"Transparent", an open letter by Eva Snyder
Photo credit: Jesse
I’m pretty risk averse, which doesn’t typically lend itself well to an artist's career. Most of my favorite artists left everything they had behind, moved to a new city, and lived off ramen noodles for 10 years until they ‘made it’... or some variation of this story. It’s everywhere. It’s glorified. It’s standardized. If you don’t do this, if you don’t leave everything behind, you aren’t committed to the craft. You aren’t working hard enough at music if you have a full time job. If you’re not in 8 sessions a week, do you care about your music career?
When I was in college and recording my first EP I was trying to network in parallel in Nashville. Granted, I went to college in western Massachusetts (think Stars Hollow meets Harry Potter… that’s South Hadley and Mount Holyoke College) but I was still trying to network and kick off a music career.
I can remember my first real ‘no’ in the industry...however it wasn’t a ‘no’ because they didn’t like my music or my sound...it was a ‘no’ because I didn’t physically live in Nashville. Somebody who I had spent days trying to contact told me that I would never (yes, never) make it in music without living in town. I always wanted to live in Nashville but life circumstances meant it wasn’t going to happen quite yet (risk averse, remember?) That doesn’t mean I wasn’t pursuing a music career just because I didn’t live in the city limits. I set out to prove this person wrong.
So I cold emailed Reid Shippen, an extremely talented audio engineer/producer/music tastemaker/all of the above in Nashville. I used my computer science background to write a pun-filled email relating audio engineering to computer engineering (I was a double music and computer science major in college) and stayed up almost all night crafting this cold intro. I didn’t think he’d respond but by 7:25am the next morning I had an email from him saying he’s ‘a pain about songs - they’ve got to be great’ and that he loved my voice. We connected up the next time I was in town and the rest is… history.
When college ended… I didn’t do the obvious. I didn’t move to Nashville. Instead, I accepted a full time offer at Google to be a software engineer and moved to San Francisco. Reid listened to every song I wrote while I was 3000 miles away. Sometimes responding enthusiastically, other times with a flat ‘nope’ or ‘I don’t get it’. I was working and writing towards an end goal - to get in the studio with him and record an EP. (hi it happened and the first single drops today!)
My time in San Francisco proved to be extremely valuable. I was secluded on the west coast working in a tech job away from the hustle and bustle of a music centric city where sometimes individual sounds blend together. The insulation of San Francisco left me to my own devices to develop a unique sound. To figure out who I was. To uncover what my music truly was.
And now, here I am. Sitting in a house in Nashville (yes, I finally moved here. I waited until the right job came around and until I felt Nashville needed me) with fresh music in my hands. I took a calculated risk. I work a full time job at Google while pursuing a music career. The only other person I’ve known to do this successfully is Hoodie Allen… so hopefully I’ll follow in his footsteps.
My hope is to run my music career like a record label would. I save as much money as I can from my day job just so I can funnel it back into my career similarly as to how a label would. It’s a calculated risk. I’m my own angel investor. Why is that constantly viewed as ‘not working hard enough’? I think it’s the exact opposite. I’m so passionate about music that I got a secondary job to fund my creative career to ensure that I can pursue music as long as I want to…. and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.
xox eva