Wendy Parr: We gotta find out all the things, like what feels right to me, what aligns with my integrity? So I think getting conscious of it can save you, a few years off that seven to 10 years it takes to find yourself as an artist. Let's shave some time off of that and some wandering and frustration by asking ourselves some questions. 

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

All right, I'm here with the one and only Wendy Parr. So Wendy is a holistic artist coach. She's been doing this for over 20 years in the entertainment industry coaching a wildly diverse array of top music artists and actors, including Sarah Burelli, Regina Specter. Penning Grammy winning compositions passionately empowering her clients to build a life and career of success defined by authentic expression.

She's awesome. She has a course called the Parr Method that empowers recording artists to be able to develop their authentic voice and be able to more consistently express who they are in a more compelling way throughout their art brand and life. And you were talking a little bit backstage and she was describing how like really this is about you discovering who you are and sharing your voice and being able to express that.

Obviously as a musician and as an artist, this is the core piece of probably why you're making music in the first place. Super important. Wendy, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. 

Wendy Parr: Totally love talking with you. Absolutely. I love sharing with your audience and, meeting, making meaningful valuable information to artists, bringing that to people.

Michael Walker: A hundred percent. Yeah. What I love about you, Wendy, too, is we were just talking about this backstage too. Like you, she's like really leading by example, like you just like ooze with style, which is great, coming from someone who teaches about branding and style. May maybe you could really quickly, for anyone who this might be their first time connecting with you or meeting you, maybe you could share a little bit about yourself and how you got started and and really became a branding expert.

Wendy Parr: Amazing. Wow. Branding expert. That's a new title. So I started working when I was eight as a performer artist, voiceover. I knew at a very young age that like I was a singer. I loved performing. Some for good reason cuz I definitely was born with a gift and some for it made my, it was like the way to entertain my family and maybe stop the fighting and bring positive enforcement to myself Hey, I got good attention here. But I was always like playing every role in a whatever movie or book I was reading, I was like playing all the parts so I started working when I was eight. I was writing songs from a pretty young age.

By 15, I was performing, five nights a week around LA at different showcases. I had a jazz trio like this was like, Hey, I'm moving towards a career. This is what I wanna do with my life. I was already work. Like I said, I missed first day of eighth grade. And I remember the principal being, why weren't you here?

And I was like, I was working. Like why else? What am I what's school? I'm working? It's funny, but I started teaching at NYU first just my, I was in the acting program and my friends would start to. Asked me, Hey, I've got an audition, will you help me? Sing And Michael Black was doing a comedic thing and he's Hey, we wanna do this like harmonic thing.

Can you teach us some harmonies to do this music? So it's actually already like helping. And I didn't know I was a teacher at all, but it's completely in my archetype, like it's who I am. If you showed me how anything works, showed me how like a car works tomorrow I'll be showing someone else. Like I love to share that information and empower people.

My coach invited me to be a teacher and I was like, I don't know how to teach. He said, sure, you do. You know how I helped your voice. You can help others. And so I started teaching at, 20 years old and discovered really quickly that I loved it. I was putting more energy to coaching others than to putting myself on a tour.

I was doing both for a long time and I've never stopped songwriting. And I write with other artists. I'm developing an artist right now and getting them in the studio and writing with them. I wrote I had music supervised a film, and we wrote 11 original songs for that, which I co-produced. So I'm still an artist.

I'm just not the person on stage. I love supporting the person on stage and helping someone through the pitfalls that I experienced. And if I can help them avoid some of them, that's great. I experienced all the things that artists experience, labels telling me to do music in a different way, be a different person.

 Be more like this person who's already made it, you should go down that. And I think that's oftentimes because they're like if you do it more like this, we'll know how to market you so we can like just throw you through our system. But that's not you, do you, let's make let's bring out the magic of you.

And so I wanna help artists do that. For me, the mentorship and coaching that I got really undermined me in many ways. And it took me off course. It. Put my heart back here and my voice out here where I was singing and getting applause oh my gosh, you're amazing. But I was like, I'm not feeling my music.

I don't even like the sound of my voice now. And I was so wrapped up in good vocal technique and the right way to sing that I lost my heart and soul connection. So it took me a long time to get back to that, which became the philosophy and cornerstone of my teaching. I wanna help the artist eliminate perfectionism Let go of all the voices in your head telling you who you should be and let's help you do you. And that started with, of course, the voice and it just evolved into everything about the artist. How can I help you express your voice in your persona, on stage, in your, what is your brand? It's you. It's you in all areas. It's you and social media. It's you and your sound. It's you on in your merchandise, logo stuff like, is that you?

I worked with one artist who's really solid artist, been in the business for a while, and he went on he did a tour and I asked him, I was like, what was the thing on stage? There was this design on stage. I was like, what was that? And they were like, I don't know one of the guys on my team created that.

I was like, do you like it? He's no, I think it's really ugly. And he even said, yeah, my mom said that was really ugly. Why? Why is that on stage with me? You're a good looking guy. Why is this? And we were both, I was like, You need to love that thing on stage. If that's going on your merch.

That's right. Like it should be such a representation of you. So let's look at ways to help you discover those things. That everything you create is Yeah. Love it. Love the song. Yeah. I love my merch. Yeah. This is so me. Because what happens for artists over and over again, whether they're indie or sign, is you spend time and money on a project.

Music, video, a single album, artwork, and you say yes and you move forward and you move forward. And then at the end, right before release, you're like, I don't really like this video. It's not me I, we gotta scrap it and start again. This happens over and over. So how can we avoid that problem and help the artist know, oh yeah, that's not me.

Early stages, and have the ability to communicate. It needs to go in this direction. This would make it more me. This is why that's not me. So now everyone can, as I like, describe, get on the dart board. Like you gotta, everyone needs to be aiming for the right dart board and then we gotta move into the bullseye, more and more more until we're like in it and go further.

But if we don't know how to direct them, they're just gonna come up with something cool. But cool doesn't mean it's cool for you. 

Michael Walker: Thank you for sharing. That's awesome. And I feel like what everything you just described around self-expression is such a core, part of our humanness, something that certainly as like artists, like it relates to our art and how we put ourselves out there.

But also just in terms of our being here. We're like, what are we here for? To express ourselves. And so just so important the kind of work that, that you're doing at the same time. One of the questions I, I'd love to to hear your perspective on is around you like the age old advice, like just be yourself.

Like sometimes when people like say be yourself, they're like like what does that mean? Or who am I? Or they just try to like, or trying to be something, but they don't really know you know what it is. So I'm curious to, to hear for someone who's here right now who's yes, like this is why I'm like, why I wanna make music.

I wanna express myself, but I do this. But maybe is wondering like, how do I get started defining this abstract thing and maybe they're like, I don't wanna put myself in a box, like I wanna be whatever. Like, where do they kinda get started with clarifying that identity? 

Wendy Parr: That's so common, especially with the music, when people are like, I like so many things, and true me too, but your music, you have to be able to describe it.

Like you have to be able to say it's this, and this. And I go, oh wow, that's, I wanna hear that. As opposed to it's I love that and I love that and I love that. And sometimes it's, I don't know how to put it all together or it's like that feeling of I don't wanna be boxed in, so I'm gonna be all over the place.

And that won't do we, that's too much for us to digest as a fan, as an audience member. We think about like flavors. You think of any artist you love, you can describe them in three words, and people around you would probably be able to guess that artist. Like badass, feminine, athletic, powerhouse pink, warrior.

And you might think of a few people cuz you know there's some similarities, but there's gonna be like, if I throw warrior in there, warrior feminist athletic, we're gonna go pink. You might think, oh, lady Gaga. I'm like, I don't think she's a warrior. She's, she talks more survivor. I. She taught, there's some differences.

Even Kelly Clarkson and Pink were super similar. They actually could sing probably 95% of the same songs, but pink is more I'm a badass and I'll fight through everything. And Kelly Clarkson is, I'm a survivor and a victim. I have to, I'll overcome it. I'll overcome it. There's a difference in who they are.

And obviously you can see it in their attire. You can see it in the way they perform. You can see it in the way they carry themselves. So we need to have those three adjectives for you and you need to put those forward for us so that we can like start to just now. Part of it is just you doing, you people are gonna start to give you those adjectives.

So sometimes it can be really valuable, ask three to five of your closest people who know you so well and not together. Ask them separately. How would you describe me? If you were putting me on a dating app or if you were gonna introduce me to, a record label executive or a manager, what would, how would you describe me?

And look at, start looking at those lists. See what comes up. That's common. See, Ooh what is what here? That is, that rings true. Also what do you resist? Cuz the thing you resist is probably really true. And utilize those things. If someone, if you keep saying, oh my gosh, you're so kind, you're so kind.

Then that's part, that's a big part of who you are. How do I express my kindness in my lyric or in my video concept? Where can, where's the kindness in it? Where's the, how do, can I embody these adjectives more? And another thing you can look at is let's look at your childhood heroes. Go think about your childhood heroes.

Like right now as you're hearing this, like some something's gonna pop in your head. I'm like, Keter pan for me. Font, Superman. Anyone who flew like I was really into anyone who flew fly free freedom. But if you think of your childhood heroes and you do the same thing, make a list of all the reasons you love them when you were a little kid, what do I love about this character?

What do I love? And it could be a movie, tv, a book for me. I loved Encyclopedia Brown. I still love solving the crime stuff. For me, it's about the justice. For me, it's about, it's really about justice. It's about seeing justice prevail. And and as a kid, I like, I love the mystery too. Oh, let's solve, like where, ooh how can we see what's going on and solve this?

And I think I still have that as a, as an adult, what am I doing right now? Building my my company. Five softwares I have to learn, right? And not just the software, but what do I need to solve the problem and how do I solve? Like it's still that, ooh, investigation of solving the problem and bringing what people need to them, right?

Bringing the solution. So here I can see that through line of 5, 7, 10 year old me to now, right? It's in my character. So if you look at your childhood heroes and you make a list of all the things you love about them, and then you see that list of. Adjectives that other people describe you, where's the match?

Those are some core things, right? Core qualities characteristic. And then also look at the heroes and say, what parts of them am I not embodying? I admire this rawness this. What words are coming up again and again? Go. That's the part of me I need to step into. That's the part of me that I wanna bring out more.

Cuz what we admire is, What we wanna be. It's who we are. You just wanna bring it out, let your heroes show you what you wanna bring out. And then again, how can I bring that out everywhere? How do I bring it out in my style? How do I bring it out in my lyric and my messages? How do I bring it out in my stage performance?

And that you could be an absolute introvert. Like all my heroes are like little are quiet, doing what they do anonymously. Okay. How do I bring my introverted self into the storyline, into my. Social media content. I had a artist who's very introverted, and I was like, okay, show yourself reading.

Like literally show yourself reading your favorite book. And the voiceover or the text could be something from the book, like either a quote or what you love about this book or what you love about reading. Like you literally can share yourself in the, in this quiet way without being like, let me talk to my audience.

You don't even have to talk to them. They said, oh, I take a walk every morning on the beach. I was like, great. Just take a moment to film some that sometimes and share like why you're doing it or what you love about it, or film, film the water and how calm that is, and then throw your song on it. Like everyone's not an extrovert and you don't have to be.

It's but how do I share who I am to make the impact I want on people to bring something to them in a way that's true to me. But that's comfortable for me. Oh, I can do that. Yeah, I do that. I do that. Walk on the beach every morning. I can just film it sometimes. Definitely not every day.

You don't want your whole walk intruded upon. I'll take one walk and film 10 videos, and now I have 10 pieces of content from that one walk and my other walks are for me. So that self-examining and reflecting of let me go back and find out what really matters to me because I.

We're always pushed away from ourselves. Consciously or not purposefully or not the world is like, has been telling us and in different cultures you should be more like this, be less like that. Sit still, be quiet in school, be like this, whatever it is, you've got a bunch of ideas about who you are that aren't you.

They're not coming from you. They've come from so many outside voices. And I think social media makes it much worse. There's so much noise and you see someone succeed and you think, oh, how do I do that? Don't do that. Learn from the algorithm, learn what works on a platform. But how do I do me in this platform?

How do I strike a chord with people? That's true to me. Cuz you're gonna have to keep striking that chord. So these inner things like what I did for myself, I did for my, I realized like I was a better friend to other people than myself. I know what you need, like I'll be there for you.

And I was like, how can I do that for me? So I literally just started asking myself like, Wendy, what do you wanna do today? Or What do you need? Or what do you want for dinner? And if it was like, I'm not sure, okay. When, that's what we'll get low steaks, right? If I, but if I start taking, like feeding myself the food I want for dinner, I'll start giving myself bigger and bigger things that align, right?

But asking myself just those simple questions I discovered I drink tea all day, I feel better. I'm like, oh yeah, if I drink tea all day, I'm just a happier person. So I'm now a tea. It's actually herbs. I have an herb cabinet and I make my own brew and like my life is better cuz I know myself a little more.

I prefer baths. Baths are for me, showers are like quick get cleaned up, for the day. But a bath is that's a. Relaxing situation for me. So I have to live in a house with a bath and make sure I take them once in a while so that I, that's for me. But you have to discover oh, what are the things that help me, like just feel better in the world?

And as we start to do those things, we curate a life that feels good. And what, how do I do this in my art? Just like you're making music. Like when you're writing a song, you go, every time I get to this point, I'm like, bored. Or just this doesn't feel right. That doesn't feel right. is Directing you to a new melody or a new rhythm or a different lyric.

So we gotta find out all the things, like what feels right to me, what aligns with my integrity? Who am I so that everything I'm doing is yeah, love this. Yeah. We're not gonna hit the mark every time like we're human. Like we're gonna take ages 30 to 60 to discover this stuff. And, but it's as an artist, we're in that already, we're in that discovery process.

So I think getting conscious of it can save you, a few years off that seven to 10 years it takes to find yourself as an artist. That's the average seven to 10 years. Let's shave some time off of that and some wandering and frustration by asking ourselves some questions. 

Michael Walker: So good. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that really a lot of this process is about shining a light on who you already are and bringing awareness to that. And one of the exercises that you recommended was by thinking about what do you admire in other people and your role models and the people that you look up to and thinking about that.

And seeing it as a part of your own lens of, this actually says something you know about me and what I value and who I want to be. And and just like you bringing awareness back to the things that light you up, that make you feel alive. And then yeah, putting those into your artwork.

Awesome. You mentioned that a big part of this process starting with asking the right questions, like asking the right questions to yourself, there's something magical about questions, right? Just like asking. Questions, like it creates a vacuum or it creates a space that like, that pulls something into it.

So I would love to hear from your experience, what are some of the most important questions? Someone that can ask themselves as they're starting to try to bring awareness to their brand or their identity and figure out what the, what their purpose of their message is all about.

Wendy Parr: Sure. So I think looking at our heroes is really important. We were talking about the sound, especially I think artists often have a broad sense of their sound and it takes time. It takes a lot of time in the studio and a lot of songwriting to like hone in on your sound. And again, if we wanted to write a song for Lizzo, we'd all be like, oh, I know what to write cuz we know her sound.

But how do you discover your sound? And then how do you go from record three to four and do something fresh and new? Not just what I did before. So I have a process for that. Really great. It's called sound chart. Really helps you, that process helps you distill your sound into a recipe, right? Like on paper.

These are all the ingredients of my sound. Now let me take that in the studio and start to explore which ingredient is the olive oil that goes everywhere. Which ingredient is the cinnamon that is lightly sprinkled and how does this ingredient like, oh, there's, it's dark. I'm dark and edgy. Oh, okay.

Is that in this song, is that the vocal or is that the synth pat? Is that the Lyrica Echo content, or is that. Because it's not gonna be the same everywhere, right? Or maybe you're like, I write dark lyrics, but the music is where the lightness is. Maybe that becomes your formula, but that all gets discovered, right?

You gotta take the paper and bring it to life. Great. Starting question again. If we look back at influences, go, okay, who are your top five musical influences? And go back to again, your youth like. Someone right now. Okay. But go back to what were like the first five artists you love.

And maybe there's someone that's more present in the present day for you that like, I'm gonna put that in the mix. But back before you understood music or analyzed music, or you just knew what you loved and reacted to, so now as an adult or as a, with consciousness, It's a musical understanding.

You can actually look at why do I like these artists and what qualities do I wanna bring into my work? So if you look at your five artists, again, you could look at what do I like about their persona, their stage performance? What do I love about their outfits? Look at all the elements. What do I love?

Read their interviews. What do I love about what they're saying in the world? Cuz again, you're gonna find out what did I love about them as a kid? And then what do I love musically? I had a, one artist that I worked with from Japan, very influenced by culture, was super into r and b. A lot of Japanese artists are like, it's a strong r and b influence, but when he looked at the music that he really loved, there was blues and rock and roll.

He went, he was like, I totally forgot how much I love rock and roll. He was like, oh, that's gonna change your music now. That bringing that influence in If you look at those artists like listening to their music, and again, throw some adjectives there. Look at the instrumentation. Are they all piano artists?

Driven artists? Are they guitar driven artists? Like you're gonna start finding things that are unique about some of them, and then are common about some of them be like, oh, this is what I loved about this artist. Okay, am I doing this in my music? How can I do more of it? How can I bring this quality into what I'm doing?

Whether it's the message or the instrumentation. So we can get really clear. That's a great starting point. The sound chart goes really deep into details in a three step process. But like I know right now people's like brains are firing off. It's oh, and if I look at my first five influences, I can see it in the music I write today.

And between the time I lo loved them as a little young kid till now, I can see where I tried different things. Like in my twenties, I was an r b artist. I'm not an r b singer. I'm soulful, but, and I have gospel influence in everything I write or a range, but, and that was like, it was not off track.

Nothing's off track. It was just an exploration. But if I made an r and b record, it wouldn't be true to me. Are there some runs? Sure. Are there again, is there gospel aspect? Yeah. But my first five influence, I would say Aretha Franklin. John Denver, Barbara Streisand, Stevie Wonder, who would be my fifth?

I have to think of for a second. I'd say probably like the the Bee Gees and my brothers in the other room were playing ac dc and the Beatles. Elo, like I was hearing like rock and other stuff over here. So I was influenced by it and my. My neighbor, who we carpooled with played brick in the Wall by the Wall, played that album every day for an entire year.

So I was definitely influenced by it, and thank you for that. I would not have been listening to that otherwise. And again, as an adult, I worked with oh gosh, as soon as I want a name, John. The guitarist from Pink Floyd, and we wrote a couple songs together and I went to see the wall before they went on tour.

So what a full circle of I was a young kid, I was hearing this from my more mature neighbor, and now here I am seeing it live. That's really cool. But if I look at the music I write John Denver, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. I can see those influences in what I write. I love poly rhythms. I gospel upbeat soul, truth telling but also there's a, I can write in the Americana kind of realm, a Patty Griffin, who's a favorite as an adult.

Patty Griffin's one of my favorite songwriters, so I'm like, yeah, my music has r and b Gospel Soul, and this folk. Quality. I grew up doing musical theater, taught me to write a good bridge. My music is not musical theater at all. And at one point I did, I stopped liking it. But musical theater back then was like Pop.

Barbara Streisand was doing B bur Baat. I used to sing jazz standards, so Jazz, Stevie Wonder, jazz influence I'm like, oh, I can see how these influencer play out in my contemporary pop r and b music. And that's, those are my wheelhouses. I've been told I write beautiful heartache. That's very much in my storytelling, like beautiful heartache and then like funky, naughty, sexy stuff. 

Michael Walker: It's a nice mixture. 

Wendy Parr: Yeah. But Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, like that beautiful heartache telling that truth telling of that inner world stuff. So yeah, so that's the question. Go play with these. There's so much to that. Like I know that like people are right now, like having artists ideas coming down, write 'em down, but now you gotta go spend time to dive inside of that.

What did I really love about them? Let me go watch some live shows that I would've seen back then. Because you're gonna pick up on things now that are like, I love the way, oh, Prince was my first concert. I was a very young child and then I saw him again in my, when I was a teenager, and I remember two things.

One about, one about the first concert, one about the set first concert. Oh, the Purple Rain, whose the audience sang it for 10 minutes before he even walked on stage. Wow. Yeah. And now I might be wrong about the 10 minutes, but it was a long time and I was like, wow, the fact that everyone wants to sing this, he's not even on stage and everyone wants to sing this.

The fact that it was like like it was just an ooh, but it had so me so much meaning to it. I was like, wow, that's a part, like just like to have a part in the song and to have a song be so meaningful that the audience is singing it and singing it without the art artist even on stage. Amazing. Second concert with the Love Sexy Tour and it, that concert was wild.

There was a four poster bed on stage and I think there was a car on stage and it was like sexy and wild and naughty and blah, right? And again, there are my three words that I would say yes, I put that in some of my music. But what happened at one point was through the magic of, stage design and production, all of a sudden all the wildness was gone.

A white piano was on stage and. He was magically in white. Like I don't, of course you don't remember. How did this happen so fast? And he sits at a piano and he sang eight songs, just him on the piano spotlighted. And when that was over, piano disappeared. Four poster bed came up and the wildness returned.

And I was just, again, this is how many years later, I'm like, that was such an incredible moment. And I remember thinking at that time, I wanna do that when I perform. Like I wanna do that. Just that quiet moment on the stage. And then what a dramatic thing. So if I were performing I'd be like, I wanna do something like this.

How do we create this drama and the quietness and just the silhouette and just solo, right? So go back and watch footage of artists you love. Go back and listen to those singles that you love and figure out like, what are the specifics that like really move me about this. Now, how do I bring that into my performance or my recording?

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yeah that's so good. And it's such a great place to start too, because I'm assuming that everyone who's here right now, everyone that wants to be a musician, like in large part, they, the reason that you wanna be musician is because of the impact that your favorite artists have made on you.

And be able to look at that and see, how what's in my DNA that, came from that seems like a great place to start. As you were describing that, it also gave me a great idea in terms of a way to tie in artist AI and this tool in regards to that specific exercise, which I think could be really helpful.

So maybe we can do a little bit of like a interactive demo here with the tool combined with the references. So I was writing down a little bit of what you. Mentioned as your reference is here, and I thought maybe, for anyone who's here right now who's who, like you were just talking about, like their minds going.

They're like, oh yeah, like I, this is what I love about all my fair, here's all my references. What if we said something to the degree of, I am, I want to brainstorm my unique characteristics for my music career.

Here's a list of some of my favorite artists slash influences. Could you write down a list of 20 words that best, or let's actually, let's do five for each artist. Five words that best describe. 

Wendy Parr: I'm about to have my mind blown. I know I'm gonna freak out.

Michael Walker: Then we might have to refresh the page here. So let's give this a shot.

Wendy Parr: Oh my God. Ooh,

Michael Walker: wow. 

Wendy Parr: Oh my God. 

Michael Walker: That's pretty cool. 

Wendy Parr: That's really cool. 

I would definitely want the artist to do this for themselves before they get the input from someone else, because yeah, we would all describe John Denver in a different way. We'll probably land on some common ground and some common adjectives, but there might be a specific thing that.

Maybe I say wholesome and someone else says folksy or whatever. And that one word could be the thing that takes them in the direction they want to go. But I think as I, cuz I'm like Google stuff like, cuz that's, that is where you get language you wouldn't have thought of, right? Yeah. So like I'm, I wouldn't have thought of wholesome actually, and I love that.

Oh, wholesome. I love that.

Michael Walker: What I love about this is, I'm thinking about this in context of you, Wendy, and I'm just wow. Like a lot of these they resonated, they ring true. And I'm thinking about Wendy. 

Wendy Parr: You have to take a picture of this. I don't disagree -wholesome, poetic, optimistic. A hundred percent compassionate, powerful, soulful, emotive. Iconic. Not for me to say, but pretty amazing. Resilient, 

Michael Walker: I would say so. 

Wendy Parr: Resilient is so true. Like I wanna get rid of being resilient. Like I don't, there's like a lot, like I don't wanna be resilient anymore, have grit, but like resilient, okay. Innovative, groovy, bold. Oh, that's crazy. And thank you. I'm like quite moved that you feel that these match me. I agree with them. 

Michael Walker: Absolutely. No, they absolutely do. 

Wendy Parr: I've always had raw as a descriptor, like from one of the first times I ever examined myself raw was in there. In fact, I think at the time I was eating raw food only.

That's how far I went with that one. Storytelling, theatrical, like I am as a person. I've been told that I'm dramatic. Hilarious. Yeah. Eccentric, yes.

Michael Walker: I wonder, so understanding that these are like our character... based on those characteristics...

Wendy Parr: This is mind blowing.

Michael Walker: Can you create a...

Wendy Parr: I'm wondering how does the, like I'm going, how does AI work that they came up with this? Are they just grabbing everything in the universe, information and distilling, like how is this happening? 

Michael Walker: It's basically trained on the world's music data. So there's a big conversation, discussion happening, like AI in general.

Wendy Parr: I know...

Michael Walker: and just like also royalties and like copyrights. There's a big lot of stuff to, 

Wendy Parr: I'm aware I don't wanna see AI writing songs like I actually this is an incredible tool and just like everything, everything, every tool can be used in amazing ways and in ways that probably are gonna be harmful, just like our phone and scrolling and, but I don't wanna live in a virtual world. My desire is to move us deeper and deeper into humanity and humans having more humanity for each other. But I can see this tool is amazing. 

Michael Walker: It's, you bring up a super important point, which is what this conference is all about, right?

Like, where does humanity meet technology in a way that technology doesn't, destroy our humanity, which in some cases, like there have been certain things where, you know, if we're not careful, then it can intrude on our humanness. 

Wendy Parr: We've seen the movies. We've seen where this goes.

Michael Walker: So this is interesting. And I a hundred percent agree with you too. I think that, I think this is an amazing tool and you can use it. Yeah. The same way you would use any tool, like it can amplify, like as long as it's amplifying your voice, amplifying and creativity, and it's not replacing, the thing that makes you, then, it could be a really, a powerful.

You know, way to get rid of the blank page syndrome maybe. Yeah. 

Wendy Parr: Yeah. And then point you in a direction and show you something you wouldn't have thought of, which is really valuable. I whenever I do anything, any workshop, any, it's very interactive because I know that I'm not the only one who has information.

Everyone in the space like can be a think tank for each other. So if AI becomes like a think tank for you it's helpful. So you're not just bouncing ideas around in your own head, but Oh, I just got an insight that I wouldn't have thought of. That's fantastic. 

Michael Walker: A hundred percent. So this is interesting.

So I asked it to write 10 potential song ideas for you as an artist based on all of your influences. I don't know if any of these, they're like, oh yeah I really like this idea, this one. Queen of soul, not John of soul. Queen of soul. Yeah. Queen of soul. I feel like you could be a queen of soul.

Wendy Parr: Purple Rain. That's hilarious. 

Michael Walker: Okay, that's a little bit on the nose, right? 

Wendy Parr: Yeah. That's really funny. Love in full effect that. That sounds like a cool title. Love in Full effect. Full effect. That is cool. Neat. Found in the music of Steven, inspired by the idea. Wow. This is incredible tool.

Michael Walker: Maybe it might be interesting to demo something based on, having these like characteristics. Maybe something like regarding a social media strategy or content calendar. I wonder how it would do with if you were sitting down with someone. And they had presented to you with, here's some of these characteristics that I feel like really embody who I am.

And now you're wanting to generate maybe a list of social media, like you described it earlier as how can we make social media not feel like a chore, like something that you don't like or to hate, but it's actually just, it's fun. It's a expression.

Wendy Parr: For me, social media is just another way to share your message with people, right? So how do I share my message in this platform using this tool that I have? And I think there's, Hey I don't have a million followers, so I'm like, I'm not the specialist on this. But and there are ways to use the algorithm or use trends to help boost you.

Like people who are doing it know that works, right? Oh, this will get me more likes. That type of thing. And I think that incorporating that is, is valuable. If you're only making content to do that, you're not, you might not like the content you're making, right? Like those videos of people going, Hey ba blah, and they're playing two different people.

I'm like, that's not for everybody, right? Are you an actor? Is it your thing to play characters? Then go for it because it's gonna be so good for you. But for someone else, they're like, what am I doing? Like, why am I doing this thing? So for me, social media is First of all, I would think about what are things that you do on the regular, like on a daily or weekly basis that that you can just share with your audience to take them on the journey with you.

If you're in your studio on a regular basis, and like some days you're making beats and some days you're writing songs. Share the process. Don't interrupt your process for us, right? You don't want this to become a social media shoot every time, but can you share different parts of that process?

Because, hey, I'm doing this anyway. Why not let people into my process and that can include bloopers and that can include whatever. Oh, this is my frustration I ran into today, my thing crashed and oh my gosh. We all know what it's like to have a computer crash. I empathize with you now. I feel bonded with you. Everything doesn't run perfect in your rock and roll life. So I think that can be one thing. And another thing can be, again, just going back to your messages, if you look at your, at those adjectives. Okay, I'm raw and I'm soulful, and I'm this what does that inspire for my, I think of you wanna find five pillars, right?

What are the five categories that I share about? For me, I share about information, so I'm giving tips. That's one of my categories. Tips, creative tips, holistic. That's how to take care of yourself on tour or how to like tea stuff. There's just anything that's very holistic meditation.

That's a category for me. Championing other artists like this could be testimonials my artists have said about me, or this is me sharing the artists I work with and what they're doing. So I have these categories. Once I have my categories, the idea is just come in with what else could go in that category?

What else? Oh, I wanna share inspirational books for people, so let me share books, and then I look at what people respond to. And so I pump up those more, people love my creative tips, I do those a lot more than some of the others. But it's those categories. Like my idea is just what else fits in that, oh, this could be a cool thing to do.

What else fits in that this could be a cool thing to do... so I think coming up with those pillars of I'm raw. Okay, what are all the ways I can show how raw I am? Or what is the message I want to impart People, some, one of my clients by taking my Compass course discovered he really wanted to be, start sharing and being open about his struggles with mental health.

He started sharing on social media about his stutter. He's never talked about that before. He got involved with the Like a charity that helps others. So he got involved with that, like a bigger part of his life came with, I wanna share this with people. I want other people to know that I experienced this.

I want them to know that I struggle with it. He started STR talking about his mental health. So he became clear about, this is a part of me I wanna share with people now. So that changed his social media content that changed his activities in his daily life. So becoming clear about, these are the things I wanna share, and then just like your music.

You get the feedback loop of, oh, people really respond to these, they love this content. I'll do more of that cuz I'm sharing it and they're responding. And the other, this one's not really working. Let me, is there another way I can share this content? Is there a different way to get that one across? 

Michael Walker: Super smart.

Wendy Parr: Again, you're generating content that feels good for you. 

Michael Walker: Yeah. Awesome. So it sounds like after doing the soul searching and looking at your references you wanna come up with a list of characteristics or pillars or traits that embody who you are. And then for each of those you can brainstorm ideas and things that are all around it.

As you were sharing that I was a AI-ing away. I wanted to see if it could, take all these characteristics and boil them down into five that describe you. And it started out and it said these five, which was like, pretty good, but maybe a little bit generic on some of them.

So I asked can you make sure they have as much iconic slash contrast as possible while remaining true to myself? And then it popped out this and. As it relates to, again, I'm thinking about Wendy Parr, I'm like, oh, this is...

Wendy Parr: can you send me that that looks amazing. I'm like, I'm gonna incorporate this. 

Michael Walker: Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. We'll this is all being recorded anyways, but you definitely, who beary? It's I'm like, yes. This is, this has we were talking again, like we were talking before and I was like, Wendy Parr, like oozes with style and like some of these are ones I'm starting to see, kinda like ooze a bit with style.

And I can see Wendy Parr in here. So it's interesting. 

Wendy Parr: Masterful, that rings true to me. 

Michael Walker: I like how it described too, like it took like differences and then it described them. One thing that might be interesting here is saying, could you use these five pillars to brainstorm social media content for each pillar.

Wendy Parr: It's so cool. Ah, so great. 

Michael Walker: Yeah. Anyways, I, it's it's really cool. Yeah, it's cool like trying to find where humanity meets technology. But like you described, it seems like the most important thing right now especially is bringing that humanity, bringing you know who you are to that, which is why I so appreciate you and everything that you teach and you help people with. Wendy. 

Wendy Parr: Thank you. Thank you. I heard some labels and marketing people talking about their process and they're like, it's trial and error. We try things with artists, see what works, come back, try like again, they're looking at numbers, they're looking at stats, they're looking at data, but literally it's trial and error which is no different than what you and I or any of these artists are gonna do.

You're gonna try stuff out. The question is, what are you trying? What are you putting out there to begin with that isn't based on, oh, I've seen this succeed out there. As opposed to, oh, this is what I actually want to say.