Meet Tyler Petty

We recently connected with Tyler Petty and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tyler, so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?

I have beaten writer’s block in a few different ways through my time pursuing music. One of the best ways I have found to break through a creative slump is looking inward to what’s bothering or troubling me and writing out the scenario as my feelings are involved. I have found it helps me release some stress or negativity by funneling it into a page, and I can usually come back and rewrite to insert metaphors and embellish certain phrases or feelings to turn my rambling vent-writings into poetry. On a few rare occasions I can even feel a melody fall out of me right as I reread my words, which was the case with 1:1Soul’s “Darker Day” when I sat back and looked through my word-vomited first draft.
When I don’t have any negativity in my life making me feel strong enough to pull a page from, I instead challenge myself to write based on a story or scenario. 1:1Soul draws from this idea as a brand anyway: taking emotions and writing music and lyrics which convey them as themes or concepts someone can relate to. Forcing myself to lock into a story, no matter how good the material I write, can help get my creativity flowing while I also practice what it takes to develop a lyrical or musical idea for the band to run with. As I also enjoy fantasy stories and art pieces, I find it easiest to start with a simple theme like “two lonely people meet” or “procrastination” and romanticize the situation in directions that my favorite stories don’t necessarily follow. Another 1:1Soul song, “Run the Gauntlet” exemplifies this by taking procrastination and embellishing it into a battle like Lord of the Rings or the King Arthur of Camelot stories.

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?

I am a songwriter and the keyboards, vocals, and direction for my band 1:1Soul. We are a rock band, and we draw our influence from the ambition of 70’s British Prog rock and the energy of 80’s synth rock. As the lead songwriter to this point, the main thing I tend to focus on is letting the emotion come before the story in both the lyrics and the music. 1:1Soul’s mantra which I say at every show is that we are “one band with one thousand stories for each and every one soul out there to hear.” While it’s a bit cheesy (by design of course!) it frames the basis of what we as individual musicians and writers do when we come together as a band: we are narrators who convey emotion using the stories they come from. I also like to let the emotion bleed over into the instrumentation of the track when I write it as well, which tends to take our music in theatrical directions that many other “rock ‘n’ roll” writers don’t seem eager to embrace. When the rest of the band joins in, I have seen the band’s show grow to become a dramatic performance that takes our audiences on a journey through the different emotions that life can throw at us.
We just released our first Christmas single, our own arrangement of the hymn “In The Bleak Midwinter” based on Gustav Holst’s hymn tune. We stayed as true as we could to the melody while letting every verse evolve to be unique in feel as we put it all to rock instrumentation. We are all very proud of the results, and excited to have found our sound as we move towards more releases next year around Springtime.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

One of the most useful pieces of advice I can give is to make friends rather than “network” when you go new places with the intention of meeting people. I have always felt that there was a business-oriented implication to the act of networking. When I went to panels, conferences, or other music industry events as a college student to try and “network” my way around to potential new career opportunities or contacts, I never made much return on my efforts; instead, the new friends I made that followed up wanting to go out for fun or catch other events together became the people who helped me move my career ambitions forward. The first industry event I went to after realizing this I ended up with a lot more “contacts” who were interested in me just because I went for connection rather than career. So, my best advice is to make friends, don’t “network” when you go somewhere.
Another philosophy I have found helps me grow past plateaus in my skillsets is to keep a list of things you say you “will never be able to do.” As a keyboardist, I have hit a skill ceiling multiple times in my life, but taking some time to learn songs I feel I could never be able to play has always helped me to break past that ceiling. Since artists and musicians nowadays have to be quasi-video editors and content strategists, there were plenty of other skill ceilings outside of practicing I had to break through as well. Though time is a finite resource, I feel it is always worth the time, however much you dedicate, to catch yourself saying “I just can’t do that!” and start researching how to change that from being the case.
The last quality I feel has helped me in my journey is my ability to learn from a failure and turn the lesson into success. Failure is inevitable, especially when you are new to something. Factor into that inevitability the ever-evolving nature of the music industry and you have a world that constantly rewrites what you know about technology, strategy, and brand. However quick things change, though, you have to be willing to dip your toe in the fresh water and see what works. Learning from others’ successes and failures can also be a great resource, which ties back into my second point. If I wasn’t able to repeatedly take a failure, look under the hood to see what went wrong, and repurpose it into a success I wouldn’t have made it even half as far as I have in my journey.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Right now, the biggest obstacle I personally have is finding the time away from work and daily life to dedicate to my craft in 1:1Soul. It takes a lot of time and money to make a business out of music, and it is a “hopeless until it miraculously isn’t” career to put myself into. I am doing all I can to put my art out into the world though, both physical and digitally. Overcoming the obstacle of time and finding every second to dedicate to getting shows, putting ourselves out on social media, and recording our next projects is my greatest concern. What consistency I have managed to make for both myself and the band has me hopeful, though.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://band-1to1soul.squarespace.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1.1soul_band
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1.1soulband
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yliOZopUPXhWKyUPbIvSg
• Other: Apple Music – https://music.apple.com/us/artist/1-1soul/1619615939
  Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/0xAMLQ3oYnaJZVdFg0aLWy?si=JRxjJXf1R-SPBUrziEiezA&nd=1&dlsi=79b287e1158346f6

Image Credits

All Live Shots by Morgan Geisinger, 615Focused

Wall Shots taken by Tyler Petty and Michael Yuhos