Today we’d like to introduce you to David Nevue
Hi David, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I never expected to make a career of music. As a 1980’s teenager, I loved the synth-driven New Wave keyboard sounds of the day, but playing the piano or keyboard as a career wasn’t a life goal or even on my radar. If you asked my 18-year-old self what I wanted to do in life, I would have said I wanted to become a professional writer of words, not music.
I first started composing for piano in 1984, my freshman year of college. I was inspired by pianist George Winston, who played music unlike any I’d heard before—melodic, songlike in structure, but not classical or jazz. I was completely taken by his style, and with his work as inspiration, I began experimenting, composing melodies of my own for solo piano.
However, my artistic energy was, at that time, devoted to creative writing, and of that, mostly poetry. I had the idea to write a short story and compose music at the piano to go along with it—a soundtrack of sorts. So I started writing songs, like musical paintings, to follow along with each chapter of my story idea.
My senior year of college, I performed one of those pieces, called “The Princess,” at a college-wide talent show. That was the first time I played as a “solo pianist” in public. I performed that composition, then asked for “any three notes” from the audience and improvised a little melody on the spot.
I won first place. $50 bucks. My first money made as a piano player!
The seeds of “what if?” were planted that night, and after my college graduation, I continued building on my story idea and writing music for it. Eventually, I’d composed ten pieces and thought to myself, “What now?” Naturally, the next step was to record the music I had written.
I asked around, found a local recording studio, went in, and recorded those ten tracks. That became my first album, “The Tower,” released in 1992.
I performed my first full concert, an album release concert, in the fall of ’92 at my home church in Tigard, Oregon.
After that, I continued composing, just for the fun of it. Three years later, in 1995, I released album #2, then in 1997, album #3, and in 1999, album #4. It wasn’t until album #4 that I started thinking, “Maybe I can make a career of this!”
In the mid-1990’s, I was working for a software company called Symantec in Eugene, Oregon. The internet was, at that time, still a newish thing as far as the public was concerned, and most people weren’t all that tuned into it. For my job, I was on the internet all day long, supporting software for our customers. When Mosaic, the first web browser, was released, I had a front row seat to the new “www” frontier, so in the evenings, I was composing new music, building web sites, and coming up with creative ways to draw attention to my recordings. As the public’s awareness and adoption of the internet grew, more people found my work. My marketing approach was this: wherever people are going online, whatever they’re searching for that’s music or piano-related, put my music in their path. People searching for sheet music would find me. People searching for information about pianos or piano lessons would find me. People searching for my piano hero, George Winston, might find me too.
By 2000, I was making as much income from my online business selling CDs, sheet music, and my book on music marketing as I was from my job at Symantec. That’s when I decided to take the leap. I saved up a year’s salary, quit my day job, and started doing music full time in 2001.
That was 23 years ago, and that leap of faith was the best, most amazing leap of faith I’ve ever taken.
That’s a summary of “how I got started” and made the transition from a hobbyist musician to a full-time, professional artist.
In the years since, I’ve released an additional 13 albums (so 17 in total) and performed concerts in most U.S. states. My albums have made it into the Top 5 on Billboard for my genre and hit #1 on both Amazon Music and iTunes. I’ve been interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine twice, received mention in the Wall Street Journal, and am now an official Shigeru Kawai piano artist.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the early years of my career (the 1990’s), I did what most recording artists did—hoped and longed for a record deal. While I did receive some interest from a popular “New Age” label, they wanted me to record my music and then just send it along to them to take over at that point. They would have complete control over my “image,” as well as the song titles, album art, and everything else. I said no, thank you, as, for me, the naming of songs, the overall album concept, and the design of the album art are as much a part of the creative “work” as is the music itself. To turn my music over blindly to strangers without any input from me would have felt like a betrayal of my art and devalue what I do.
I learned quickly that if I was going to find success as an artist, it was up to me to forge my own path. There is the way you are “supposed” to do things and another, more unconventional way that requires risk. Following the “established road” rarely leads to innovation or the creation of anything that inspires curiosity in others.
Since I started out as a hobbyist, I had nothing to lose. Either I would become a successful artist, or I would return to my day job as a mid-level quality assurance manager and continue to write and record music on the side for fun. A win-win, really.
Very often success stories are the result of a right place, right time dynamic. You may call it luck or consider it God’s providence, but I am blessed to have lived in such a time as this—a time of profound change in the world of technology. This put me in a position where I could become one of the first independent recording artists to have an established website, to accept payments online, to write a book about music marketing, to sell my own sheet music downloads, get my music placed on iTunes and Pandora Radio, build a mailing list of fans from all over the world, start a first-of-its-kind internet radio broadcast, and book my own concert tours. There were so many things that, because of the time I lived in, I got to do and go “first.”
When people ask me, “How did you know how to do it?” the answer is, I didn’t. I just took big swings. I often tell people, “For every twenty ideas I put in place to promote my music, one of them worked.” You have to persevere through the nineteen failed ideas to find number twenty.
Many who fail to achieve their dreams do so because they stop chasing them after the first two or three failures. You have to push through that. If you love what you do, just do it, failure or not. Don’t. Ever. Stop.
From the time I released my first album to the day I was finally able to quit my day job, it was ten years. Ten years of pushing through, writing, composing, recording, performing, and marketing music for the love of it.
And the *real* payoff in terms of “getting ahead” financially didn’t come until ten years after that.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As previously stated, I am a solo pianist and composer. That is what I am known for, historically (so far.) I do still enjoy creative writing and, in fact, plan to return to that more emphatically in my next season of life. I’ve got other artistic ventures to pursue as well, but for now, my musical creations are why people know my name.
In terms of what I think has contributed to my success and perhaps sets me apart, three things come to mind.
First, one of my most predominant musical “gifts” is an ear for melody and melodic hooks. That, and the emotional content of my music, touch on the keys, and expressiveness, strikes listeners as unique and recognizable, or so I am told. This isn’t something I “try” to do or manufacture. I’m just being “me” at the piano, writing songs I like, and fortunately, a lot of other people like them too. I’m grateful for that, because I don’t know how to play the piano any other way.
Secondly, there’s a spiritual element to my music, in that when I am at the piano, whether performing, writing, or recording, I ask for God’s blessing on my work. God gifted me with the ability to do this, so I offer the fruit of my work back to Him in thanksgiving. My hope is that the music I play encourages and comforts others, all the while drawing them near the grace, mercy, and peace that are found in Christ. While I am aware, of course, that not everyone who listens to my music shares my faith in Jesus, I believe the Holy Spirit is present in my work and is an active participant in delivering it to the ears of whoever needs to hear it.
Finally, I strive for excellence, and I am tenacious. Everything I release is my “best work” at the time. In other words, I never reach a point where I say, “This sounds good enough,” and then release it “as is.” Once a piece goes public, it represents that work forever, and I’m cognisant of that, so I won’t release a recording until I know it’s the best I can perform it. Beyond that, I never give up. I think one of the reasons I have achieved as much as I have over these last three decades is because I have kept at it, pushing through all the mental, emotional, and business obstacles that have come my way.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was a classic introvert as a child and still am. That I claim to be an introvert surprises some who have seen me perform in concert, as my stage persona is confident, engaging, and outgoing. While my stage persona is definitely “me,” or at least, one facet of me, it’s a side of me that only shows up in that context. The “everyday” me is solitary, pensive, introspective, and quiet. Friends and family who have known me all my life, after seeing me play a concert for the first time, will say, “Where did that come from? I’ve never seen that side of you!” I enjoy surprising people that way.
As a child, I was heavy-set, a rare thing in my day. I was the “largest” boy in school and subject to bullying. That probably contributed to my keeping to myself and not wanting to draw attention. I am still that way, preferring to remain “invisible” in a crowd, though not when I’m on stage, of course! That’s where I come out of my shell.
Then, as now, I loved being outside. In those days, you could walk all over town alone as a kid and not be in danger. And so I did. I spent a lot of time parusing comic book stores and used record and book stores. I loved reading and still do. I was an imaginative child. I created many worlds and battles with my little green soldier men, medieval figures, hot wheels, legos, and Micronauts.
My dad used to take me roller skating a lot, and that was meaningful to me. My father and I were not otherwise close. We had nothing in common but skating, which we both loved, so my fondest memories of my father are at the skating rink. He was a great skater, and he could do “all the moves.” I also loved bowling and spent many years in bowling leagues as a youth. And Chess.
Once a teenager, I started writing poetry, prose, and journaling, but poetry more than anything.
And I loved The Monkees, The Beach Boys, Elvis, Tom & Jerry cartoons, Godzilla, Gilligan’s Island, and the British TV show “The Avengers” with John Steed and Emma Peel.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.davidnevue.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidnevuepiano
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidnevuepiano
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidnevue
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/davidnevuepiano
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7zbq3gjHu4JAiMV7dWbUdv?si=hDPvOuPOR6yvoKQWVrWyTQ
Image Credits
David Nevue, Jaymie Starr, Doug Hammer, Mikael Krummel, Daniel Soule, Joe Bongiorno, Matt Strieby
