Introduce Yourself : Augmenting & Exploring by Vikki Flawith

Hello Everyone! I've been lurking on Stage32 for awhile (ever the wallflower :D). I'm so interested in all the ways we tell our stories.

My own passion is music, and has been since I was 5 or 6. A sensitive and highly creative introvert, I bought into the idea I'd never amount to anything, that you can't do arts for a living, and the best thing to do is follow everyone else's idea of who & how you should be. I sang in choirs growing up & started writing songs when I was 12, but suffered from debilitating stage fright and social phobia. Fast forward to a point where I was working at an insurance company processing claims & the only music in my life was humming while I did the dishes. I had done everything to make everyone else happy with me. That way I'd be safe. They'd like me. Well, that wasn't a good plan because a) they weren't any happier, b) the 'me' they knew wasn't Me, and c) I was desperately unhappy. I had to make a change.

I did a lot of soul searching and came up with two things: I wanted to do something more creative for work; and I had given up my dream of singing and music. So I retrained as a graphic designer, and once I had finished the course and my practicums... I got the telephone number of a voice teacher from a friend of mine. It took me three months to get up the courage to call. After my first lesson I almost didn't go back. And not because he wasn't nice. Because, I think, it challenged me on so many levels. It is much easier to dream than to make the dream come true. I kept doubting and thinking about quitting for the next five or six years. But somewhere along the line, slowly, gently, how I thought about myself while singing became clearer to me. My thoughts, my fears, closed me down, tightened my throat, made me back away and close up. As I started to understand my thoughts affected me in this way while singing, and learned that I could change those thoughts to something more positive and supportive of my voice... I realized those same thoughts permeated my life.

Music, which I had loved from a small child, healed me. I began to teach other shy singers how to sing. I invited the terrified and the tone deaf to my studio. I found I had a tribe of fellow introverts who hungered to free themselves from fear and find their voices.

And then, I started to write again. Songs at first, and then instrumentals. I learned from fellow media composers and music screeners the forms used for cues and even learned how to produce my own music. Now I have tracks signed with a variety of production music libraries and credits for placements on a number of television shows.

Currently I am immersing myself in my love of film scores and trailers. I am taking courses in cinematic composing, trailer music writing, and scoring to picture.

Besides teaching my students, taking my courses and writing music, I roleplay Star Trek 3 or 4 times a week :D  Live long and prosper!