Mandy Rowden on Music, Fear, and Finding Joy When You’ve Forgotten How
When was the last time you had fun just for the sake of it?
In this episode of ROAR, host Danielle Davies sits down with Mandy Rowden—singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founder of Girl Guitar—to talk about what happens when women stop waiting for permission and start picking up the mic.
From her early love of music to founding a one-of-a-kind community where women can be loud, messy, and unapologetically themselves, Mandy shares how joy became her form of rebellion.
🎸 In this conversation
• How to find creativity again when life feels too serious
• Why fun and fearlessness go hand in hand
• The story behind Girl Guitar and the Texas Women’s Songwriters Festival
• What music can teach us about taking up space—one chord at a time
00:00 Introduction to Roar
00:23 Sexual Assualt PSA
01:20 Meet Mandy Rowden: Musician and Educator
04:05 The Birth of Girl Guitar
08:05 Empowering Women Through Music
21:59 The Texas Women's Songwriters Festival
26:17 Celebrating Mexican American Women in Music
27:17 Diversity in Skillset and Selection Process
30:04 Challenges and Standards for Women in Music
34:37 The Importance of Creative Confidence
37:43 Balancing Music with Other Pursuits
41:29 Creating a Custom Career Path
44:28 Dream Concert Lineup of Texas Women Songwriters
47:33 Upcoming Projects and Online Courses
51:29 Final Thoughts and Farewell
To follow Mandy and her projects
Girl Guitar:
Mandy Rowden website:
IG:
Texas Women’s Songwriter’s Festival:
Musicians Mentioned
Lydia Mendoza:
Cindy Walker:
Lisa Loeb:
Lucinda Williams:
Rose Flores:
Sarah Hickman:
Kimmy Rhodes:
Tish Hinojosa:
Also Mentioned
Ira Glass:
Lucky Star Art Camp:
Listen to ROAR with Danielle Davies: Women, Culture & Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New conversations every Tuesday.
Full Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.
Hey, I'm Danielle Davies and you're listening to Roar, a show that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading change, and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some noise. Every 60 seconds, nine people in the United States are sexually assaulted. 7 million rapes each year. But the people behind the Fund to Prevent Sexual Assault believe sexual violence is preventable.
Your support helps fund programs that empower young people, train leaders, and create safer spaces for everyone. Prevention starts with action. org to learn more and donate today. Hi everybody, welcome to Roar. This is your host Danielle Davies.
Today we're talking about music. Not just as entertainment, but as something deeper. Music, as anybody who listens to it knows, it's a force. It's a source of identity, community, and resilience. And for women, claiming a space in music, whether through songwriting, picking up an instrument for the first time, or stepping onto a stage, is its own kind of quiet rebellion.
Our guest today, Mandy Ralden, knows this firsthand. She's a singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and the founder of Girl Guitar, Austin's original rock and roll school for women. Since 2007, she's been helping women find their voice, sometimes literally, and proving that joy, creativity, and self-expression aren't just hobbies. Their acts of defiance in a world that too often tells women to be small. And Mandy has hardly stopped there.
She's a professor of business in music at Texas State University and an online educator for Elixir Strings. She's also the creator of the Texas Women's Songwriters Festival, an event that celebrates the power of women's voices, bringing together both legends and emerging artists. So, today we're going to talk about music as resistance, creativity is confidence, and why every woman deserves to take up space. Welcome, Mandy. Thank you.
God, I'm going to get all tearary during this introduction. Well done, Danielle. Thank you so much for being here. And as full disclosure, Mandy is a friend and I met her many years ago in one of her well actually I met her before I took her class. I met her at Lucky Star Art Camp in Texas where she entertained us wildly, but also extended her vast knowledge to all of us by eventually teaching us guitar, running a glee club, which is still a source of huge embarrassment and also awesomeness for me.
So, she's amazing and she just continues to do things that push the envelope. So, I'm very excited that you're here. I'm thrilled to be here. And I'm laughing about Glee Club now because I think of everything that you just rattled off, probably the thing that has made me the most nervous and made me work the hardest between master's degrees and building festivals and owning a women's guitar school and becoming a professor. The hardest thing is that freaking Glee Club every year.
I still I still have my t-shirt that says Glee Club. And the year I did it, we did this dance. We just, you know, I'm never ever going to share that video with like the world. But eventually we flip girls in the front flip their heads down so that we look like the butts of horses and our ponytails are hanging. And I showed my family and they were like alternately thrilled and like enthusiastic and totally astounded.
What exactly are you doing at Art Camp? So, thank you for that, too. I'm never gonna stop laughing about that. Well, let's let's talk about all the things you do besides Glee Club, which is obviously the highlight. Obviously, you've built your whole career really around music, whether as a professor, an entrepreneur, a performer, the whole nine yards.
but you're not just playing it, you're making sure other woman women have a place in it. What first drew you to music and when did you realize it would actually become your life's work? It's kind of a loaded question, but I remember being like five, six, seven age and just that's all I cared about. Like I don't know what I would have or could have done if music hadn't somehow kind of panned out for me. And I often joke that I'm just going to wrap it all up and go apply at the grocery store here in town or something, but because that feels like the only other skill I might be able to have.
But I it's just always been the only thing that appealed to me. And so I went to college originally to become a music educator, but I quickly realized that the music degree was going to end me up like teaching orchestra in a middle school somewhere or something, which I knew even at that age that wasn't what I wanted to do. So I just started performing and then that kind of parlayed into a lot more performing. And then I always did love teaching. And then I, you know, I began teaching guitar lessons which led to guitar classes, which morphed into, oh, it's a lot more fun when it's just a bunch of women for some reason.
It's a way a way cooler groove and it's just gone from there. So again, kind of a loaded question. There wasn't exactly one moment where I knew, but there was never any moment where I knew of anything else. If that makes sense. That makes total sense where you're like there's no moment that I didn't know kind of, you know.
well, but even like it was cooler with Girls, I got you. Girl Guitar, but did you feel like something was missing in the music scene at the time that made you feel like a space for women needed to exist or did you just It would be great if I could sound really intelligent and say that I really put all this thought into I I knew it but without a lot of cognizant thought. I didn't know what all existed out there. I just knew that I needed to pay my phone bill and because it got cut off and throwing together a class was going to be the quickest way to get a little pile of cash. And it just that's just kind of how it started.
I didn't say the world needs this. I'm going to step in and fix it. It was just kind of like, well, damn, we're having a lot of fun. Let's do more of it. And then we did a lot more of it.
And then people say, "Wow, this is so needed. " And this is the first time someone's ever come around and said, "Yeah, totally. " And here we are. We're doing it now. let's go.
And you know, it took a while to figure that out, but I think it's so great that you like I actually think that's even cooler because you started it just for yourself really. You liked it. You thought it was a good way to make money, but then it turned out I mean I feel like it's part of all that growing up that we do where we look back, you're like, perhaps I've made a difference here. Like but you have in so many and when you said we'll just do it right now I'm laughing because when I did have you teach me guitar for one day six hours where I could not feel my fingers again I was also full disclosure the only one who came to the class fully unprepared having never held a guitar before like I mean I had held one but not properly and I didn't know anything about it and that night was it that night or the next night we performed. Yeah, something crazy.
So, which is ridiculous. but also awesome. so but now that you have done this for a while, let me ask you and you know when we spoke offline, we talked about women's voices in music and you know how there's their your own kind of world of I don't want to say unfairness, but you know, women getting possibly the short end of the stick in music. How does simply picking up a guitar or writing a song or singing in a band become an act of power for women? That's a really good question and one that I could talk about a lot.
Let me see if I can organize my thoughts and say for one thing, the creative process makes us feel really freaking good. sometimes we create stuff that ultimately isn't cool to look at or listen to, but the process of having made it is transformative and powerful and just freaking fun. I mean, it's why I don't have to go into that. We all understand that the creative process is often its own reward. So, just simply facilitating a way for people to do that is freaking great.
but something that I'm quite upfront about in the world of guitar is, let's be honest, y'all, we all think playing guitar looks cool on some level. You picked guitar over the sack. I don't want to say that. Over I don't know, something else. Oops.
There's a bias. The clarinet. I don't know. I mean, there I offended a bunch of saxophone players out there and I'm so sorry, but like let's just be shallow for a minute and think about rock and roll visuals and it's freaking cool and everybody kind of wants to be that person up there jamming on the guitar and owning the stage and having the time of their lives. It's just really appealing.
And so after a little bit of time at Girl Guitar, that's them, man. And it's like, look at me. I'm living out this kind of crazy fantasy. It is, you know, it does have that shallow side to it, which I'm not really embarrassed about, but it also totally ties in the creative process as well, which is very profound. And so, it's kind of like the best of all worlds.
I'm endlessly. It totally is. But also, like I was just going to say, you know, you said that goes without saying that the creative process in itself is so good for you, but really not every it doesn't go without saying, goes without saying for you. And maybe it goes without saying for somebody you met at art camp, but for the world at large, some people have no don't tap into that creativity or the fun and the joy that are part of it. So, how do you see that as like how do you see those things as forces for good?
one thing that we battle at Girl Guitar that may be universal, but I can really only speak to my experience. We're right here in Austin, Texas, which is an incredibly huge and developed music scene. So, every night of the week, there is high quality, wonderful music in front of everybody. And so, there's a misconception that's what music looks like. And then when you're brand new and you pick up a guitar and you don't sound like that and you don't sound like that six months in or a couple of years in, it's discouraging.
I suck. I don't sound like a professional, so I guess I wasn't meant for music, which sometimes kind of grows into, I guess I wasn't meant for creativity and arts because we see so much great stuff and we stack ourselves up against that and it's debilitating. And so my big platform around Girl Guitar is, yeah, we're trying to work hard. We want to become excellent at our craft. We want to improve and polish, but who says you can't be having fun in the meantime?
Because making the noise, writing the songs, opening your mouth and singing, getting together with a bottle of wine and a bunch of crazy women and doing all this together, that's a reward in itself. And at this moment, it's pretty secondary if our music would actually impress an audience or not. That's not the goal first, you know. Does that make sense? It makes total sense.
And I don't know if you know this, but do you have maybe it came from like I heard it from visual artists before, but do you ever hear about that? It's so old now. Ira Glass, I believe, gave a talk an NPR literally probably 20 years ago. I mean, it was before 2012 for sure. So, oh my god.
So, it's definitely 20 years ago. So, anyway, I'm like a hundred. But, I was like, whoa. But, he basically said that like you have taste it. You may have very good taste.
And so, when you see somebody that's done something well, you can identify it. you know, because you have good taste that's good, but you don't have that yet. So, you're like, I suck. I shouldn't even But it took you don't see all the steps that takes them to get to that point in time. Do you know what I mean?
So, like there's all those moments of self-doubt, moments of self-discovery, creativity, falling on your face, like all of those things are wrapped into the final product. Totally. Yeah. that I mean, leave it to Ira Glass to say it a lot more eloquently than Okay. I'm sure he practiced like that's exactly what I'm talking about.
And I say this to my students all the time. I'm like, look, whoever you admire as a guitar player, they made all these same mistakes. They went through the same frustrating process you're in right now. They yelled the same string of cuss words working on this. You know, you just you didn't get to see it.
So, don't get in your head. that if you are meant to play music, it's all supposed to just fall out of your fingers and like you're just a Mozart right out of the womb where everything's just inherent. That's not how it goes. That's not realistic. We work our butts off.
Oh, did you see that? Look at my filter. We work our butts off to get there. " No, it's practice. Wow.
I wish I could be good as you. Well, you could practice. And wow, well, you know, you're magic. And the musician's like, "No, I work. I work.
I work. I work. " So, that's how you get there. And I just think at Girl Guitar, it's a really cool place for us to be going through all of that, getting there together. It's more fun.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and I want to ask you, do you have you seen somebody like is there a moment where you've seen somebody like step into themselves in a more fuller way like through Girl Guitar? I mean, I feel like I've seen it through with your work myself, but have you seen it? Are there any pivotal moments like that you can remember and share with us?
For sure. in the last several years, for example, I've really, taken on the role of producer several times. So, I've actually gotten to go in the recording studio with women from Girl Guitar who have gotten far enough that they've written enough songs for an album. And so, there I am, you know, in the studio working as producer, often playing a lot of the instruments on their recordings, but get, you know, getting them through this. And I've watched them go from terrified to play a song on stage for the first time years ago, maybe having a good cry afterwards, to now like releasing an album.
It's on Spotify. They're they've gone on tours, they're submitting for festivals, they're doing stuff, they're gigging out there. It's the craziest thing in the world. You know, I told you earlier like I don't have kids, but this is my, you know, this is my getting to raise somebody up and watching them take off and leave the nest and everything. absolutely.
Abs. I mean, they're like all over the place. You're watching like evidence of your But even like for me, I feel like seeing at Lucky Star remember I don't remember who it was, but I can remember a woman saying like you were on her list like forever that she just wanted to do something with you like glee club. She signed up for Glee Club and I think she signed up for Girl Guitar at Lucky Star and it seemed like by the end of you know it's it's five what four days. By the end of the four days she was like a bigger bolder version of herself with just that little bit of like inspiration innov you know like just that little push from you.
So I think you are seeing it in really big ways, but I think even just the littlest ways like it's awesome. I mean even just for myself I'm like I sang on stage. So there you know's butt danc totally did. I totally did. Like nobody's business.
Well, that's interesting. I've been told and I see this so I guess this is relatively true that I think I set an example of having fun without too much worry about perfection. You've seen me perform a dozen times and I'm not flawless. I make silly mistakes or I say the wrong thing or I forget a lyric and I'm I'm not a super polished showman in every respect at every turn. And I think that helps people to see like, oh, I've been over here waiting until I think I'm perfect before I let anybody see me as an artist or a musician or any kind of performer, but what if I just started having fun performing and then maybe this perfection thing comes later or maybe like realistically the perfection thing is an illusion and screw it.
I just like quit caring about that. But, you know, I think that I inspire people to go, "Well, look at Mandy. " Yeah. Right. but do you think that's something, just out of curiosity from your experience, do you feel like that's something that women need to see more than men?
Like I feel like just as a like just as a mom and I'm thinking about like being a room mom and you're bringing in your perfect cupcakes cuz like you want to not have the shitty cupcakes, you know? You want to be the one to not you don't want to be embarrassed. You want to you want to do the best you can. You don't know what you're doing, so you're grasping at straws. Like there's no Well, there are guide books now, but I'm always like there's no guide book to being a parent.
There are. I just I didn't write one. But it's got to be. Do you feel like it's like that or do you feel like everybody's like that? well, with the standard disclaimer of it's silly to lump everybody in like they're all the same.
I will say that most women I know, myself included, have some weird invisible source of pressure on us to be more perfect than is realistic for us. I don't know if it's that we kind of came up in this age of social media and we see unrealistic versions of other people and then compare ourselves. I don't know or if that's just part of it. I don't know what it feels like to be a dude. so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I do think that in a lot of cases they are raised with a stronger sense of confidence.
And I say this to my students sometimes at Girl Guitar. They're playing kind of quiet. They're being a little mousy. They're scared to kind of put it out there. " Which means, "Why wouldn't everybody want to hear what I'm doing?
I should turn this up. " And I know that's overeneneralized and all, you know, like with me, but go ahead, keep going. You know, I do think that there is a difference there. We want to like turn down and stay inward focused until we've got the perfect product to unleash. And then I don't think that lands in most cases.
I don't think that perfection is real. And if we're waiting on that, we're going to continue waiting. Whereas there are other people for the sake of the example, let's call them dudes who u I think wake up in the morning. Why doesn't everybody want to hear what I have to say? You know, I'm laughing so hard because so my husband, you met Ed once.
My husband, great guy. He's not a skilled musician. I don't mean he's not a learned musician. He can't read any music. He doesn't he has no idea what it says in front of him, but he can really sound things out in a way that I've never been able to.
Even with like 12 years of piano lessons, I couldn't sound anything out. I have no ear for that at all. He does. But with that said, he's also got like a drum kit and multi guitars and whatever he wants. And he's out there, you know, in our back porch just banging away.
Friends come over, they play the guitar. They're all like jamming out. They have no serious qualifications, nor should they. They're having a good time and that's the point. But he does.
He had an amp and now he's got somebody gave him an amp that is like it's for like a concert. It's a It's a humongous amp and he's got this in my back porch. I'm like, why would we possibly ever need this? I mean, we don't have a lot of space. It's big.
It's It's bigger than my desk. I mean, it's it's a big thing. And he's like, so people can hear. Why wouldn't they want to hear this? Right.
Exactly. I think we should get a bigger amp. Obviously. Obviously. I mean, and so they can hear, I think they want to be immersed in it.
You know what I mean? And I get, which I do totally get. okay. So, now I want to ask you another thing. You've taken this further.
You didn't, you know, you wanted to always be in music, so you are. You perform, you write songs, you've got CDs and albums and go on tours, but you also are an entrepreneur. You run Girl Guitar. you now teach, but you're also running the Texas Women Songwriters Festival. You are the founder of it.
And this fir this is the first year, right? This September. Yes. So tell us about the moment when this idea clicked for you because we're further along now. Like it's not Girl Guitar where you're like, you know what, I need 50 bucks.
Like I'm do this. This is a whole festival. So what made you say like this needs to happen? it was a process, but as a songwriter, I've played many songwriter festivals. And it's probably worth noting that, that is a sort of a different format than maybe what most people picture music festivals being.
Big stages, open fields, that kind of stuff. Songwriter festivals tend to always be in like cute, walkable downtowns, and you're going to have like seven or eight little venues right there in that downtown that have music going the whole time. And it's very often three artists on stage at a time playing in the round, meaning you play a song, you play a song, you play a song, do it again. So, that's your basic songwriter festival format. I've played a lot of these.
They are a blast. It's an amazing networking event. It's a really neat, immersive experience for the people who come to them. So, I've admired the format. and I've dabbled with lots of ideas.
I was living right in the middle of downtown Austin as this was all kind of formulating in my mind. And downtown Austin is a terrible place for this. It's way too crowded and way too big and loud and rowdy. So, several things culminated. I finished my master's degree in 24 and I wrote my thesis on Texas women songwriters and I'm very wrapped up right now in just how little there is out there in writing and academics and performances and opportunities for women specifically Texas songwriters.
So that's hot on my brain. And then I just recently moved to the town of Lockheart, Texas, which is just south of Austin. and it is the perfect place for something like this. It's this amazing arty town full of music, great little downtown community, wonderful venues, wonderful business owners. Coincidentally, the whole freaking downtown seems to be run by women, just bad ass business women.
so, the pieces came together. I just kept thinking, I'm not really ready. I'm going to try starting this very small. Let's do it tiny. Let's do two venues.
and that's just become blown out of the water. So, here we are about 3 months into the planning process and we have, I believe at the moment, eight stages. We've got so far confirmed four headliners who are of the Texas songwriting royalty. They are so exciting. I'm really pumped to have them.
And we're going to end up with over 50 artists nationally and locally touring songwriter women with a big focus on diversity. side note, women age out in music and it's BS. So, we are actively including all ages of women songwriters. That is awesome. Yeah, I'm big on that.
I'm big. I want some There's some damn cool old ladies playing music around here and I want them on our festival. I want people to see that. so I'm not really buying into the whole sex appeal thing that women are supposed to bring to the stage. Bring it if you want it.
That shouldn't be your selling point. I don't think like no naked dress needed. Like just Oh, no. That's You didn't You interrupted. I didn't get to finish.
Everybody has to wear the naked dress. We're there. We're there. Send me mine, please. Yeah.
No, but I think that's great that you're like extending it to all ages. And do you want to plug some of your headliners right now, by the way? Absolutely. I do. and I'll say really quick, too, that Lockheart has, I believe, a 53% Mexican-American population.
I mean, we're Central Texas, so we have a lot of Mexican-Americans around here. And so, it's been important to me to include that in our lineup as well, which is part of why I'm like crazy proud to have Rosie Flores and Tishosa as headliners. Two Mexican-American women who are just freaking great. just take my word for it or look them up or whatever, but they are. And then we also have confirmed Sarah Hickman and Kimmy Rhodess who are also what I would consider of the royalty of what Texas songwriting has to offer.
We have some other ones that I'm still kind of working on, so I don't want to say anything for sure yet, but I realize not all your listeners are from Texas, so this will be, you know, a little bit lost on some people, but I promise it's awesome. I'm gonna I'm gonna link to it anyway. Hey. And will you have like any video of any of it? Even if it's just like little bits on social media when the festival happens.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, I'll be able to follow up. So, and I'll do that.
I'll make sure we do that. well, and I wanted to ask you when you're talking about diversity, are you also talking about diversity of skill set? Because the what I got from reading is like the festival brings together legendary but also upandcoming artists. And what's the magic in that combination? And what's that look like?
I mean, you've got somebody who I looked up Rosie Flores this morning, so she's got like a huge history. I mean, isn't there a Rosie Flores day in Austin? Probably. Yes. I'm pretty sure I saw that there's a Rosie Flores day.
" Like, what's that like? and it or is it that same level of are you are you reaching out to people with such diverse experiences? It's a good question. I am holding the selection committee to a pretty high standard of musicianship. So there's got to be a level of being able to hold your own on stage.
So when you say diversity of skill, we are actively looking to book several women who maybe have not been discovered on any level yet, but they have to be able to perform. and that is no disrespect to other women who are maybe like just newer in their process. And the answer for them is not necessarily no, but it's not yet. as a guitar player, I have a chip on my shoulder about the idea that you just look cool if you have a guitar. Even though I know what I said earlier, but point being to you do look cool, but you also have to be able to play that thing and know what you're doing.
Nobody gets to skate by in my little in my little world that I'm trying to facilitate here. Nobody gets to skate by on the I just look cute, so it's good enough thing. No, women are some freaking badass musicians and we're going to show that off. That's that's very important to me. Well, and yes, and I was just first of all, I think it's really cool though that because you're like, okay, you've got Girl Guitar, so that is kind of that nourishing, bring you up, get you the confidence you need to then go out, do this, get enough experience where then you can kind of migrate over to a different performance level, but also that you are holding up women to the same standards because why should you not?
Why would you soften it? Why would you say, "Okay, it's open for everybody because we're women and we just like you all. Come comes to come. Danielle, you know one chord. You learned some chords six years ago.
Come on. By all means come perform. So what are why do you think it is so important by the way to hold women to that same standard or to people in general? I think this exists in a lot of professions. I can really only speak for music because it's what I know.
But it's it's understood that as a woman guitar player you can't necessarily just be as good as the guys. You often have to be better if you really want to stand out. It's unfair, but it's very, very true in a lot of situations. there are a lot of women out there, there are a lot of men as well, but this is the point I'm trying to get at, but there's a lot of women out there who haven't done their work on holding their own on the guitar. they maybe have beautiful voices.
They maybe have beautiful presentations on stage, but I'm a guitar player and I'm impressed by and intending to motivate people to do their work and get freaking good, you know? So, part of encouraging people to do that is for more women to see women doing that, right? So, I've got to put in front of everybody what I'm trying to get everybody to aspire to. So, I hope that makes sense, but it feels cyclical to me. is like if we keep raising up or or putting in public positions performance-wise, women who just get by on cup size or whatever else, then that's going to be the standard.
And I'm intending to try to set other standards, which means just freaking be good. Just work, keep working. Absolutely. And and I was just going to say, I mean, obviously that's why a songwriter festival for women would be so important because you're seeing the best. Yes.
And women have been so tokened in the festival scene. because there's been a lot of kickback. It's obviously kind of a boys club, especially here in Texas. Push back, I should say. There's a lot of push back.
Why don't you book more women? So now all the festivals have to book their token like three women or something. And so you'll see the festival posters and here's like all the big names. All the big names. And then at the bottom it says and more.
It's kind of implied that's the chicks that they put the they put the girls down there and the and more. And it's kind of some BS and so you know I'm just doing what I can my little contribution to balance that back out a little bit. Cool. And so what do you think women are able to showcase at your festival that they aren't able to showcase someplace else? Just themselves, I guess.
Yeah. Themselves. They're not even allowed in themselves in force, right? Because there's a synergistic element to all of this. I can go on stage and play the same songs and be the same guitar player and the same person, but there is something really special that happens when a bunch of women get together and do creative work.
I've seen it for 18 years now in Girl Guitar. I've seen it for what 13 years now at Lucky Star. I did. It's just like to me that's a no-brainer. I recognize that.
I appreciate that insanely. And so, I'm excited. I am going to assume for a lot of us at the festival, this is going to be the first time where it's truly about us. We're not the and more. We're not just like a statistic that they had to get at least 20% chicks in there or else someone was going to complain.
You know what I mean? Like that just does. Oh, sorry. Stuff just doesn't exist here. And it's just all about, you know, just being awesome together and elevating each other as much as possible.
I hope that makes sense. I realize everything you're saying is making so much sense. If my mouth's hanging open, it's because I'm like, "Yes, like I do need to come back to Texas. " well, you know what? And you know, you talked about the different levels and holding women accountable for their own success in many ways, like once you get the basics down, etc.
And like then you got to practice, right? because it I think there is that initial oh am I this person that can do this that some women face and then obviously at that level you're not like you need to be the best like you need to be performing at that level it's just you can do this you too can stand up here and say something so pe I think a lot of women a lot of people struggle with creative confidence but you're dealing mostly with women and oftentimes it could be singing writing or even raising their hand in a classroom what do you say to someone who feels that pull towards music but doesn't feel even good enough to start or not confident enough to even start exploring it. in my experience, most people in that position are in the school of what we talked about earlier. If they can't be perfect about it, then they get too discouraged. So, my advice that I've doled out a thousand times to students and to myself is look, you better love this.
You better love playing and working on it because that's going to be its own reward. You are going to have to work hard. This is going to take forever. You're going to have like really frustrating moments, but like as long as you love creating the stuff, then that you've already won. You know, the rest is just kind of riding out the wave.
Does that make any sense? It does. And I feel like you embody it so much because you didn't pick just one thing. And I'm not when I say just, I'm not negating the impact that any one thing has. It's just the way of saying you picked multiple things.
You didn't focus on becoming a performer to the exclusion of everything else. You became a performer. You're a songwriter. You're a musician. You're a teacher.
You're an entrepreneur. you're running a f like you've involved music in every aspect of your life instead of saying okay I want I think a lot of times people have a dream and their dream it's not just perfect but it's such so foreign to them it's such a dream that it's like this idealistic moment like I will be the Oscar-winning actress but how about like incorporating it into your daily life or all the different ways you can go about doing that and Yeah, of obviously it's 2025. We can hope there's more opportunities for women. Although at this rate, who knows? But you know, in terms of history, we hope that we just continue to move further for on behalf of everybody, right?
That women have equal stage, equal footing with anybody else. but I think it's great coming from you especially because you do exemplify somebody who's taken music and like wrapped their whole lives around it or and had it you have it in every aspect of your life. You're sitting there with a cello in the background. That is a cello, right? It's a bass.
It's okay though. Like it's hard to see from here. It's It's so obvious. It could say bass and I still would have called it a cello. At least you didn't call it a saxophone.
Let's bring that. At least I didn't call it a saxophone. So, yes, you're making perfect sense. But speaking, you know, you told you said that you since you were a little girl, you always wanted to be in music. Have you ever and I can't even imagine that this is a yes, but I have to ask you and maybe you're going to surprise me, but have you ever had a moment where you doubted your own place in music?
And if you did, how did you push through it? I've had a million moments of it. I mean, like, I'm as human as everybody else, and I've got all the self-doubt that comes with that, you know. I'm pretty hard-headed. I'm very belligerent, stubborn, whatever super attractive word you want to stick in there.
But, I don't think I ever fully thought about quitting music, even when I've been super discouraged. But there was a point that comes to mind where I thought I'd be really healthy if I rounded out some of my stuff. Like it would be good for me to get my head out of this scene a little bit. And it came around when I was in my late 30s, I guess. And one day I just decided kind of out of nowhere that it became important to me all of a sudden to finish my undergrad.
I was just a drunk college dropout degenerate musician this whole time and I thought I didn't care but then like it kind of got back in my head that okay this is important to me. So, I actively searched out like what I wanted to do that was outside of music. And so, long story short, I ended up getting my undergrad in English. And I actually started grad school in a literature program because I'm also a book nerd and I thought maybe there's a place in writing for me. either way, I'm going to pursue something that's not music related.
this is going to make me a very well-rounded whatever blah blah I don't know exact I had some stupid idea in my head and it was really interesting to see I'm so happy I did that the whole undergrad that one semester in the literature grad program because I can't even like tell you what a square peg and round hole situation all of it was and it's never been more clear to me in my life than when I quit that literature program and went into music history that all right that's what I needed to see. I'm I'm in music. You're like, I explored it. Doesn't want me well-rounded. I don't know.
This is this is where I belong. I mean, it was just like I laughed. I told my friends and they were like, well, you know, duh. You know, not to be ugly, but are you stupid? Cuz duh.
You know what? It's so I feel like you explore in such a cool way. like when I went to grad school briefly to be a teacher. We're just not even going to explore that. But should just be the end of the sentence, but there was a thing that I loved and it was the idea and I can't remember what it's called and any teacher would be like hello like it's very simple.
But it was instead of saying, you know, you're going to go down and you're going to teach math, English, science, blah blah blah by the textbook. This the concept of you're going to teach a subject. So, say it's guitar and you're going to you're going to explore the subject of guitar through science, history, English. You're going to use you're going to learn something about the subject by exploring all these subjects. Do you know what I mean?
It's like the reverse way that we that schools often is set up. And of course, I love that and did nothing with it, but it's almost like that's what you've done with your life. Like You've got a business, but your business is in music. You want to perform. So, you perform music.
You teach some, you teach music. Everything has to do with it. And it's actually really cool. I think it's very cool. Well, thank you for saying that.
I like it. I've always admired people, specifically women, who are definitely outside the box. there's a better term for it, but is it self-made, but like I looked at the idea of being a middle school orchestra director and that wasn't going to do it for me. I looked at being a performer. There's reasons why that alone wasn't going to do it for me.
I needed to supplement that. And I don't know, but like I've customized my career and I've always admired people who do that. is like I don't think there's really a name for the job that I see myself doing, but I have enough belief in this and hard-headedness and I guess just like tenacity or grit or something where I'm just going to figure it out. I'm going to make a job for me. well, and I think that's I mean I'm not trying to be a smartass when I say I feel like that's what it an entrepreneur is, right?
like they're thinking something up and running something because they're like, I don't see this idea or myself fitting in to what's already out there. Like, you're going to create your own path. And I feel like that's always, first of all, I'm not knocking anybody who goes to work every day and who has a career that is a little bit more planned out. That's awesome. But to do it the way you've done it and kind of create it to suit yourself is just super inspiring.
And I'm always really inspired by hearing those kinds of stories because it just shows you what a big world there is. Like when you're in school and you're in high school and you're getting tested for what you know your aptitude is and like they're like you'd be a very good whatever it is, dump truck driver, school secretary, like professor of astrophysics, whatever the thing is. The nobody's saying the creator of a fil of a music festival that teaches girls guitar also performs and is a college professor. Like nobody offers that, but it's it's clearly a thing because you made it one. " Like that's how much I stumbled into all this and don't even have a reasonable enough background to be like I took the path of an entrepreneur.
I'm like, I don't I did a bunch of weird stuff and somehow I like where I landed. Well, I think that at the end we're allowed to say that. Sorry for that. Everybody's for decades. Well, it's when it works out.
I think when it works out, we're allowed to say I was an entrepreneur. And when it doesn't, you're like, I just couldn't figure it out, you know, and so you've got the benefit of it having worked out at this point, which is pretty cool. At this point, yeah, at this point. and if you, so now just two little questions and I'll leave you for the day because I'm sure you have music to go introduce to the world, but if you could create an all women's dream concert lineup, past or present, past or present, who would be on the bill? Okay.
Hm, what a great question and thanks for putting me on the spot. I'm going to stay in the world of Texas women singer songwriters, which means obviously like leaving out some of the greatest, but there is a very influential songwriter in Texas who's been gone for a long time. she was big on the Texas Mexico border and kind of worked her way up to central Texas. Her name is Lydia Mendoza. there's not a ton about her online because she was just kind of pre-media in some ways.
but she is so wonderful and so influential and so cool. I highly recommend anybody with interest in songwriting and history, check her out. Cindy Walker is another one. There are going to be just a few fellow nerds listening to your podcast who are going to be like, I know who that is. And the rest of y'all are like, h what she talking about?
But if you're interested, look her up. You're gonna be impressed. It's way cool. I will tell you then my third headliner for this Imaginary Festival who is I can draw a straight line from me to her what I do. She's the first person I ever went to a concert and saw her just stand there alone with an acoustic guitar and talk about her songs and crack stupid jokes and be silly and wonderful.
And it's the great Lisa Lobe. It counts. She's from Dallas and she is a huge inspiration for me and a huge part of the reason I picked up the guitar in the first place. " And so it was funny. Several years ago, my dude and I actually went and saw Lisa Lo do another little intimate kind of performance like that.
And at one point, he leaned over to me and he goes, "This is weird. she talks just like you. And I was like, well, it might be weird because I probably kind of stole half of the stuff I say from her. So, I took that as one of the greatest compliments of my life. Fourth headliner who I it's it's up for debate whether or not you really put her under the Texas umbrella, but she did live here for a decade or so.
The reason Girl Guitar started, the reason I began writing songs in the first place, one of my absolute favorites is the great Lucinda Williams. Absolute monster songwriter, cool, cool chick. Wildly huge inspiration for me. So, I could rattle incessantly, but if I could just have my little festival, dinner party, I'm those would be those would be four of the big ones that I would be. And wait, and I have a question.
Are Lydia Mendoza and Cindy Walker they still living? No. No. Okay. Okay.
All right. So, you did go past and present even if you just kept it to Texas. I did. Yeah. We appreciate it.
That's good. Okay. And then the last thing is where can we follow you? So, I'm going to link to all this stuff at the end of this episode. And yes, we're filming it here in February, recording it, but we will come out in through May through June.
So, it'll be a little bit closer to the festival. I'll have the link to the festival. I'll have the link to Girl Guitar. Is there any place else? And is there any way do you ever do like virtual Girl Guitar?
Like are there things people can do if they are not in Texas? Yes, absolutely. they are scheduled kind of at random there. com, that's where they're going to find it. if they have special requests for things, they can also send a, you know, message through the website there that would come to me.
So, if somebody specifically is looking for a particular class or workshop online that we're not already offering, then I'd be open for a conversation about it. I'm also in the process, like I mentioned this to you before we started recording, but I'm in the process of starting to film entire courses through a platform called Kajjabi where I'll be teaching online courses for artist development and then guitar and then probably going to add songwriting at some point. Lots of music entrepreneur stuff that I'll be rolling out a lot over the next year or two. so that's another option for people who maybe want to get in on things but aren't in Texas or, you know, can't work with the schedule we already have or whatever the case is. com would probably be the best place to really see all this centrally located from there.
You can link to Girl Guitar, Texas Women's Songwriters Festival, Lucky Star of course, and all the And you know what? And we didn't even talk about it because we talked about it before, and I'm not going to keep you because I did say you could go, but your class at the college is not actually, you're not teaching music there. You're teaching the business of music, which is also infinitely important for anybody who wants to make a career in this. And also hugely lacking. I think there's a lack of teaching business to people in the arts in all the arts, but I would imagine it's pretty there's a pretty huge gap there in music as well.
So that's what you'll be teaching on the Kajjabi website somewhat. Yeah, a lot of what I'm doing I'm I'm starting with an artist development program. but a lot of it I'm drawing off of what I've been teaching through the business and music courses, which is just a lot of practical stuff. real practical, but weirdly not things that people just know. so I think it's going to be wildly useful and it mostly is drawn from my own decades of trial and error.
So where I've gone out and made the public, you know, ass of myself, I can save y'all some steps and you some good stories and some bad and a lot a lot a lot of practical information. That's what I'm really pumped about right now. You're like, that's the key part. The other stuff we just do. So many educational resources out there that are I won't say they're not useful, but they're they're they're abstract.
They're like, okay, cool. But what am I going to do with this? How does it apply to me? Exactly. And if you're coming at it from the perspective of already having done it, you already been you've already made these mistakes some of them like I think then you're and also you're fun and you're funny and you're engaging.
So it's like not like a snoozefest to lo listen to. I hope that's that's going to be the goal. So yeah, I'm super excited. I start filming that very soon. So maybe by the time this podcast comes out it might exist.
So again, you asked where people can find me. com would be kind of the central location where all of this would be linked available. Thank you so much for what you're doing and for being on here today. It's always so much fun to see you and it was really awesome to see you like this. So, thank you.
I know usually I see you like where there's like a million other people and everybody's trying vying for your attention and now I got it all. This might be hands down the longest uninterrupted conversation we've ever had. Oh, sure. For sure. Absolutely.
I mean, it's not like I'm talking a lot with my head bent over like a horse's ass. So, this is this is really helpful. Have a great day and you know, fingers crossed for you. I think it's going to be awesome. Thanks, Danielle.
You freaking rock. I appreciate you more than you know. All right, I'll talk to you later. Love you. Thank you for saying that.
Bye. Thanks for listening to Roar. Make sure you're following the show wherever you get your podcasts. And if there's someone in your life who needs a reminder that it's never too late to pick up the guitar or the mic or the pen, send this episode their way. Next week, I'm talking with Dr.
Kristen Brandy, an OBGYn abortion provider and outspoken advocate for reproductive freedom. It's a powerful conversation about care, courage, and what it means to fight for access. See you then.
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