Meet Brittany Danielle

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brittany Danielle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brittany below.

Brittany, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

This is a great question because I don’t know if a lot of artists are honest with each other about this subject. It’s kind of a “fake it till you feel it” situation.
From my experience, and from what I’ve heard from others, it never truly is overcome or goes away completely. It’s like your dark friend who you learn to embrace and bring along with you to every event. Sometimes she’s loud, sometimes she’s not, but she never really goes away.
So far the best process I’ve come up with is to look at myself in the mirror and give myself some grace and credit. I look myself right in the eye and say “This is your life. You don’t have to do this music stuff if it doesn’t serve you anymore. Today could be the day you pivot to something else. You don’t owe these people anything. You can quit right now.”
To which I have continuously replied “but I don’t want to quit.” Then I high five myself in the mirror and say “ok, lets go get em… 5,4,3,2,1!”
I mentally visualize taking my imposter syndrome with me or giving her a team butt tap, and we’re off.
I haven’t named her yet, but I think that would also be a huge help to name my imposter syndrome. It makes her less scary and more of a familiar entity.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Hi readers,
I’m Brittany Danielle. I am a musician and here’s a little about me:

I started playing music at a young age. As I developed in my musical skills on the piano, I added voice with choirs, and played flute for a bit.
I realized that I didn’t want to study anything other than music when I graduated high school, and went on to develop my piano skills outside of classical to jazz, soul, funk, and pop. Learning these other genres rounded my knowledge and I went on to play in bands, teach in school for a bit, and open my own studio.
During the dark ages of Rona, the bands that I was in fell apart or moved away, and I decided to finally record my own music. Since then, I would say my world has blossomed. I still play in other bands from time to time, but being a band leader, songwriter, and event creator really opened more doors and utilized skills I had learned over the years.
I have since founded Cascade Music Alliance in order to help songwriters and aspiring band leaders achieve their goals and open opportunities for them so they don’t have to struggle through the grind of the music culture in the PNW.

You can find my music anywhere. Bandcamp has more hidden gems then just the streaming platforms. “Brittany Danielle Music” will bring up all the socials and streamings!
My music lives in the world of soul and funk pop. You can hear the classical piano training in the first album “hindsight”, and I lean more into the funk pop in the upcoming album “drive”. It’s a fun journey to explore and watch yourself develop as a writer and a listener of your own music. We are ever changing and working through things, and I love that music will forever be a diary entry of those evolutions.

The new album launches in January, and we will party down at the Spanish Ballroom in Tacoma for a New Year festival January 3rd. Tickets are on sale now!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think that, though it’s still not a strong suit of mine, PATIENCE, is still truly one of the best skills to have. I want to know what is happening now, or what I’m going to be dealing with NOW, but it does take away from the ride, the journey, of life as a whole. Patience is going to help write that song, it’s going to bring that inspiration. If there is no patience – especially patience with curiosity – then you’re going to miss things on the journey… in fact, it may not end up being a journey at all.

As mentioned above, CURIOSITY. It’s one thing to have the skill of songwriting, it’s another thing to ask the song or the art (whatever your medium) where it wants to go. It’s like Alice following the rabbit. Stay curious and see where it leads. Not everything you create is meant just for you, it’s possible you’re making something for someone else because they don’t have the words to describe it. It’s the muse or the universe or whatever, using you as a vessel to help others say things.

PRACTICE. Practicing your craft is so important. Practice your instrument, practice writing, practice lyricism. Inspiration is wonderful, but if you don’t have the skills of the craft to get that inspiration out, it will go to someone else.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

Overwhelm happens a lot with artists. I truly believe it’s because we can’t just be artists or craftsmen in this society. We are now faced with making reels and posting and marketing and monetizing in a soul sucking way.

1. Put your phone down.
2. Don’t compare. All social media is a lie.
3. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.
4. Breathe.
5. Take a walk.
6. Stretch.
7. Drink water.
8. Take a nap.
9. Have a snack.
10. Journal, draw, paint… change your creative medium for a while.

The world isn’t going anywhere (except underwater – and you can’t fix that)
Be here now. You are ok here and now. And you will continue to be ok when you are in a new “here and now”.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

image 1,2,4,5 Brandon Ove

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