Art & Life with Martin Danel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Martin Danel.

Martin, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I moved to the U.S. 14 years ago from Uruguay, a small country in South America. When I moved, I have been playing guitar for two years, but my goals were very different: I wanted to play lead guitar in a heavy metal band. After years of practice and frustrations, I gave up on the electric guitar and picked up the acoustic guitar. It wasn’t until six years ago that I finally decided to play at an open mic at a local North Phoenix bar. First, it was something fun to do, and then it quickly moved on to my Sunday activity, learning and playing pop songs that I loved. After a while, I started to realize that I really wanted to make music something more serious in my life. I was unhappy with my job in retail, and I took the leap. Work was slow at the beginning but thanks to my family for supporting my decision and constance I managed to get my first paid gig. It took a couple of months for gigs to be more consistent, but I have been working as a musician for two years now. In 2017 alone I played almost 200 shows and released my first EP with original music. I know it’s not being heavy metal guitar player, but the last two years of my life I managed to work my dream job, and I’m working to get better every day.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I am an acoustic guitar player, singer and looping artist and I’m aspiring to be like my major inspiration: Ed Sheeran. Most of the times you can catch me playing cover songs, but last year I started writing my own music and releasing it. Songwriting is my new obsession, and I am constantly coming up with new ideas for songs. I really like playing covers because I get to learn from them, but my main goal is to write and perform the best songs I can possibly create. I want to be able to write music that will reach out people and resonate with them the same way that countless songs have done with me. I wanna tell stories that people can relate and feel that when they hear one of my songs, that song was for them.

Any advice for aspiring or new artists?
I think the biggest advice I can give anyone that wants to play music for a living is don’t let circumstances stop your goal. Define your goal in music. Do you want to make a certain amount of money? Play a certain amount of shows? Do you want to write your own music? Do you want to open for a band? All those are goals that you have to work to get them. Working is the most important thing in this career if you put the effort to improve your craft people will notice and more opportunities appear. Also, if your goal seems unobtainable at the moment, work on smaller goals until that goal comes closer to reality. If you love music and you want to make it your career, put that effort because it is worth it.

I think a lesson I wished I learned earlier is to not get too much on my head when things are not working out as well as I expect them. I’m always wishing to be more talented or have more shows, but now I actively seek to be more talented and get more shows. I used to get too much into my head and get frustrated, and instead of practicing I would contemplate quitting. Even to this day, I get times where I feel like that, and then I remember that I can’t control how good I am now at singing, but I can work on becoming better at it by practicing and learning new stuff. So the bottom line is, don’t be afraid that your limitations will stop you and work on improving.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I’m constantly trying to find multiple places and new venues to play all over the Valley. You can always check up my schedule on social media, Facebook: Martin Danel Music. Instagram: Mdanel11. I normally update my schedule every Monday or Tuesday, and I might be playing close to you. If you want to support me, you can check my music on iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play and Spotify. Just look up my name Martin Danel (sometimes it will try to correct it to Daniel, that’s not me hahaha). Also if you want to support my music project in a more direct way you can become a Patron on my Patreon page.

Contact Info:

• Phone: 602-628-7694
• Email: martindanelmusic@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/mdanel11
• Facebook: facebook.com/mdanelmusic

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