During my visit in Phoenix, AZ I was invited for an interview on the Brave Musician Podcast. I was super excited and immediately accepted the offer! I have done many radio interviews before and have had a great time, but never a podcast interview. I always love trying things I have never done before.
Brave Musician was created by and is run my Monica Shriver, who is a freelance saxophonist in the Phoenix area (soon to be Nashville). Monica and I were both students at ASU, although we missed each other by a few years. We have also played on various gigs together throughout the years from Hot Birds and the Chili Sauce, to Sharon Owens Barbara Streisand Tribute to community college big bands and probably more that I cannot think of at the moment!
As most of you know, I have been living and working in Japan for the last few years. It has been awesome to watch from a distance and see the progress that Monica has made with the Brave Musician podcast. To prep for my interview, I started listening to some of the previous episodes to see what it was all about. I absolutely loved it! Brave Musician is very unique because during these interviews, they talk about the things that no one else it talking about! One theme across the many episodes that I listened to was they talked about the humanity of what it means to be a musician; beyond the gigs, and accomplishments, and the “how-tos”. Brave Musician interviews all kinds of musicians to hear their unique story. What kind of tough decisions they had to make throughout their careers. And most importantly, what was going on in their head during these times. If you have ever wondered what it is like to be a musician or some of the challenges you may face, please listen to Brave Musician. You will love it!
In my episode I talked about many of these things! Also including: being a female musician, Blast!, being a foreign freelancer in Japan, my YouTube channel, social media and more. Brave Musician did an awesome write-up and review of my episode. This is copy and pasted from the Brave Musician website:
In this episode, Monica has an insightful and thought-provoking conversation with freelance trombonist Lisa Lizanec, who regularly performs in both Phoenix, AZ and Japan. They talk about how the paths that they both forged were different from the ones that they were told about and how it’s so important to find the music that speaks to you the most. Lisa shares her passion for pop music, how she started touring with shows including Blast, and gives a behind the scenes account of the intensive rehearsal process and the work that goes into learning to perform a show like that.
They have a candid conversation about being female musicians, including real talk about competition, role models and mentors, the importance of supporting and lifting up each other, and about finding other female musicians to connect with. Lisa also talks about living in a foreign country and what it’s like as a “foreign freelancer” from the perspective of not speaking the same language, learning the culture, social navigation, and different gig structures.
They take a look at how different performance opportunities helped to build confidence, and the process of figuring out what success looks like when you're exploring different paths and building the confidence to be ok with your own decisions. They address finding your voice online, using social media and Lisa shares how she started making online videos, how she discovered and fostered her love of arranging, editing, and sharing, even though it wasn’t easy at first. They explore the myth “don’t put anything out that’s not perfect” and how they believe people are interested in the seeing the process as well as the final product and challenge all our listeners to make a video, post it, and tag #bravemusician.
Please CLICK HERE to head over to the Brave Musician website where you can find links to listen to my Brave Musician episode on all of your favorite streaming platforms - iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
