Meet Natalie Del Carmen

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Del Carmen.

Hi Natalie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, I’ve always been grateful to have grown up in a city that not only celebrated music but supported artistic careers. I thank my parents for introducing me to my first songs, as my iPod mini was loaded with songs like The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” and Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” to name a few. While these were tunes before my time, I definitely credit them for my beginning interest in learning music as a child.

In my younger years, I was in and out of competitive dance and soccer until I was eleven years old when I told my mom I wanted to switch gears and enroll in piano and vocal lessons. My favorite day of the week was Wednesday because I met with Emily, my beloved music teacher of seven years, who trained me as a vocalist, piano player, and later as a flutist for my high school band. After just turning twelve, I discovered my passion for folk and pop music and wrote my first song that I published on YouTube. Similarly, my brother grew up an electric guitar player, and while we never played too often together, I hold an endless amount of gratitude for my parents for their creative support.

I felt then as much as I do now how lucky it was to find a passion at such a young age that I’ll incorporate into my everyday life as an adult. A long-term goal of mine was to get a Bachelor’s Degree, so in 2019 I moved across the country to Boston, MA to attend Berklee College of Music at eighteen years old. There, I learned proper music theory and continued my vocal training with Associate Professor Ilona Tipp, who absolutely transformed my vocal technique as an adult. I was lucky enough to have met the BruNjo production team along the road and released my debut single “Tired of You” in 2020, with three more singles following suit. After some of the most hardworking years of my life, I graduated from Berklee in 2022 with a Bachelor’s in Music majoring in Songwriting, my greatest passion.

Finishing my education has now allowed me time to focus on releasing music as an artist and tune more into the songwriting world. Working closely with BruNjo in Nashville, TN, I am currently working on musical projects that span from early COVID in 2019 to today!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I feel as though I have accomplished a lot of the goals I’ve wanted to musically, but of course it all couldn’t have been done without a few challenges along the way.

As many others can relate, I was in the middle of college when COVID began and that happened to be around the time when I was itching to release my own music. “Tired of You” was an entirely remote project that danced back and forth between WAV files, Zoom calls and recordings done in three different cities. Not only was that my first time working on something more serious than just an acoustic demo, but my first time having a true experience in recording something pop.

“Tired of You” inspired me because for the first time, I saw how possible it was to record, produce and release an entire song without even being in the same room as my producers. On the flip side, this project challenged me because I wondered if that was the best music I could be making if we weren’t even collaborating in the same room. Eventually, Tanir, Amelia and I, two producers of the BruNjo team, were able to record together again. We spent a lot of time in an awesome apartment set up where I recorded vocals in a small walk-in closet. It was definitely challenging, but also the best memories I have in music thus far. I’m happy to listen back to those tracks now before I release them and be really grateful those experiences are part of my music.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Producing folk/pop music and exploring different ways my team and I can rearrange a song is my favorite part of releasing music. But, there has never been a doubt in my mind that I’m a songwriter first.

It’s extremely important to me that the music I release has that stripped-down, singer-songwriter groundwork. I hope that even underneath an 80s pop-produced track like “Clockwork” there is that same foundation of a song that I wrote with just myself and a guitar. Even “Honest,” my most pop-influenced track by far, has no acoustic guitar, yet I originally wrote it as a slowed-down folk tune at eighteen.

I suppose the most important thing to me when releasing music, whether it’s upbeat pop or stripped-down folk, is that you could take all the production elements away and it’s still the same habits I’ve had for all the music I’ve ever written: lyrics that tell you a story, an apparent love for top-line writing and, at its core, a song of the heart.

Of the music I’ve released and what’s to come, I’m proud of the way I’ve played with the genre. That has been what’s kept my creativity alive, and I honestly think that’s why I love some of the artists I do. It’s not “moving genres” in the way that you can’t recognize the artist song-to-song, but how you can tell when an artist is simply having fun with the music, they’re making. That’s important to me.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My biggest advice (that I also often give to myself) for songwriters/artists of any age is just to write. I think a lot of people say that, but write songs, half songs, two lines or an entire 6 minute monologue. Something always lands eventually.

I’ve been told once to take the pressure off myself to write the best song I’ve ever written every time, and that has proven true. Some songs take minutes and some take days of reimagining.

My favorite challenge is to dig deeper on songs that I think are completely finished because that’s when the party starts. Changing rhythms, lyrical pacing or even just the key can be night and day differences.

It’s been helpful to incorporate writing outside of music, too, such as in poetry, keeping a journal or writing letters.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nataliedelcarmen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natalie.del.carmen/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaMlRROPXY86HYB7JcoftIQ
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-293242519

Image Credits
@filmdheva_