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Adventures of a teenage life
Tivoli Skye
Profile by Frank De Blase
There's something about singer-songwriter Tivoli Skye (nee Mustaca) that grabs you right away. She sings pretty in a warm contralto - but it isn't her voice. She strings together thoughtful, unconventional, and imaginative chord progressions - but it isn't her guitar playing. Her songs are plaintive and sweet and engaging - but it isn't her songwriting. It's Skye's guts and her willingness to bare her soul that really make you take notice. If anyone remembers their teen years, it's an age of precarious wonder, pressure, and curiosity. You don't necessarily equate being a teenager with fearlessness.
Skye's parents had her at the piano by the age of 3. She wrote her first song at 9 before picking up the guitar at 11. "I learned four chords," says Skye. Two weeks later, she wrote a song with those four chords. "I was very proud of myself," she says.
At the same time she entered a talent contest at school. Having spent a lot more hours tickling the ivories, her parents thought that the piano might be a wiser choice. "My parents were like, 'You should play the piano,'" she says. "I had a ton more history, but I didn't want to do that. I was like, 'I'm fed up with the piano. I'm going to play the guitar.' They thought it was going to be a total disaster. I never showed them the song until I was up on stage." She got a huge reaction.
"Everyone was really surprised," she says.
Now 16 years old, Skye has two albums to her credit: "Faded," which she released at 13, and "Just Me," which dropped when she was 15. Her third release, an EP called ''Adventures of a Teenage Life," comes out this month. It's an excellent collection of songs documenting Skye's personal and artistic growth as she shifts to a more fleshed-out and polished sound.
The majority of Skye's exposure has been as a solo acoustic performer. Even at her abbreviated age, Skye is a veteran of the open-mic scene, where the songs get worked up and worked out without the studio gloss to save them. The music has to - and does - stand on its own. Skye stepped into Saxon Studios in Rochester earlier this year and emerged with a gem of a pop-rock collection. Her creamy voice is still there, the songs are still there, but now it all sparkles with a keen pop veneer. With this enriched sound, Skye is now kicking around the idea of having more musicians in on the act permanently.
"I kind of want to be in a band," she says. "I'm not a very solo, spotlight kind of person. Sometimes I feel I can't add things that I really want to be there when I do my music all by mysel#".
"Adventures of a Teenage Life" is miles away from Skye's first album, and the girl who wrote it. "When you're in 6th grade you don't really fall in love with somebody," says Skye. "Or have too many problems with your friends. That comes later. The difference between those songs then and the songs now is the experience behind them."
The burden of musically and lyrically interpreting life around her doesn't seem to get her down. "I'm still a teenager," says Skye. "I want to hang out with my friends, I want to go to the mall, go to the beach - all that stuff."
And perhaps her songwriter's intuition and insight helps in the rough spots, making the adventures of a teenage life easier. Not academically, according to Skye. "It doesn't make it easier for me to do chemistry," she says.
[photo: Tivoli Skye is only 16 years old, but already has two albums to her credit. A new EP drops this month. PHOTO BY FRANK DE BLASE]
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