HI I am Suzie, Suzanne Siebert, and I have been with @chatsongRoy for nearly a year. It was the 1st thing I chose to do when I decided to go completely independent in my music. Initially I wanted to write lyrics, I have always been a writer. After 5 years of books being published, I told my publisher, no, I only want to do this now, I want to feel my words not just write them.
The moment was when a radio station played an hour feature of my work, on Vision Australia, and one listener contacted the station and said she needed to hear me say, in my own voice, the words I had written - they simply happened to be recorded by the station by a male for the session on Suzanne Siebert. The listener went so far as to contact my publisher! I knew after he was in touch with me about this, how important it was, then, to have the courage to do my own work completely because it made sense. I initially had a composer, but the sound wasn’t right. After 3 really disappointing moments with 3 releases I knew it was time. It was time to trust me.
Making music and everything we give to our creation is ultimately to give it to others to hear, experience and share. A song makes us remember times, and it’s that artists who create the song, that give this opportunity to everyone who hears their music.
I chose DEEP By Suzanne Siebert for this post, because it says everything I have felt this year, and the sound was a new one to try, learn, and grow, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do DEEP if I had not experienced your music.
It expresses how -
"Clinging on by the nails, gritting the teeth, knowing it’s going, too deep. When the things you don’t want to see they’re inside staying there, Pretending no one cares, when really you hide more than you share… Things aren’t always pretty, there’s an ugly side to life. Wrong things come without a please, What are you going to do?
- Quote lyrics by Suzanne Siebert, DEEP
If each little part of something learns to stay inside us, and find a way to overtake us, we need to learn how to get it out. For me, it was my music. I did not expect a certain diagnosis this year, or know how I would manage to recover and heal in myself as all treatment and surgeries came along, and continue. Music gave me a strength.
Often my songs begin from a person I connect with, or a shared experience, that I feel I need to acknowledge in a song. This can take days or months, depending on how I feel about my lyrics which change so frequently, each time I hear it as I am recording, it changes. And that progress, being moved even in those moments before you know that you have it right.
I am also very aware of the audience, who is listening to me, and to ask who am I doing this for? Clearly to be heard, however, it is more than what I create to be heard, it is who is being heard from their perspective, that I am able to be making music for them. It has been this change recently, that I had created the ultimate challenge, writing a song for someone about something that really matters to them.
OCEANS, By Suzanne Siebert, wouldn’t have even begun if it hadn’t been for a friend who deeply cares about the changes in our oceans, and the current conditions in her country. I did not have a drive to comment on it previously, I needed to lean, and observe before I could even start a first line.
WAR By Suzanne Siebert, was also written after watching a particular documentary on Children of war on a Foreign Correspondence program. I didn’t feel that I had enough courage perhaps, to take on the topic or the faith that I could give it the justice it deserves. Eventually after many wrong moves in the way it came across musically, I knew I had not yet found the right sound for it. Then, I rewrote the whole song again from scratch and entered a genre I have no experience in. I was the right move to be humble enough to acknowledge that I can’t get this song right with what I know because it didn’t carry the message strongly.
These 2 examples show how it is emotional, it is personal, it is mentally challenging to know that I am offering a connection through music, and it is deeply felt with every song I make. Everyone likes to hear something different in my music, I have my ballad lovers, my pop lovers, and the audience discovering me, and they are my lyric lovers. I want to satisfy everyone, and that will be my driving challenge on this journey.
I am a perfectionist, and that doesn’t help! Yet I am more moved by every part of the process in making my words, vocals, music arrangement, final lyrics after often rewriting a song 10-15 times before I can start with a basic arrangement to get things started. Even the image for each song is their own, so the artistic direction is sound, visual, verbal, musical, and tests all of my senses as each step is being involved in the process of a new song. This may all be completely the same for you too, we all do our thing, our way. Those times I have had to step away purely because I need to recharge, in order to focus with a fresh and renewed energy. and come back again like we all do.
Sometimes I feel a real urgency to get a song worked on, not released but begun.. Other times I have to let them be.
If I hadn’t come to @chatsongmusic and found a place to learn, to receive by reading your posts, hearting the music you all share, I wouldn’t have developed with a sense of strength in myself to take bigger risks in every area of what I create. I has almost been a year now, and 2025 has been a challenging year personally, if I hadn’t kept making my music I don’t know that I would have healed as much, or felt that I had something to contribute to others. You have all been in this journey with me, even if you don’t know exactly what I have learned from you, or what I found so incredible about you and your music.
We must acknowledge those who are a part of our journey I feel, and that means you, if you are reading this I hope that something I have shared reaches you in your own journey.
Have grace, be blessed, recognise one another, we are all giving the greatest parts of ourselves, our talents, knowledge and experience, and thank you.