final hours of the campaign. I was $600 off my goal (if you don’t reach the goal you don’t get any of the money raised), and a man who I didn’t know (and who didn’t know me, but liked my story) contributed the remaining amount. It was a nice surprise, to say the least.

 

Any advice for other artists?

My advice for other artists would be getting your music out there.

Post it to Soundcloud, Facebook, post videos of covers weekly, build and maintain your audience. The Internet is such a useful tool when it comes to getting recognized. I was able to get gigs through busking, I had people from local bars just walk up to me while I was playing on the street and asking me to come in the next night to play! Most importantly, don’t lose sight of what you want and what makes you happy. Sometimes trying too hard to make a next hit track or focusing too much on where you want your music to take you can make the experience a whole lot less enjoyable and the material loses value. Focus on making music you enjoy, be creative, experiment, just enjoy what you do and let the listeners decide for themselves. In the end you can’t please everyone.
 
 
 
Greta StanleyGreta Stanley is a 20 year old singer-songwriter, player of guitars, and lover of dogs from FNQ. The clever songstress has shared the stage with some impressive names, The Beautiful Girls, British India & The Preatures to name a few. With a Debut EP set to be released in the coming months, recorded with Mark Meyers (The Middle East, Passenger) keep your eyes, and more importantly ears open.
 
 

 

 

Images courtesy Greta Stanley.