Musician
A Place to Start
by Janine Slayton

As children and teenagers, many of us at one time or another imagine ourselves as famous singers. We dreamed of being the next Diana Ross, Mariah Carey, or even Gwen Stefani. The fantasy of performing on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans, who are there just to hear and see you, is a common one. After all, being a famous singer is glamorous and exciting. It is a very rare few, however, who decide to really pursue that dream of creating their own music to share with the world. It takes someone passionate and determined to make a dream like that become reality. Inga is one of those rare souls who has decided to make that universal fantasy a reality for herself.

Inga was born in Riga, the capital of Latvia. As a young child and teenager, she moved around quite a bit with her family. At the age of seven, she moved to Denmark, where she learned to speak Danish fluently. She also resided in London (where she learned English), New York City, and Canada. In Canada, she attended a French school, and learned to speak French. Following Canada, she returned to Upstate New York for some time before eventually settling down in Florida.

Inga’s love for music began to manifest itself at a very young age, with little Inga putting on concerts for her dolls as she played with them. When she was young, her family owned a piano that they had inherited from her grandparents. She was always attracted to the piano, and eventually taught herself how to play. Although she loved the piano, her frequent moving made it difficult to really pursue the instrument. Years later, as a teenager, she discovered the guitar and fell in love. According to Inga, her introduction to the guitar was "a meeting of fate," and once it came into her life she never looked back. The guitar inspired her and ignited the fire within her soul to create music.

Everything in life can inspire art. Musicians and other artists are inspired by everything around them: family, friends, other artists, nature, and endless other things. Inga admits that everything around her influences her music, though some things have influenced her art more than others. As an avid reader, much of the Russian and French literature she has read over the years has influenced her art, as well as the works of the great Jane Austen. Enya has been another inspiration for Inga, who admires her for "the way she presents herself as an artist. I am intrigued by the way her music connects without her personality getting in the way."

Following in Enya’s footsteps, Inga’s goal is to create music that can connect deeply with others, without her own personality becoming infused into the music. The music is more about creating connections with and between other people than it is about promoting Inga herself. When she describes her songwriting process and what spurred her to create music, she refers to it as "a call to duty." Her songs, she says, write themselves, and she describes her songwriting process as "a prayer in reverse. I’m just receiving it, like I am a conduit." While the songs come from within her, and from her own experiences, there is also an outer influence that spurs her to write songs. When that inspiration strikes, she says the song just writes itself: "If it’s not written in five minutes, it’s not my song to write." Inga also compares her songwriting process to giving birth to a child, the song within needing nurturing and love to grow into something that enters the world. Creating music is "not creating something out of nothing. It is given to us, and we put it into place," she says.

Unlike many musicians today who are looking for fame and money, Inga’s focus is simply on connecting to the world around her, getting closer to nature and the people around her. The decision to share her music came not from within her, but from nature itself, and she says,"Everything depends on nature, and we all depend on each other. It was time to share my music, to give it away because someone else might need it." She shares her music not for fame or money, or the traditional definition of success that we all adhere to, but because she feels it is her duty to share it.

Every artist has themes that they explore through their art. Many songwriters focus on the idea of love in their music, and as a result there are countless songs floating around in the world that focus on the subject. Inga believes that love songs definitely have their place, because especially during their teenage years, girls are at a stage where they are looking for love, but they don’t necessarily know what love is yet. The majority of musicians writing love songs, however, "create an ideal for love that sets young girls up for failure. I aspire to write love songs that are real and tangible. It is not all about passion. The way I see it, true love grows on the foundation of sincere friendship." She believes that music needs to have a more positive and realistic message, especially considering the amount of people who turn to music to find ways to cope with the struggles they are facing in their own lives. As a result, she tries to focus on sending positive message through her music and inspiring her listeners, regardless of the topic of the song.

Inga’s musical journey has been very different from most other musicians’. She has paved her way into the musical world entirely on her own. While her friends and family have encouraged her dreams to create and share her music with the world, she has gotten to where she is today through her own determination and perseverance. She taught herself how to play the guitar, nurturing that talent herself over the years. When it came time to learn how to compose and produce her music, again she did what was necessary to teach herself those skills. As she has said, she needed to learn these things out of necessity, but there is also "a power in realizing that you need something and you can work through the process on your own. It’s about not being afraid, getting it wrong a few times and then [eventually] getting it right." Rather than feeling that taking the time to learn these aspects of music production was a setback, she looks at it in a positive light. The years she spent learning music production and engineering and creating her own website to promote her music allowed her to remain in control of her art, rather than forcing her to become a puppet of the recording industry. It may be a longer, bumpier road, but at the end of it she knows that her music and everything she accomplishes is due to her own hard work and the guidance she receives from within.

Currently, Inga is working on an untitled acoustic album, which, as she says, is "a return to the place where I first started as a songwriter." This is a departure from her previous releases, Riding the Wind and Invisible Rivers EP, which showcased more of her new age and electronica side. While she says that she still loves the new age and electronica genre, she knows that what she needs now is to explore that more honest and simple realm that the acoustic world opens up. Instead of hiding behind the rich layers of sound that electronica provides, Inga is now ready to bare her soul to the world in her acoustic music.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be,"
– Douglas Adams

When Inga began her journey with music many years ago, she envisioned a future for herself with the music she created. The journey has not always taken her where she expected to go, but she says that she has ended up in a place far better than she expected. She believes that through her trust in nature and her faith, she will continue to be guided. If she shares her music without expecting anything in return the universe will provide for her needs. While it is sometimes frightening to bare her soul to the world with her acoustic music, it also helps her to understand and connect with "what is important". In fact, while she describes sharing her acoustic music as personal as "sharing an intimate diary…full of scribbles, imperfections, and crossed out lines," at the same time she feels that it is not about herself at all.

Inga is a truly remarkable young artist, full of love, life, and hope for the future. Listening to her music, one can’t help but feel a sense of peace and hope, which is exactly the feeling she is hoping to evoke. Through her music, she hopes to capture the idea of what she believes life is all about: "Those simple miracles that are easily overlooked, yet reflect the foundation of the universe: a smile of a friend, a spring shower, a harvest of food, a blooming flower…" Inga’s strong spirit and immense love for life can serve as an example for us all. She has proven that with some hard work, determination, and appreciation for the world around us, there is no dream that can not come true, and the reward we get for following our heart’s earnest pursuit can surpass our own expectations!

A Fabulous Woman Spotlight!
Meet Janine Slayton
by Musician Inga

Janine is the one who interviewed me for The Fabulous Woman Magazine. Normally it is the one being interviewed, not the interviewer, who gets all the "exposure" and "credit". But it is the Interviewer who comes up with just the right questions to ask, jots or types down the answers in a chaotic manner (in order to be able to keep up with the flow of the conversation). And then the Interviewer sits down to a sea of scribbled notes and contemplates various ways and angles in which to best spotlight the subject. (more)

Being a lover of language and writing myself, I understand and appreciate the enormous effort that goes into writing something meaningful and honest.

Without people like Janine who are dedicated and committed to bringing the best out in others, we the artists, would be gray and bleak figures. Our stories would go untold and our efforts and battles would remain wingless when it comes to inspiring others to follow their own dream.

And so, I wanted to sincerely thank Janine for the beautiful story that she has written about me. Without her skillful arrangement of words stories like mine would not be interesting. After all, what is an inspiring story? Without the author's enthusiasm the most extraordinary story will not touch a soul. But once an author like Janine puts her heart and pen to it the most ordinary accomplishment all of a sudden gains wings and flies on to inspire others to dream, do dare, and to believe in the magic of life!

Thank you, Janine!