Latest / The Scene Projects / Cheryl B. Engelhardt: New Age Music, Grammy Nominations, and Creative Journeys

Transcript

Cheryl B. Engelhardt: New Age Music, Grammy Nominations, and Creative Journeys · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Well, welcome in to a very exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host, Bubba Starts.
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  And with me today is a very special guest, Grammy nominee, Cheryl b Inglehart.
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  Cheryl, welcome to the show.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  This is so fun.
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  I I was telling you before, we got started a little prepro I was a little bit starstruck to
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  see your name appear on my calendar.
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  I've been following you for a long time now ever since you appeared on Rick Barker's
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  podcast, oh, so many years ago now.
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  But before we get into the Grammy nomination and everything you have coming up this month
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  with some workshops that you are doing, I'd love to just give you the floor and to let you
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  give us a little bit of your backstory.
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  Well, part of my backstory is that everyone always spells my name wrong, including your
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  ticker.
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  I can adjust that.
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  But that honestly, though, that that is part of my my backstory, and it's why, there's
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  something about the bee I just, like, hooked on to, like, kids in school would just be like,
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  CBE.
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  So CBE because nothing else was easy.
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  So oh, look at that.
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  You're fast.
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  Some people take ages to get it right, so thank you.
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  But, yeah, I kind of, like, latched on to that, started my music publishing company.
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  But yeah.
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  But now I forget what the question was.
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  Backstory.
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  Backstory.
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  Backstory.
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  So I've been playing the piano since I was two.
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  I thought I was gonna go be a marine biologist in college, but I I always loved singing.
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  I loved being in theater.
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  Music was always a hobby.
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  So I was taking all these electives while I was studying biology, and my adviser in college was
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  like, why don't you just take these two extra courses and you can have a double major, music
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  and biology?
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  Was like, yeah.
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  Sure.
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  I got a job scuba diving for the government doing water quality research after college.
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  And after six months, our the river we were working on froze, and a friend of mine was
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  like, hey.
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  You have a month downtime because we had a month off.
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  Will you come to Rome, Italy with me?
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  I'm doing I'm doing a website.
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  He was a website designer.
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  I'm doing a website for this really fancy hotel, and they wanna create some videos.
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  And I need some music for those videos, and and I want you to help me film them and stuff like
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  that.
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  So I was doing this multimedia stuff for this hotel's website in Rome, and I was like, this
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  is very much more interesting than, like, being underwater all day long, which sounds way
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  cooler than it is.
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  So that kind of started my track to saying, hey.
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  How can I make a life doing this kind of creative stuff?
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  I moved to New York City, got a job, as a messenger.
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  I was an intern at a recording studio.
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  Kinda one one thing led to another, and then I'm at a jingle house writing music for
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  commercials, staying late at night doing my own music, working with a band.
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  I started touring.
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  I ended up leaving the jingle job so I could go do my own freelance composing stuff, and I was
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  kinda like a pop singer songwriter.
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  I put out a bunch of albums, figured out licensing, touring, fan funding.
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  I got really dorky with my email list and connecting with my fans after every show.
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  I got really good at making sure that I had a way to connect with someone after we left the
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  venue, and that just seemed really important early on.
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  So I have this great engaged email list.
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  They're ready to jump on whatever project I've got, whether it's a crowdfunding, a new album,
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  or, you know, voting for something on in a online contest.
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  So I really got into fan engagement, and I started getting asked to speak at music
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  conferences and and answering a lot of really similar questions for other musicians.
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  And instead of just saying, here's what I did that worked because, you know, everyone's path
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  is so weird and different.
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  I actually went out and started to get trained in being a coach so that I could really better
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  answer whatever was blocking each individual person.
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  So I kinda got really into working with other musicians and helping them step into whatever
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  results they wanted to create for themselves.
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  Fast forward a bunch of years, I got some composing residencies.
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  I started doing some choral work and orchestral work and started creating some just outside of
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  the box albums that kind of landed in the new age realm.
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  They were getting number one on iTunes.
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  They were doing really well.
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  I'm like, am I a new age artist?
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  Then the pandemic hits.
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  I wrote a musical with a best friend.
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  He passed away during the pandemic.
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  I got on a train at the end of the, like, 2022 in the winter and just, like, went across
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  country.
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  I just needed to, like, grieve and get out of my space, and I wrote an electronic ambient
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  album on that train, and that got me my first Grammy nomination in New Age ambient.
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  And, yeah, I've just been creating as an artist, I really feel like that is home for me.
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  I can bring in my weird classical stuff.
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  I can do esoteric lyrics if I if I want, which is a critique I got of my pop music.
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  There's a little too like, the lyrics weren't quite pop enough.
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  But in New Age, I really feel at home there.
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  And so this is my my fourth album just came out.
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  It's called according to the moon.
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  It's a collaboration with an Australian artist, Gem, and that just got a Grammy nomination in
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  ambient and champ.
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  So here we are today.
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  Absolutely incredible, Cheryl.
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  It's, you know, I was introduced to you mostly through your in the key of success business and
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  helping other artists and knowing that and not really knowing a lot of your own backstory and
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  your personal story of even coming to music.
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  Right?
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  Kinda getting the music major as an aside to the, you know, the real job or the real degree
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  and then just going to now now I would much rather do this.
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  Yeah.
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  I think when we all start off with that dream of playing music, it's because of that
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  excitement.
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  But so many people kind of fall off because of the work that it truly takes to to make it in
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  the industry.
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  And especially with the industry changing as much as it is now, obviously, AI, huge topic in
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  so many ways that is it is, you know, topping charts and, you know, the money has left.
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  And, you know, I don't think there's a lot, you know, the jingle writer thing.
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  I got to imagine most companies are learning how to use Suno to write their jingles now.
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  And where there was a lot of niche places in music for people to make a living, not
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  necessarily being a performer.
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  A lot of those are kind of going away, but you have experience in just the full breadth of
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  what the music business is.
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  It's so interesting.
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  Well, thank you.
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  I I'm thank you for letting me take off.
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  So I was like, can I do this in a nutshell?
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  I'm I'm getting old, so the story gets longer.
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  It's just a pretty nutshell.
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  It was still pretty condensed.
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  Oh, it's funny.
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  Well, thank you.
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  And now, you know, obviously, sorry to hear about your friend that's, you know, that you
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  wrote the musical with.
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  That's so, and you need time.
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  You know?
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  Especially, you don't write a musical with someone that you're just like, oh, yeah.
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  We kinda know each other.
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  Obviously, this person meant a lot to you, and you needed the time.
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  And I love that what came out of that time is now the new music and the, you know, the
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  recognition of that music and bringing it out.
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  And, yeah, I mean, who wants to be a pop artist these days anyway?
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  So I I think new age is a great avenue for you.
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  Thank you.
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  I I feel I feel very at home there now that it's we're approaching almost a decade of just
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  sort of really owning like, I'm a new age artist.
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  I studied this in school, like, the electronic, you know, pioneers of the sixties and
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  seventies, and, like, it's I've always been a new age person even when I was, like, writing
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  piano songs when I was, like, six, seven, eight.
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  I remember my piano teacher saying, well, that's not a son sonatina form.
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  Like, it doesn't go back to the a b a pattern, and it's because I was writing new age music.
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  You know, Dan Wilson, I was in a a a great songwriting thing with him in the early late
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  two thousands.
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  And he was the one that was like you know, Dan Wilson's written, like, a bajillion hits like
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  closing time every month.
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  You know, everybody knows all those songs.
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  But he was like, yeah.
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  It's great music.
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  The chord's great.
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  The production's great.
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  He's like, the the the lyrics.
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  Like, what are you really saying?
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  And I'm like, yeah.
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  He's like, it's too esoteric for for pop.
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  And I was like, noted.
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  And then I tried to, like, dumb it down, and I was like, maybe this just isn't the right genre
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  for me.
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  And it took a long time to actually come to that realization and and that whole, like, I
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  don't belong here.
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  I the I hear a lot of artists say that.
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  Like, they're not sure where they belong, whether it's a scene in their local community
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  or just literally how to describe their music.
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  But I think that when you have that thought, I don't belong here, I like to follow it up with,
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  I just haven't found where I do belong.
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  Because I do truly believe everyone has a place to belong literally, digitally, wherever that
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  may mean for you.
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  Right.
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  And for me, you know, we won the content creator of the year award from the Midwest
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  Country Music Organization, but I've never considered myself a country artist until I
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  moved from you know, I grew up in the Black Hills Of South Dakota, which we have the
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  Sturgis Motorcycle Rally every year.
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  So it's very, like, classic rock and, you know, a little bit of reggae feel.
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  It the it's in the mountains.
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  Right?
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  So it kinda has that vibe to it.
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  Well, when I'm we moved to my wife's hometown in Southeastern South Dakota, it is all corn
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  and soybean fields.
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  And it is like, you better learn some Garth Brooks.
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  Right?
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  You know, you you better be able to bust out an Alan Jackson tune.
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  So I started to bring in more of that, you know, country covers, and a few of my songs
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  kinda ride that.
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  I used to call my style rockabilly regga funk, and that was too much of a mouthful.
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  So now I call it modern gypsy rock, which Mhmm.
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  Is still fitting.
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  You know, I grew up on bands.
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  You know, obviously, you're you're, you know, Marshall Tucker and Bob Seger, but I was a huge
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  deadhead growing up.
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  My parents took me to Grateful Dead show when I was three years old.
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  And, I mean, they're playing country rock before it was country rock.
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  Right?
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  So, a lot of the songs that I end up writing as a younger person, and they have all these
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  different influences, and I felt exactly that way is that I don't fit in anywhere, but I fit
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  in everywhere at the same time.
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  And, really, that spurred me onto creating the scene projects, which are you know, it's kinda
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  like, what's your scene?
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  You all everyone fits in here.
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  We interview everyone from every genre.
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  And where that maybe hinders us because we're not niche, right, it it allows us to connect
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  with everyone and to throw it throw it all at the wall and kinda see what sticks.
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  And I've equated it to you know, it's like a big mansion, and there's lots of rooms inside
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  of that mansion.
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  And there's all these different ballrooms that you can go into, and everybody is welcome
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  everywhere.
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  And I feel like music now and music listeners now are much more outside of the box than they
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  were even ten or twenty years ago.
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  Yeah.
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  It's true.
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  New age music.
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  Can you describe what is it?
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  Does it cover a huge range of sounds and feelings?
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  And I guess I wouldn't, you know, I would never I don't like to categorize music in the first
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  place because especially now it crosses over so many different boundaries.
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  What does it sound like for some of our listeners that, you know, are interested in
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  actually checking out the music and seeing what this sounds like?
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  Totally.
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  It's like the the new age old question of what is new age.
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  But I I, you know, I think, historically, it's a little more experimental.
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  It's a little less formless.
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  It can definitely have nature sounds and and field recordings.
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  I think there you know, as much as people hate to categorize human beings actually love to
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  categorize, we really love to put things in boxes.
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  And, you know, we've got how can you search for genres on playlists on the DSPs and, you know,
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  billboard charts and Grammy awards.
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  Like, there are all sorts of different categories categorizations and definitions.
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  And so the one you know, the the category technically in the recording academy is new
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  age, ambient, and chant.
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  They've kind of, like, bunched together a lot of things that can technically sound like
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  apples to oranges.
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  We're trying to combine this stuff.
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  But for me, Enya is new age.
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  Right?
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  And she she did a a really good job crossing over into the mainstream market For sure,
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  you've got Orinoco Flow and did these beautiful albums in the nineties and early two thousands
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  that kind of were able to cross over.
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  There's a cinematic feel to it.
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  A lot of her stuff is lyrical, but some of it is not.
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  And same thing with my new age music.
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  This particular album, according to the moon, has vocals, but it's all we're using the vocals
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  as almost like another synthesizer and layering and kind of using it as an instrument inside of
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  creating these textures.
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  So I think new age music in general has a healing quality and and an intention behind it.
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  It's what you hear most often when you go into, like, spas.
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  There's there's a lot of, research around frequencies and and and higher and lower and
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  and different kinds of tunings that might resonate differently with the body.
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  So there's there's a little bit of science behind it, which, of course, my my background
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  as a biological researcher loves to dork out on, and there's actually some heart rate
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  related tempo things happening in on our album.
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  So that all being said, I think New Age is designed for a little bit more of the way I
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  look at it as a composer, and I actually bring this into all of my composing, whether it's for
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  a choir or for a meditation program, is my music is designed to provide a platform for the
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  listener to do whatever they need to do to process whatever they need to process.
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  If you listen to the passenger, the the album that I made on the the train, it was it's not a
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  grief album.
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  You don't listen to it.
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  You're like, oh my god.
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  This is, all minor, sad, depressing even though that was my experience at the time.
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  The idea is that through my experience of creating this, you're going to get to
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  experience whatever you want versus, like, you listen to Katy Perry song.
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  You're like, alright.
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  We're gonna we're getting pumped up for this race, or we're gonna like, some country song
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  like, some music, some genres dictate the And I think that that's lovely, especially, like, I
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  wanna feel differently than I do now.
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  I'm gonna go listen to this intentionally.
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  Like, I need a good cry.
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  I'm gonna go listen to Sarah McLaughlin.
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  Right?
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  But, like but I think this music that that I like creating inside of New Age is, like, what
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  do I need to process right now, and what's a good tool to help me access that for myself and
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  not dictate it?
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  And I think that that's the core of New Age music for me at least.
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  I love it.
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  New age music.
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  It's what your massage therapist room sounds like.
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  Yeah.
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  Kind of.
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  Yeah.
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  When that's the on the chiller side.
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  I think when I write new age music, like, I like to have key changes, and there's string
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  quartets on this, and and there is a cinematic element and, like, a kind of a building you up
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  so that you can actually get to the thing that you really need to face.
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  And, you know, I think that you can have have busier music that you probably wouldn't hear in
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  a spa, but I think a lot of it would be appropriate for that for sure.
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  That's a fan.
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  Yeah.
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  Fan well, fantastic.
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  And I think when you brought up Enya, was like, oh, okay.
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  That makes that makes sense.
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  I I just not being someone who is honestly, I'm not even that big of an, music listener to
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  which
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  sounds crazy.
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  I'm not either.
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  My husband always laughs when we're on long car rides.
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  And he's like, what do wanna listen to?
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  I'm like, nothing.
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  Nothing.
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  There's always something going on in here.
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  I don't need Yeah.
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  And I'm also a little scared that, like, something subconsciously will, like, get stuck,
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  especially if I'm in, like, album writing mode.
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  I don't wanna, like, plagiarize anything that got gets in as an earworm that I don't realize
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  later is an earworm.
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  I'm always, like, really scared of that.
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  Like, something really cool, like, latching onto it in a way that so I'm just I'm always
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  just like, nothing.
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  I it's nice to be quiet for a hot second.
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  And he's like, you're, like, the only musician I know.
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  I was like, well, you don't know a lot of musicians because you're not in music industry,
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  but a lot of musicians I know are like you and I.
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  We're just like, don't I consume a ton of music unless I'm in a place where I'm, like, really
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  wanting to like, I I have some, like, chill out playlist and and things like that when I'm,
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  like, working.
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  And but, yeah, other than that, yeah, I'm the same way.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's so interesting that I think you see it with a lot of musicians.
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  I lot of other musicians I taught, they're podcast listeners.
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  They're they're like I am.
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  I listen to a ton of podcasts.
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  A lot of sports.
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  I love sports, so I'm listening to
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  I'm listener.
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  If the if the audiobook has someone reading with any kind of accent, British accent, Austro
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  like, I'm listening to it.
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  That's my that's my thing.
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  I yeah.
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  It's funny.
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  No.
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  It's great.
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  I I I love accents.
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  That always gets me.
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  Right?
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  So I never even thought about audiobooks to kinda scratch that itch a little bit.
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  Right?
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  You get a nice long a nice long book read with someone.
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  And to turn off the voice in your head sometimes is nice.
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  And I think we can both attest to that that it's always running full speed, probably over
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  revving a little bit.
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  Tell me a little bit more about the train.
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  I love traveling by train.
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  I've taken it from Portland, through to North Dakota before, you know, fell asleep in
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  Spokane, woke up in Glacier National Park, going along the Columbia River Gorge.
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  So I've been fortunate enough to do that.
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  Now did you sit up in, like, one of the viewing cars most of the time absorbing it, and what
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  was the trip like?
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  Yeah.
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  So I went from New York to Chicago, changed there, and then I went through the Rocky
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  Mountains.
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  I started on 01/22/2022, so the the Colorado River was frozen.
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  So, literally, the train was, like, going along the river, and you'd see, like I saw probably
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  about a 100 elk running along the train, like, on the frozen river.
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  Got over to San Francisco, switched trains Sacramento, switched trains, went down to LA,
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  stayed with my sister a couple days, didn't touch the the music.
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  And then I went south, kind of from the Southwest back to Chicago over four so it's
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  five days out and then four days back, and I did the entire album in in those nine days.
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  And then I mixed it when I got back.
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  I mixed it myself.
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  And, I had my own room.
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  They called them a roomette.
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  We could, like, sit in the day and or, like, turn it into a bed at night, there's two beds.
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  I just kept it in the bed.
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  Was like, why don't I not just, like, sit on this bed and, like, look out, and you have this
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  huge window.
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  It was just the end of COVID, so they had, like, a lot of restrictions about, like, the
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  there's a dining car, so we have, like, staggered times.
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  You have to pick your time so it wasn't too crowded, which was actually really lovely.
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  A lot of people say they go go on these train trips.
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  I'm like, I met so many cool people.
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  I met zero people because I just didn't wanna talk to anyone.
• 18:31
  Like, I had my mask on when I was, like, going you know, walking around and whatever.
• 18:35
  There there yes.
• 18:37
  There were observation cars.
• 18:38
  If you go to my website, cbemusic.com, and you scroll down a little bit, there's a making of,
• 18:43
  like, a five minute video that shows, like, what the room looks like.
• 18:46
  It shows all the things.
• 18:47
  I think I think even in that video, make maybe there's a little bit of like, there's a shower
• 18:51
  and, like, showering on the train is, like, next level risk taking.
• 18:55
  I've like, when it's moving.
• 18:57
  Like, it was it was a thing.
• 18:58
  So, yeah, it was really cool experience.
• 19:00
  It was like it's I brought a microphone.
• 19:03
  I'm like, I'm gonna get all the choo choo sounds.
• 19:05
  No.
• 19:05
  I never used the microphone.
• 19:06
  It was so loud, just like a loud rumble the whole time, all hours of the day.
• 19:13
  Like, it's never quiet.
• 19:16
  It it was I actually there's so much loud rumble that it kinda got normalized for me over
• 19:20
  the nine days that I got back to do my mixing.
• 19:22
  And I was like, where are all those cool, like, low rumbly synths that I put in?
• 19:28
  There weren't any.
• 19:29
  It was just the train sound.
• 19:30
  So then I'm, like, stuck with no low end on the entire album, and I'm, like, was I was
• 19:35
  committed to not doing any additional production or or, you know, composing or
• 19:40
  anything once I got off the train.
• 19:41
  So I was doing some, like, fancy octave double plug in in the mix process to kind of, like,
• 19:47
  bring up my low end that I thought I had I thought I was hearing through all the synths
• 19:51
  and stuff I was using.
• 19:51
  I had four different headphones, noise counseling stuff trying to but somehow, I
• 19:56
  thought I had all this low end, and I got back, and I was like, oh, it's just the train.
• 20:00
  Got it.
• 20:01
  Yeah.
• 20:01
  The vibration just rolling around and that constant, like you said, it just it never
• 20:07
  stops.
• 20:07
  Yeah.
• 20:08
  You're just moving.
• 20:09
  The overnight rooms are closer to the engine, so you get the extra all the noise coming.
• 20:15
  It's it's a loud experience.
• 20:17
  Like and as a light sleeper, like, it was it was a lot I mean, it was cool because, you
• 20:21
  know, I got to literally watch the full moon as I'm like, I'm not falling asleep.
• 20:26
  So I would just there was a full moon during the time, which was kind of cool.
• 20:28
  The moon has sort of always been a theme for my new age stuff, and it it just feels very nice
• 20:32
  that this this new album, according to the moon, is named after the moon finally.
• 20:36
  I was like, finally, she got a title to credit after being present for so much of my creation
• 20:42
  process.
• 20:42
  Yeah.
• 20:44
  Just incredible stuff.
• 20:45
  Now, you mentioned the Grammy nomination for this new album.
• 20:49
  This is your second nomination now.
• 20:51
  Does the second one feel different than that first time getting recognized in that way?
• 20:57
  Oh, yeah.
• 20:58
  So much is different this time.
• 20:59
  The the the passenger I had a couple feature people.
• 21:03
  Like, I literally, from the train, sent a file to a friend of mine.
• 21:06
  It's like, hey.
• 21:07
  Can you play violin on this?
• 21:08
  Hey.
• 21:09
  Can you do a vocal thing on this?
• 21:10
  They sent it back.
• 21:11
  So it's still happening in the time of the the album process creation process.
• 21:15
  But other than than their sort of features, it was not a collaborative process like, project
• 21:22
  in any means, but this was.
• 21:24
  I mean, I wrote with Jen.
• 21:26
  We coproduced everything.
• 21:27
  We brought in a producer, Lonnie Park, who's incredible, and he kind of took our voices as
• 21:32
  individual artists and did this one plus one equals five.
• 21:35
  It's kind of the only way I can describe his production and added a lot of stuff.
• 21:39
  And then, you know, we have a mix he mixed in, and we have master, and then we we had Dallas
• 21:43
  String Quartet who played on my first album, and then I've gone and written for them
• 21:47
  specific pieces.
• 21:48
  And we've had this long term collaboration, so they're on a lot of the albums.
• 21:52
  I was writing some more ambient string arrangements for them, and then they did some
• 21:56
  improvisation.
• 21:57
  So there are a lot more people involved that, like, have skin in the game this time.
• 22:01
  And before, it was just me.
• 22:03
  Right?
• 22:04
  So that that in and of itself is is wildly different.
• 22:08
  And, you know, not unlike the the passenger, but this that was so bittersweet.
• 22:13
  Like, my friend Kevin, who who was was my best friend.
• 22:16
  We had worked six years on this musical who had passed away.
• 22:18
  He was gonna be my date that year to the Grammys.
• 22:21
  And so there was this super bittersweet thing for that for that nomination.
• 22:27
  This one, you know, we worked on this album.
• 22:29
  It was kind of a different process.
• 22:30
  Instead of nine days, we took a year and a half just different we didn't know we're gonna do an
• 22:34
  album that started with one track for this one particular company and then another meditation
• 22:39
  company we're gonna do three more for.
• 22:41
  And it was just like, oh, this is easy.
• 22:42
  We if we did, like, six more, we have an album.
• 22:44
  You know?
• 22:44
  So it was kind of this organic process, and it was during a time last year when I was going
• 22:49
  through, like, personal stuff and relationships, and my mom got cancer, and
• 22:53
  there's all this other heavy stuff in life.
• 22:56
  And I'm like, oh, this is this is hard, but having all this accountability and having a
• 23:00
  writing partner that you kinda committed to and a producer that you're paying and all this,
• 23:03
  it's like, okay.
• 23:04
  I have to get up and get dressed and get on the phone and show up.
• 23:09
  So I feel like this is this is a different kind of not bittersweet, but more like, oh, it was
• 23:14
  all worth it.
• 23:14
  It all got us here.
• 23:16
  Like, that that processing of all that hard stuff that I'm now on the other side of,
• 23:20
  gratefully, is is in the album, but not in the same way as the other one.
• 23:25
  So that feels similar, but also different.
• 23:28
  So, yeah, there's kind of, like, a a relief about it.
• 23:30
  Like, oh, it was worth something.
• 23:31
  Not that it wasn't.
• 23:32
  Like, we released it, and it's, you know, doing really well on streams and playlists and stuff,
• 23:36
  but it's it's an extra little, like, nod from the universe of, like, I see you.
• 23:40
  Like, I see that you went through that process.
• 23:42
  But it all of it feels really different, really, really different.
• 23:45
  Especially coming out of COVID, you know, the first nomination, it was a lot of telling
• 23:50
  people about it digitally because there weren't a lot of in person things going on, and now
• 23:54
  there's people are throwing holiday parties, and there's more community in person.
• 23:57
  So it's it's showing up in a different way to just get the word out that it exists and that
• 24:02
  I'm hoping people take a second to listen to it and consider it.
• 24:05
  You know?
• 24:06
  Yeah.
• 24:07
  It's fantastic.
• 24:08
  And, obviously, you've built up this, you know, this career mostly on, I would say, recorded
• 24:14
  music.
• 24:14
  Now do you still perform live quite a bit during the year as well?
• 24:18
  I know you're speaking engagements, and you have, obviously, in the key of success, I'm
• 24:23
  sure keeps you busy with your mentorship.
• 24:24
  But do you still find time to play live and to perform?
• 24:29
  Every once in a while.
• 24:30
  I mean, I used to tour, like, 100 shows a year with a band for about six years.
• 24:34
  I've toured seven times in Switzerland and all over the place.
• 24:38
  Recently, I've been like, more when I'm showing up, I'm doing something with an orchestra or
• 24:42
  performing with a choir.
• 24:45
  You know, I I do sing with choirs that support really amazing artists.
• 24:49
  I've sung in a choir supporting Sting and Pentatonix and, you know, all sorts of cool
• 24:55
  things.
• 24:55
  So I doing my own music live, like, the new age stuff is such a an interesting process.
• 25:00
  It's so much about the creation process for me.
• 25:02
  And I know there are people that, like, do circuits of performing at yoga festivals and
• 25:07
  meditation retreats and stuff, and I just don't I mean, to stand there and, like, press a
• 25:11
  button and press play on something and then add, like, one instrument on top of this, like,
• 25:15
  textured built thing, it doesn't that doesn't feel like how I would wanna perform.
• 25:19
  I much rather get on stage and make a difference and an impact speaking about
• 25:23
  something that is gonna resonate with the listeners.
• 25:25
  And, like, I have a couple songs I I pepper into to my, talks occasionally, but, yeah, it
• 25:32
  it feels like I've shifted from needing to be seen in that way, which I think it was
• 25:37
  definitely, like, a ego thing for a while.
• 25:39
  Like, not being the cool kid in high school and being like, now I'm in a band.
• 25:42
  And and now it's not a band anymore.
• 25:44
  So, yeah, I I'm not performing live as much unless there's a really unique opportunity for
• 25:49
  me to create something for that audience, which I will do.
• 25:52
  But, yeah, it's it's showing up being on stage and and performing is taking on a different
• 25:57
  meaning for me right now.
• 26:00
  Yeah.
• 26:00
  And, I mean, you with new age music and as much as your 'm sure your music has evolved over the
• 26:06
  years and including more, more pieces, right, that you would almost need an orchestra to
• 26:11
  perform some of this stuff live where it's not just pushing a button and kinda, like, you
• 26:16
  know, being behind the keyboard a little bit, which who knows?
• 26:19
  Well, we'll see the CBE orchestra out there one day.
• 26:22
  That would be pretty, pretty entertaining stuff too.
• 26:26
  That
• 26:26
  You feel yeah.
• 26:28
  Do you feel like it's more gratifying with the team that you have with this second nomination
• 26:34
  and this new album because it took so many pieces and so many people's energy working
• 26:40
  collectively rather than just, you know, you on a train and putting all of you into one thing,
• 26:46
  is it more gratifying to do that now with your team?
• 26:50
  It's definitely not more gratifying, but I also don't think it's less.
• 26:55
  I'm not it's just different.
• 26:56
  It just feels it just it it just feels like two very different different things.
• 27:02
  I I felt like the music for this album, like, I when we were making it, I was like, this is
• 27:07
  special.
• 27:08
  This feels special.
• 27:09
  Like, I knew that the collaboration was really magical.
• 27:12
  I knew bringing in Lonnie was, like, leveling it up in ways that we hadn't even anticipated,
• 27:17
  and having a live string quartet on ambient music is not, like, a normal thing, I feel
• 27:22
  like, in that it just yeah.
• 27:26
  I just felt like the sound is really full and, like, does something without being too so,
• 27:30
  yeah, I don't it it felt really and it was such a longer process that I think just knowing,
• 27:38
  like, yeah, we're creating something special and feeling that it's special.
• 27:42
  It it's nice to it it's not like, oh, this was yeah.
• 27:48
  There's something there's some kind of, like, very calming effect about it versus when I
• 27:51
  found out with a passenger, I was actually at a meditation retreat, and I found out someone
• 27:55
  came up to me.
• 27:56
  I was like, just found out you got a congratulations on your Grammy nomination.
• 27:58
  And I hadn't watched it yet because I was like, I'll watch it at the end of the day after this
• 28:02
  long meditation.
• 28:03
  And so I just sat through the next meditation.
• 28:05
  I was, like, crying and giggling and laughing.
• 28:07
  People were like, are you okay?
• 28:08
  I was like, you know, was like 2,000 I had such huge emotions, like, emotions.
• 28:13
  It was really unexpected.
• 28:15
  And this was kind of like this calming, like well, first of all, I've been here before.
• 28:20
  And that so it was in my realm of possibility already, and it hadn't been before.
• 28:24
  So that entering into that new space of a Grammy nomination is now possible.
• 28:29
  Like, that is a different you know, that is a a level up.
• 28:32
  Right?
• 28:33
  And here, I'm I'm there already because it's it's already happened.
• 28:37
  So, yeah, it's very more I don't know.
• 28:39
  I just felt like I'm a lot more and I it's also the work I've done in the last three years
• 28:43
  through all this stuff for myself.
• 28:45
  I went through a lot of panic and anxiety attack issues, and, like, I've done so much
• 28:49
  work to come on the other side of that.
• 28:51
  So I think just in general, my nervous system is just way chiller.
• 28:54
  So everything just kinda feels chiller, and that might be because I have this team and it's
• 28:58
  not all on me.
• 28:58
  And it and it wasn't because of me, all of all of me.
• 29:03
  I don't know if that answered your question.
• 29:04
  I don't know.
• 29:05
  Yeah.
• 29:05
  It came close enough.
• 29:07
  Cheryl, I don't wanna keep you.
• 29:09
  I you're such an incredibly busy woman.
• 29:11
  I I'm so grateful to have spent a little bit of your year with you.
• 29:15
  Such an exciting year at that.
• 29:19
  Congratulations to you, on the Grammy nomination here.
• 29:22
  Congratulations to your whole team.
• 29:24
  I hope this is the time that you get to win and you get get to stand up on that stage and to to
• 29:29
  say say all all of your thank thank yous yous and hopefully take up up all the time and they
• 29:33
  have have to play you you off the stage with their their music.
• 29:35
  Music.
• 29:36
  And
• 29:36
  I I hope the I you know, my collaborators will also get to speak.
• 29:41
  So I'm gonna I I will be the concise quick, quick one, and and then they they won't have to
• 29:46
  play us off.
• 29:48
  But thank you so much.
• 29:49
  This is great.
• 29:50
  I I'm so happy for you.
• 29:51
  You deserve it.
• 29:52
  You've been working so hard for so long to empower other musicians and artists, and we
• 29:57
  didn't get a lot of time today to talk about in the key of success.
• 30:01
  But I'd love to have you back after the award show and after a big win and to have you talk
• 30:06
  about it and more about the process and how you can, help others to maybe replicate that
• 30:11
  process for their own music, and we can pick it up from there.
• 30:14
  So good luck to you Definitely.
• 30:16
  At the Grammys.
• 30:17
  Yeah.
• 30:18
  Thank you.
• 30:19
  I mean, I'll just say I'll just end with this.
• 30:21
  There is there is something about being really specific with what you want and then making
• 30:26
  sure you have room for it.
• 30:27
  So that's the one thing I I will give you.
• 30:29
  At the end of the year, I always do this complete and create workshop.
• 30:32
  free.
• 30:32
  It's for musicians to kinda take all the crap that they did do and didn't do this year and
• 30:36
  then make some space to really get clear on what is it they wanna bring in and cause for
• 30:40
  the next year.
• 30:41
  So if anyone wants to pop onto that, it's you can go to inthekey.co/complete, and you can
• 30:45
  register, and it's free.
• 30:47
  So that's, and that really I go through my entire process for anything that I'm going
• 30:51
  after.
• 30:52
  I use this exact kind of model to to plop it in and say, let's let's go get this.
• 30:57
  Fantastic.
• 30:58
  Well, thank you so much for a little bit of your time today.
• 31:01
  And Sheryl B.
• 31:02
  Engelhardt, thank you for being part of the scene.
• 31:05
  You're welcome.
• 31:06
  My pleasure.
• 31:06
  Thanks for having me.