Today we’d like to introduce you to Neel Sinha.
Hi Neel, 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?
I grew up in Menlo Park, in the sunny state of California, with a piano and a couple of guitars around the house. I started and stopped taking piano lessons when I was around 5–7 years old, and eventually I asked my parents for guitar lessons. We had guitars around the house, and at the time I was obsessed with Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, and probably a few more J names.
From my first guitar lesson, I was completely hooked. By the end of that year, I knew music was something I was good at, and a few years later, I knew it was how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
I joined just about every kind of band I could find: concert band, jazz band, jazz combo, big band, rock band, and more. Some were through school, but most were outside opportunities around the Bay Area. I started writing songs because some of my strongest connections to music came through spontaneous composition, improvisation, and experimenting with a looper pedal. I studied guitar through summer programs at USC and Berklee before attending Berklee College of Music, where I studied Guitar Performance, Songwriting, and Production. My passion for the world of music only grew.
After Berklee, I moved to Nashville to continue developing as a songwriter and to learn more about the music industry. I’ve learned a tremendous amount since then, and I know I’ll continue learning for the rest of my career. Through making connections, building an online presence, releasing music, and playing gigs around Nashville, I’ve had opportunities to perform original music at Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville, play venues along Broadway, and join bands that have taken me across the country for shows.
It’s been an amazing adventure so far, and one of the biggest things I’ve learned along the way is that the more I trust myself, work at a sustainable pace, and prioritize my health, the happier I am and the more excited I become about where music can take me next.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I think every road looks smoother looking back, but feels like a bunch of jagged rocks when you’re in it. My love for music and the guitar has always been a constant. It’s been an escape on the hard days and a joy on even the best ones.
One of the biggest struggles in getting to where I am today was stage fright as a vocalist. For quite a while, it held me back. Singing felt uniquely personal; unlike an instrument, my voice felt inseparable from who I was. What eventually changed my life was working through it with repeated, small exposures to larger and larger audiences, from voice memos sent to trusted friends to singing live for 20 people, then 50, then more, until I found myself singing solo parts in front of thousands of people at the ICCAs at Berklee.
I think everyone has moments in life when they wish they were wearing a suit of armor: something that would let them step a little more confidently. Somehow, music became that for me. It was the part of my life I didn’t feel the need to question; I trusted it. Because of that, it used to feel almost insulting when people told me to have a “Plan B” career without ever hearing what I actually did.
But once you’re really in this profession, you realize that when people say being an artist is hard, they aren’t always talking about the art, the passion, the talent, or even the potential. Because despite the countless hours honing your craft, making music is one thing; building a life that can financially sustain making music is another skill entirely.
High-quality commercial releases are incredibly expensive, even as technology has made the entry point into recording and music-making more accessible than ever. And what artists make back is often far less than they put in, even for successful releases. You have the challenge of learning how to make it, market it, distribute it, build an audience around it, and create enough income to keep making more. I think that helps explain why there are so many extraordinarily talented people whose work never reaches the audience it deserves. I expect some of my next bumpy roads are waiting behind tour planning and bad contracts, but it’s all part of the wild adventure that I’m grateful to be on.
Everyone probably has their own reasons for powering through. Mine are pretty simple: I want to see all of my records sitting on a shelf one day. I want to find out how good I can get. And I want to inspire people to play music, just like all my inspirations did for me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in improvisation-based guitar and vocal music. I rarely play a song exactly the same way twice. I grew up with blues, rock, and jazz as my bread and butter, and even though I describe most of my current releases as “pop music,” there’s still a strong and very audible connection to those styles in the way I write and perform.
My playing is rhythmic, dynamic, and technical, but the technique is always in service of emotion. I want to get every ounce of feeling I can into the musical language. I believe an audience should be able to tell how a musician feels that day just by listening to the way their hands interact with an instrument or hearing the tone of their voice. Musicians are storytellers, and I think our feelings should be reflected in every performance.
That’s probably what sets me apart most as a performer. The song itself may be the same, but the performance is alive. Tempos can shift, solos change, dynamics move, and sometimes entire sections develop differently depending on the room and the people I’m playing with. I love that unpredictability. I want someone who comes to see me live to experience something that belongs to that particular night, not just hear a recreation of the recording.
I’m also known for showcasing new original songs at my shows all the time. Songwriting is a huge part of who I am as a musician, and I tend to write about the state of the world and how it affects us as individuals and as a society. Sometimes that comes from a positive place and sometimes a negative one, but I try to approach it as truthfully as I can.
What I’m most proud of is that I’ve continued to build my musical identity around curiosity rather than trying to fit neatly into one category. I can love pop songwriting and production while still improvising, playing guitar like a blues musician, thinking about harmony like a jazz musician, and treating a live performance as something that should be different every night. I think all of those things can coexist, and figuring out what that combination sounds like for me is one of my favorite parts of being an artist.
What does success mean to you?
Success is deeply personal. Traditionally, we tie it to things like income, net worth, social impact, and legacy, and I absolutely feel the pull of all of those things. But realizing that you can achieve every one of them and still never truly be happy is heartbreaking to me.
So I’ve redefined success for myself as building a life that gives me ample free time to explore my hobbies, deepen my knowledge, develop my philosophy, and grow my skills in all facets of life. It means being able to make the trip out to see my family regularly, share memories with my friends, and have the space to be a good friend, a good partner, a good son, and eventually a good father and grandfather.
The wrinkle is music. It was my first real hobby, and I cared so much about giving myself enough time for it that I made it my job. Pursuing this career is a form of success in itself, and I hope to keep shaping it in a way that leaves room for everything else that makes a life beautiful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.neelsinhamusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neelsinhamusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neelsinhamusic
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neel-sinha-2a6ab2194/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@neelsinhamusic
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/neel-sinha-1
