Latest / The Scene Projects / Jennifer Harper on Soul Alive, AI in Music, and the Healing Power of Podcasting

Transcript

Jennifer Harper on Soul Alive, AI in Music, and the Healing Power of Podcasting · The Scene Projects

• 0:00
  Well, welcome in to another exciting episode of the Scene.
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  I'm your host, Bubba Staartz, and with me today is singer, songwriter, and sound alchemist,
• 0:09
  Jennifer Harper.
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  Jennifer, welcome to the show.
• 0:12
  Thank you so much for having me.
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  This is fun.
• 0:16
  Yeah.
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  Well, we've already had a lot of fun off camera talking about technology and how we probably
• 0:22
  weren't made for TV, and it's a good thing we're both musicians.
• 0:25
  But, for all of our listeners who have probably never heard of you before, why don't you go
• 0:30
  ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll pick it up and talk about the new
• 0:34
  album you got coming out.
• 0:36
  Sure.
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  I am based in Stamford, Connecticut, though originally from Washington DC.
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  Lot of years in between there, but I I planted roots in Stamford, Connecticut about twenty
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  five years ago, raised three kids here, and really started my music career later in life
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  while I was raising my kids.
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  I had been very involved in music my whole life.
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  I started playing the piano when I was four, and I always loved music and did all kinds of
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  things along the way.
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  But it wasn't until I had my children that I really started writing.
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  And well, I wouldn't say I really started writing, but I start started the act of putting
• 1:23
  together an album.
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  So I'm now about to release my third album, and it's called Soul Alive, and it's coming out
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  Friday, September 5.
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  Not sure when this is gonna air, but it'll probably be live already.
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  And I've been working on it for all through the pandemic is really when I did the writing of
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  most of the material.
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  And I was super proud of this because feel all along the journey.
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  It's taken me a lot I think the story of the the story of my backstory is really the journey
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  to find my own voice and express my own voice.
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  That was something I had just a lot of trouble doing, finding confidence in that.
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  And with this album, I feel like I've really found what I wanted to say and how I wanted to
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  say it, and and and it feels just like a really beautiful and true artistic expression.
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  So excited.
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  Yeah.
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  Fantastic.
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  A five year, you know, road to get this thing to completion, and now here you are just a few
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  days from it getting out there into the world and and birthing itself.
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  Right?
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  Amazing.
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  Have, been working on a project myself, not quite five years, but some of the songs are
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  ten, you know, fifteen years old.
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  Right?
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  And I get it.
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  I've carrying them with me, and they've just been bottled up.
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  And over the course of the last year or so, I finally got them out and a chance to play with
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  some really talented folks that I've been friends with for a long time.
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  And, I don't have necessarily a band.
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  Right?
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  So to, like, get these big ideas out, I'm having to work with other individuals.
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  And so I know the feeling.
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  I know that excitement.
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  We're kind of in the mixing process right now.
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  So to see it kinda go from that raw you know, just the song and just the feeling.
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  Right?
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  It starts as a feeling.
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  I think most songs do.
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  And then to have it expressed and then finally ready to share with the world is so exciting.
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  So I'm thrilled for you, Jennifer.
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  That's Thank you.
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  Thank you so much.
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  Yeah.
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  This in particular too, I took a lot of creative risks in terms of not doing what I
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  felt was the safe choice or the typical choice in a lot of the ways that I structured the
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  songs and the lyric choices and the repetitiveness.
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  There's a lot of repetitiveness, almost mantra like quality in some of the songs, and that was
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  intentional and felt felt really just good to express myself that way and and not worry so
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  much how I mean, I I was crafted with intention with healing intentions.
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  In other words, I I work with the music.
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  They're almost like healing mantras for myself.
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  I work with them and then I shape them more so that I I feel that they will land for other
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  people.
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  But at the same time, so it's that balance of wanting them to land for other people, but
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  really not compromising artistically how I felt that would best take place, if that makes
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  sense.
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  You touched on touched on something there that that I really I kind of I don't think there's
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  room in this world for safe music anymore.
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  Right?
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  Like, we are here we are here to take chances.
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  We are here to express ourselves.
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  I have never been one to kinda mold what I do around a commercial aspect to it anyway.
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  That's not why I do music.
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  That's not what moves me to write songs.
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  Raw emotion moves me to write songs.
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  With you, it seems like there's an intentionality behind it of healing, so that's
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  why you're writing songs.
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  So why try to put that into a box that's ready for commercial for an industry that doesn't
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  want that anyway, for the
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  most So
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  it's really about creating something that's true to yourself and is a true expression of
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  your human genes.
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  And and I know that you have a, an affinity for, you know, some of, some much deeper
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  topics.
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  Right?
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  And I hope we have a chance to dig into a little bit.
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  But it's there's just not a space for safe music, at least in my world.
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  I I it's not what I want to do.
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  I and I and I'm thrilled to hear someone else kind of express that as well.
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  And I think it gives like, each one of us that do that for ourselves, we give another artist
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  permission to do that for themselves as well, and then it keeps going.
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  And I think that's why you had, you know, the explosion of rock and roll and all of this
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  beautiful music from the sixties.
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  And maybe some of this was drug induced too with a lot of it.
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  You know?
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  But they they weren't writing be to get big on the radio.
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  You know?
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  They they they were writing to express themselves, and then that went out there and
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  rung true with other people.
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  And that was what the cultural movement, I think, of the the sixties was really all about,
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  was everyone was just out there creating and expressing themselves.
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  And I I feel like music is coming back to that.
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  The pendulum swung so far to the, commercialized side, especially now with
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  Spotify and all these record companies just dominating our our world in that way that I
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  think artists just wanna create now.
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  And a lot of people around me are pulling their stuff down off of Spotify if Spotify hadn't
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  done it already and really just putting it out whether it's on Vinyl or it's on a a you know,
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  an app like Bandcamp or something like that.
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  But making it more available to, like, just the people that actually care to listen to it, not
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  necessarily putting it out there for all of the masses to consume.
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  So I commend you for that.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Interesting, actually.
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  I mean, there's a whole other can of worms, and I don't know that I definitely wanna open that,
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  but I just wanna say that, excuse me, with the advancement of AI, there's Spotify is kinda
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  like old news.
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  AI coming in is is the new iteration of what's gonna be happening with music.
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  Unfortunately, I just saw some really crazy stuff I was watching.
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  I've been blown away, Jennifer, by what I hear from it.
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  And I kind of because I'm not making any money off of music and I really have no intention of
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  of of making money off of music, at least in that, like, the the commercialized way, I don't
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  mind it.
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  I don't mind that other people are able to use this technology and to express themselves
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  because maybe they didn't have the time as a child or a parent that was going to be able to
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  afford to put them into piano lessons.
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  More interesting.
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  Given these advantages to do it.
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  Well and I've seen it from a few of my friends because I kinda was like you where I was like,
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  oh, you know, it's out there.
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  But if nobody's making any money anyway, then they're not taking anything away from me.
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  Right?
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  That they're not competing with me.
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  I appreciate your point of view.
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  But what actually what I was happened to be watching was, I guess it was a producer who had
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  a you know, knew how to work with the technology and basically created a character
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  character and gave her, you know, a name, created the idea for the song, and everything
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  was done in, like, two and a half minutes.
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  The image, the the thing so it's just it's not even using AI to make your to make music or,
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  like, you never played an instrument or you can sing or whatever.
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  This is literally, like, creating characters, creating AI artists and their catalog.
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  And it is to be able to for public consumption, and it is to be able to make money.
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  And it is you know?
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  So it's like, that's that's a whole other thing.
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  And I said, I I have so many other things that I'd rather talk about, but I just didn't have
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  to mention it because I just I saw it last night, and I was just like, woah.
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  This is And really
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  I think that I think humans are gonna be able to suss that out.
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  Because while you can create a pop star from that, you cannot artificially create human
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  connection.
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  And that's at it root Well,
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  Well, that's
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  what music truly is.
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  So it will never be able to replicate what you can do with just you and a piano.
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  And I guess that's why I kind of feel safe in my space.
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  I play guitar, and I write my own songs.
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  And I'm like, without power, you can't do any of that.
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  Can go sit around a campfire with with my guitar and entertain my friends Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Without any electricity whatsoever.
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  So Oh, sure.
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  I Yeah.
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  Obviously, with just where it's going, I have these conversations almost daily now on the
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  podcast.
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  And Yeah.
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  Some people that are really into it and some people that feel very much like you do.
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  And I don't I don't necessarily know where I stand because I kind of have a foot in both.
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  Right?
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  I appreciate, you know, people having a chance to express themselves, but also understand that
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  there are going to be now companies that are built on manufacturing pop stars from
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  absolutely nothing.
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  And Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  There's something icky about it, but I think, also, human beings are gonna suss that out as
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  well.
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  So Yeah.
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  We'll see.
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  It's gonna be an interesting five, ten years in the music business.
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  Sure is.
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  So you got the album coming out soon.
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  I'm just thrilled for that.
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  Can you tell us, you know, what's kind of your what's the one track on there that you're just,
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  the most thrilled to get out there?
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  I know it's like picking your favorite kid or something, but, I I wanna know the one track
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  that people really need to go in here when it comes out, actually this Friday.
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  So
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  Oh gosh.
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  You know, that's too hard.
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  That is like fucking one kid.
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  I can't do that.
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  I will whole say thing like an old album.
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  Right?
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  Lay it on.
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  Listen
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  I to the will say that there's one song on the album that's an extended version of a song that
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  I released as a single.
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  And I was a little more hesitant to release it as a single.
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  And for the album, I decided that I really wanted the extended version.
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  It's called Floating, and it's a song that really resonates with the stage of life that
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  I'm in now.
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  I just got my youngest off to college, so I'm now officially an empty nester and moving into
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  menopause.
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  And all of that that has come with that over the last, you know, decade, really, all the
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  changes as a woman and moving into this stage where my kids are you know, needed me less and
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  less and started moving out on their own and doing their own things.
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  And it's making peace with who I am, making peace with the stage of life I'm at, making
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  peace with my body, making peace with and more than making feet at peace with it, like, really
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  surrendering into the beauty of this stage of life.
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  So that song means a lot to me personally for that reason.
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  So
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  I I think that's awesome because it's something that and talking about pop and commercial
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  music, no commercial music is going to touch that subject.
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  Right?
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  It it would be frowned upon.
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  Who wants to talk about those things?
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  But it's something that every woman, you know, hopefully, if they live that long, is going to
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  go through, especially if they have children and all of these things.
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  So I think it's great that you really tackle, you know, really hard topics head on and using
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  your lived experience to kinda tell the story that maybe isn't as unique as, it may seem.
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  So it's just thrilling.
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  I cannot wait to listen to this album.
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  I'm getting really excited to check it out here in just a couple of days.
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  In your
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  Well, it's interest sorry.
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  Go ahead.
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  No.
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  I said it's just interesting to me because I always sometimes I wondered, does my music
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  resonate with men?
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  But I have had a lot of men.
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  I mean, clearly, it's written much more it's it's much more about the women's perspective
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  and women's healing and women's issues and and and and really about empowerment for women is
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  like something that I talk about a lot in connection with nature as well.
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  But I have had men reach out to me and tell me how much they enjoy my music, not only because
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  it touches them, but because it helps them understand that female perspective as well.
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  So
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  Exactly.
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  Because we're freaking clueless, Jennifer.
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  You know.
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  We're absolutely clueless, and some of our wives are are not as good at expressing these
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  things.
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  Mhmm.
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  You know, my wife and I deal with a lot of communicate I'm a talker, if you couldn't tell.
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  My wife is the polar opposite of that, especially when it gets to highly charged,
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  emotionally charged conversations and and really deep things like that.
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  And some of that is probably because I have a tendency to talk over her.
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  Right?
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  Because I am that talker.
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  So having, you know, a song that expresses who you are, like, that's what music and being an
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  artist is all about.
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  And kinda tracing back to the AI, I think that's something that AI will never be able to
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  recreate and to bring it doesn't have a human experience to fall back on.
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  You know?
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  It doesn't have that true human nature to it.
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  So, love it.
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  I I'm just thrilled that you're putting this out there into the world, and you're not scared
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  to to go ahead and and let it let it hang out there and to see what it does for the world and
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  how it changes it.
• 15:01
  You know?
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  It's it's a beautiful thing, and I really commend you for for taking some risks.
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  And and I think humanity will thank you in the end too.
• 15:09
  If you help one man understand his wife a little better, you might have saved a marriage.
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  Yeah.
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  Funny.
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  So in your bio, it says after discovering human design and gene keys, you spent two years
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  intensively studying these practices.
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  What can you tell us about how that relates to your music career?
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  Well, you know, understanding the self it's a system for understanding the self.
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  And particularly in Gene Keys works in frequencies, so shadow frequency, GIF
• 15:44
  frequency, and then the highest expression of your GIFs, which is called siddhi, s I d d h I.
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  I think it's how it's spelled.
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  And understanding the these frequencies and myself and exploring them gave me so much
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  material, really, for of things that I wanted to you know, it's sort of a puzzle to work out
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  a little bit.
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  Sometimes songwriting, like, I'm working through something and trying to understand it
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  and transmute it, transform it, come to some kind of embodiment of it.
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  Right?
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  So while studying the human design and the gene keys, my chart, I was also studying other
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  people's charts, particularly in my family.
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  And I just went deep into certain things about human nature that we all share and also
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  particularly, you know, in my own chart.
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  So the writing the the material, it it just gave me a lot to write about, think about.
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  And so that's part of it, how how it's in the music.
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  And then, in addition, I started working with clients one on one and helping other people
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  with their charts and understanding their charts.
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  And then what I discovered was, as I was doing this, that people were very profoundly affected
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  by my voice.
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  They would constantly say, it's not just what you're saying.
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  It's it's how you're saying it.
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  Like, your voice is transmitting something to me that's really helping me shift this.
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  So I started understanding and and, of course, people were giving that kind of feedback too
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  about my songs that these aren't just songs.
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  These are activations.
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  These are transmissions.
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  You know?
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  The the the sound and the messages were were affecting people on a much deeper level.
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  So I started well, it's sort of a longer story, but to make a longer story short of how it
• 17:51
  evolved in me, this process, I began combining intuitive sound, like, using my voice as a
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  sound healing instrument while I was doing my readings for people.
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  So I would read their charts.
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  I would sort of channel for them about their lives.
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  And then also, basically, I don't know on a better word than channel because that's how it
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  feels.
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  It's just, like, opening myself to receive the messages, and then they come through me and my
• 18:25
  voice and and singing and helping them move the energy.
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  So it's like an energy healing, and it's like a an energetic transmission and a voice healing
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  to do with their their birth charts, if that explains it.
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  I don't know.
• 18:48
  Very hard to explain, but, very powerful to experience.
• 18:55
  Awesome.
• 18:55
  So those these are your soul blueprint activations and sacred frequency
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  recalibrations.
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  Correct.
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  Yeah.
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  That sounds so incredible.
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  I am I am just I'm so intrigued.
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  I I bet you could go on for hours about this topic.
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  So I don't wanna have you go too far into it.
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  It's intriguing enough.
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  I hope people get a chance to come and check that out.
• 19:19
  Is this a service that you offer as well locally?
• 19:21
  It is.
• 19:21
  An an in person service?
• 19:23
  Well, I've done a lot on Zoom.
• 19:25
  Okay.
• 19:25
  Awesome.
• 19:26
  Fantastic.
• 19:27
  It's easy.
• 19:28
  Through my website, website, you can find Jennifer.
• 19:30
  Why don't yeah.
• 19:31
  Go ahead and share that, Jennifer.
• 19:32
  Sorry to cut you off.
• 19:33
  No.
• 19:34
  It's okay.
• 19:34
  It's jenniferharpermusic.com.
• 19:37
  And I believe there's a tab that says something like work with me or what I can do for you or
• 19:42
  something like that.
• 19:43
  And if you're interested at all in the sessions, you know, you can reach out through
• 19:48
  my website.
• 19:49
  You can say you found me here, and I can do some kind of a special for your audience.
• 19:54
  I'm happy to do that.
• 19:56
  Oh, that would be thrilling.
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:58
  It's a it's a very, very powerful and beautiful way of understanding the self.
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  And I have, through my own process, released a lot of blocks, and it has allowed me to come to
• 20:13
  the place I am now where where I'm not only bringing forth an album that feels like the
• 20:20
  truest expression of my artistry, but I'm also now offering these sessions to other people.
• 20:27
  So it has just opened up so much for me in my life that I never expected just through
• 20:33
  understanding my own soul blue blueprint.
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  So I'm so thrilled when I can do that for other people and the shifts that I've witnessed in
• 20:44
  people from changing direction in their career to, you know, some people have experienced a
• 20:50
  physical healing of something that's been bothering them to, you know, settling into a
• 20:57
  certain direction in their life that they were going, but they were hesitant or whether it's
• 21:03
  not understanding how to work with your energy.
• 21:06
  Certainly for artists, it could be really, really helpful in understanding your voice and
• 21:10
  your message and your purpose and all of these things.
• 21:14
  Fantastic.
• 21:15
  Yeah.
• 21:16
  I love it.
• 21:17
  Yeah.
• 21:17
  And, well and it gives credence to what I say.
• 21:20
  I I say it almost every episode now because I find it to be completely true, but I believe
• 21:25
  that podcasting and these conversations that we're having, this is how God is healing the
• 21:29
  world.
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  Right?
• 21:30
  Like, having this is so powerful.
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  But because of deeper than just the content of the conversation, it's the voices that we're
• 21:38
  having on our programs and all of these different podcasts.
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  And I think a lot of what you just taught here to us who have never heard of these things
• 21:47
  before and what you're doing in your sessions are an embodiment of that even further.
• 21:52
  So absolutely thrilling, Jennifer.
• 21:54
  Thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing a little bit about you and your
• 21:58
  things.
• 21:59
  We have some longer form programs that are also inside of the network.
• 22:02
  I would love to have you come back, and maybe we could do a session for me live on the air.
• 22:07
  That would be really
• 22:08
  fun.
• 22:08
  Really fun.
• 22:11
  Yeah.
• 22:11
  Interesting.
• 22:13
  Before I let you go, I'll give you a chance to plug everything one more time and make sure to
• 22:17
  mention the name of the album and, where they can find it.
• 22:20
  Oh, thank you.
• 22:20
  Sure.
• 22:21
  It's called soul alive, like your soul alive, and it's coming out on September 5 on all
• 22:28
  streaming platforms wherever you listen to music.
• 22:32
  And my website is jenniferharpermusic.com.
• 22:38
  And you can connect to me on socials through my website.
• 22:42
  It's probably the easiest rather than rambling off even more links that are hard to remember.
• 22:49
  But I think the best way is always through email because that's how you find out about
• 22:54
  different exclusives and you hear things first.
• 22:57
  And I also have you know, when you sign up for the mailing list, I have a free song, a very
• 23:04
  healing song.
• 23:07
  So, yeah, jenniferharpermusic.com.
• 23:10
  Fantastic.
• 23:11
  Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for giving me some of your time today, and thank you for
• 23:15
  being part of the scene.
• 23:17
  Thank you so much.
• 23:19
  Really appreciate it, and all the best to you and your mission here.