Meet Valentina Shelton

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

Hi Valentina, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Work ethic is the one thing one can control, cause the rest of world, especially in the arts, is all out of our hands.
In college I was in the vocal and piano studios in jazz conservatory, even though I wasn’t allowed to get 2 degrees on paper. But I didn’t care about the units/degree. I wanted to just keep learning piano (as well as voice) because I loved it with all my heart, and I wanted to be a professional one day, singing and playing those two instruments, at the same time. So I showed up to every lesson, class performance, I did twice as many units as I was allowed but I just kept watching and listening how the other guys were playing. There was so much technical stuff that I couldn’t apply yet while I was in school, (harmonic skills, physical technique etc) but even though I couldn’t play it yet I took in all the information by watching. Now, it’s my full time job, and it took those few years and professional work playing solo piano gigs 3 or 4 nights a week to be able to apply what I’d be watching the other players/learning about for years.

But the practice never stops. We have a fun term in jazz for practicing, it’s called “shedding,” we always say as musicians even though it’s not quite a joke, “we’re always in the shed” “ugh I can’t hang, I have so much to shed.”
It’s a yearning to get better, some of greater players of all time say they’re not satisfied yet with their own records, which to the rest of us might sound absurd.

As I put out my next single and first album, I’m just gonna have a pick a point in the work process to walk away and let the project be what it is.
As a side note, my brother has serious work ethic, double major, baseball player, conservatory musician, that guy even built a full batting cage in the backyard from the ground up. So I would say it comes from our parents and the values they taught us.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m a singer, pianist and songwriter. My music is jazz influenced as that’s what I have my degree in, but it’s meets r&b and pop in its style. I write with a lot of jazz harmony over backbeat grooves, or even Brazilian influenced grooves (bossa nova etc.)

I just released my first two singles, my next original single is dropping soon, May 2025. This upcoming release a romantic jazz/pop song, which includes a small horn section on the track arranged by my own brother Anton Shelton who is trombone player so I’m especially excited about that collaboration.

I also just finished recording some jazz standards I arranged for my debut jazz EP. I play all over Los Angeles, so stay tuned on my website for upcoming shows.

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?

Quality wise as a musician and songwriter, to be modest and not “precious” about your work is a skill that is hard but important to develop. We all want to “like” our work, in this case our songs. And we should be happy with it or proud to an extent. But sometimes we have to get rid of the best verse or line in the song if it’s distracting us and hindering the rest of the lyric, for example. Maybe let’s say I wrote in a fun cool harmonic moment…but it’s now not helping the rest of the song…maybe that moment belongs on another song? Being able to detach emotionally from your work and be tough and objective.
Also you have to love what you do. For me, the stage is the safe place. On stage I feel so happy, so home, and I get to take the audience on a journey with me.

Advice I would give would be, always stay curious, work hard at your craft, whatever it may be, singer, athlete, painter, and enjoy the work :). We’ll all always be “in the shed” as us jazz musicians say.
Broadway legend Patti LuPone once told me when I was 12 years old and got to meet her backstage “You love it? Well keep working hard and love what you do. By the way, you might have to miss prom.” She was right, and I did :)!

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

When I feel overwhelmed, I like to go for a walk, I like to dance, workout, basically move by body. Music is so powerful, sometimes listening to something specific helps immensely, sometimes I need silence. Sometimes I need to listen to relaxing Brazilian bossa nova, sometimes I need to listen to empower Serbian female rappers…it depends! 🙂 Find what works for you, maybe journal, write a song? Nobody ever has to hear it. the amount of unfinished songs I have, all songwriters really. But it might spark another song later on.

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