Life & Work with Kara Jones of Music Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kara Jones.

Hi Kara, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a really creative family; both parents played music, my mom was always painting or finding a new visual art medium, and my sister was absorbed in music, poetry, and the visual arts. My sister and I were encouraged to spend our free time creating, writing plays, making art, playing music, and exploring the outdoors. And somehow, for me, despite us as kids being discouraged to spend much time watching tv, I also found a love of film. I remember sneaking out to the family room after my parents had gone to bed so I could watch the late night comedians and SNL reruns… Many of those styles fueled my young sense of comedy as well as script-writing and movies I would make on my dad’s giant VHS camcorder. My dad also had a beloved PA system with excessively tall 1980s tower speakers that literally towered over me as a 3 year old and up until I eventually grew to five feet tall in the 8th grade. I spent countless hours in front of those speakers listening to the nuances and brilliance of Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Gordon Lightfoot, Peter, Paul & Mary, Guy Lombardo’s bands, The Oakridge Boys, and countless other varied artists my parents had albums of. I remember riding my rocking horse to Elton while also being clueless as to why I had trouble relating to other kids at school when I was so little. Ha! (I think they must’ve all been listening to standard kids’ music and I just couldn’t relate.)
Fast forward through years in the performing arts from acting, choirs, orchestras, and songwriting in K-12 school to college. I declared a Music Education major once I took my first class in world music. It enraptured me. It filled a void I’d had– the sheer joy and vibrance emanating from so many styles of music from around the world just grounded me in a way I’d’ never felt before. I fell in love with the nuances of so many traditional styles of music, but my heart really lit up every time I listed to music from continental Africa. So much so, that after playing in my college’s well known African Drum Ensemble for a number of years, I became my college’s first music student to teach abroad… and I, of course, chose the option in Africa- South Africa. My time there was glorious and it’s still one of my favorite places.
When I came back to the U.S., I took all the college experiences I’d gained studying voice, classical guitar, strings, world music, psychology, theater, etc. and continued teaching music lessons (I’d been teaching since I was 17). I taught at various studios in addition to office managing a dance studio, and picking up other jobs alongside teaching from nannying to working at a bank, to becoming a legal assistant for several years. I knew I didn’t want to teach in public schools, and was still in some ways exploring what balance I wanted in my life of my own performing, teaching, and filling in with other jobs.
As time passed, I met and collaborated with a lot of musicians locally, wrote and performed frequently, and found a lot of joy in writing cello and string parts for other writers in addition to adding vocal harmonies to their recordings. I fell in love with the precision and drive required to nail studio recordings in sessions and that continued to open my eyes and ears more and more to the nuances of good producers (aside from once riding my rocking horse to Elton’s incredibly produced albums, of course.)
As my schedule became filled gigging with 4-5 bands at a time, I realized I was really struggling with stage volume, naturally sensitive ears (that I later found out to be a wild birth defect), and playing fretless instruments on stage in terms of struggling to hear myself and not risk hearing damage. I explored tons of plugs and in-ear monitors but didn’t find the right fit… until something serendipitous happened. I got a call from a high level musician friend who was modeling for an in-ear company and they needed an additional model- a female who sang and played multiple instruments for the photo/ demo shoot. I took the gig, and while there got to actually use the in-ears I was modeling and they blew my mind! The in-ears have a built in mic with a controller that allows the wearer to let a certain amount of ambient room noise in, which totally eradicated that ‘under water’ feeling and sense of isolation that comes from most in-ear monitors. They were crisp, clear, and I felt totally in charge. Long story short, I became a recurring model for the company with photos of me using the in-ears & gear on their website product pages as well as being featured on their booth wall at NAMM as a singing cellist. I promoted the product on my own accord so much due to genuinely loving them that the company made me a reseller, so I can now sell new in-ears to colleagues, students, and others in the industry. These magical in-ears are 3DME’s by ASI Audio’s Sensaphonics for anyone interested.
Somewhere in the middle of all the music work I’d been doing, I submitted my acting materials to a casting agent I’d randomly picked online (I had a gut feeling on the one I picked), to start doing some film and commercial work, and lucked out. I got a call a couple weeks later to be in some scenes in an Adam Driver movie. It was ironic because I’d been fascinated with his character depth/ vibe in the Star Wars movie the year prior and suddenly ended up on set with him. He and I actually physically bumped into each other on set while shuffling hurriedly between scenes due to carrying weird-shaped set dec(oration) items that made it hard to see. When we rammed into each other by accident we both shreiked ‘oh!’ and both immediately apologized, ushering the other ahead, and then I realized that his actual normal human energy is very much that of the scene in Star Wars when he’s projecting his energy psychically into the cave that Rey is in when he’s trying to connect with her in an honest open and turmoiled heart. That gave me a HUGE lesson in acting– that, as we’d heard in so many acting classes, acting is BEING. You don’t have to ‘be’ a different person. You always bring yourself to the roles. I will never forget accidentally being injected with Kylo Ren to Rey energy. Haha!
From that movie on, I started booking a combo of roles and background work in a plethora of Hollywood movies, a few commercials, and did several days on the Mayor of Kingstown set. I ended up on a street corner with Matt Damon, got to interview Tom Hanks, was directed by Bradley Cooper, got to be ‘me’ as a teacher in a Lebron James flick, was part of an incredibly touching scene with Jesse Eisenberg, and played violin in a movie starring Allen Ginsberg’s protegé (I was a huge Beat Generation/ Kerouac fan as a teen, so appreciated the meet). I learned I’m really good at crying on camera, production assisted on the set for Austin Butler’s The Bikeriders as well as the upcoming Superman flick (James Gunn), and ended up having a scene with the ‘man’ himself. (I won’t know until it comes out this summer how it was edited).
The film industry moves FAST and is an ever-flowing wild world of adventure. While working on set for Bikeriders, I had a lovely middle of the night chat with Norman Reedus while we were standing under a beautiful tall oak tree in the middle of a rural set watching this incredible night sky of stars. He’d just flown in red eye the night before from France to start filming, and we got to just enjoy existing as two human beings drinking coffee on a cold night under the stars gently talking about the beauty and funny random twists and turns of life.
There are so many stories from the movie industry it’s hard to pick favorites, but I did enjoy going to a gig in Syracuse for a nurse role, in which it just so happened the director’s boyfriend was playing piano in the scene as well. We instantly connected over music, I offered to direct the choir that was in the scene, they upgraded my role to ‘artsy nurse,’ and during the filming, the song we did was so beautiful- and written by the director’s boyfriend- that I asked him at the end of the day if he’d be open to my recording an indie version and sending it to them. He said yes, I sent it in, and now it’s in the soundtrack of the movie! And he is also a well established director, so he and his now husband and I stay in touch as well for future collabs. Ironically, a bandmate of mine from the U.S. ended up on a beach next to both directors in South Africa! I recognized it was them by their little pug dog! It’s a small world. It’s always a small world.
So- what am I doing now?
Teaching, songwriting with collaborators making songs to sync with film and tv, acting, and… basically trying to get enough sleep to fuel me for my next adventures! Ha! I’ve always got a number of projects lined up, and I usually can’t talk about them because they’re under NDA’s. In the teaching sphere, in addition to mentoring my instrument students (guitar, violin, cello, piano), I’ve been enjoying teaching a vocal program I created called Vocal Cross-Training® for singers, speakers, actors, and voice over artists. It’s a great way for vocalists to gain more vocal flexibility, range, endurance, to reduce or stop fatigue and hoarseness, and essentially learn to create more vocal color tones & timbres than ever thought possible before via the lense of vocal anatomy, science, neurology, and artistic exploration. It’s a blast to teach and it’s amazing to watch vocalists transform, gain vocal freedom, and find new possibilities in their voices to love across all genres of music, all accents, and innumerable character voices. I have students from all over the U.S. in this program and am getting ready to open it up internationally. It’s really been helping a lot of people from beginners to professionals and I am excited to expand its reach.
There are opportunities for all of us in this world– we just have to look for them and find them. ; )

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 think life is smooth for very few people. I think we all have things to learn, and what doesn’t kill us, well, slows us down for a while and may be a thorn in the side but we learn to cope and integrate, or they make us stronger and we move on.
I think most people have to figure out how to work with difficult people, and we also have to learn how to navigate better to avoid difficult situations in the future. ‘Reading people’ gets easier as we get older and things like identifying narcissism gets way easier once we’ve gone through that rigamarole a few times.
Probably the biggest challenge has been the financial one. There’s a (thankfully) dying notion that to be an artist, one must only do art. And to that I say poppycosh. Just because a person needs to make some extra money from a non-artsy job does not negate that they are an artist while doing their art form, or in just living in the brain and body of who they are as a whole person that includes the artist self.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is three-fold: Acting & Production Assisting, Writing, Recording, & Performing Music, and Teaching the Performing Arts.

I’ve found that I love film more than theater. I love the nuances that the camera picks up. I love that the camera will pick up a twitch in my eye showing a vulnerability in a character… the camera literally reads thoughts and I love that. Production assisting is fun, too. It keeps you on your toes & one uses every ounce of problem-solving skills to suddenly solve whatever the director tosses to you over the walkie. It’s a good kind of intense hustle.

In terms of writing, recording, and performing music, I love many aspects for different reasons. I love collaborative co-writes because with good writers, we all acknowledge we have no idea what is about to happen, but we are all willing to serve the song that wants to be born. So we might start out thinking we’re writing an anthem-like pop song, but then the song has another idea, and we end up writing a juicy sassy ballad.
I still love session work- I love the perfection required to crack it out authentically and efficiently, I love that that focus becomes very Zen for me, and it always need to see what ideas come up in the studio to move songs along, whether in person, or if we’re sending files back and forth to each other. I still love adding cello and female vocal harmonies to people’s songs. Those are just my most innate heart songs, I guess. I could write cello and vox harmonies in my sleep. In live performances, I love when I’m in a venue where people care and are attentive and I can feel their engagement. I think all performers want audience like that, but in the modern world there are a lot of distractions, and I think a lot of concert goers have lost touch with how mesmerizing shows can be.

In my teaching, I really deeply value helping learners access their own permission to do their art; to embrace an openness to exploring and creativity they’ve never felt before. I love helping students smash down psychological walls and actually just last week recommended to an adult multi-instrumentalist that he should buy an old unusable guitar from the thrift store for $10, and go smash and burn it to let out any remaining angst he has about performing from prior rough experiences that he’s since separated from. There are a lot of ways to learn. There’s the technique, of course, but for most humans, the psychology of performing is where it’s at.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Growing takes time. Building a career takes time. There will be projects you’ll think you’ll be a part of forever that will end suddenly and for reasons you’d never have dreamt of. And that’s okay. There are more people to work with. You’ll get good at finding the right people to work with over time. Be professional. Be kind. Be respectful. Be on time. Being on time, alone, will set you ahead of so many competitors.
And in regard to motivation? Action fuels motivation, not always the other way around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.karajonesperformingarts.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/karajonesperformingarts
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/karajonesperformingarts