Check Out Bella Nona’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bella Nona.

Hi Bella, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today. 
I started singing as a little one. My first time on a stage was when I was nine years old. My babysitter got me the gig. I opened for the Paper Hand Puppet Intervention with an original song about self-love that was backed by a band called ‘The Bad Mothers’. After singing my heart out in front of nearly 800 people and then immediately running, crying, into my mother’s arms, I was completely in love. 

After that, I started a band with my friend Tehila. We called ourselves ‘La Bete Magique’ because we thought it sounded sophisticated. We were 12. She played guitar, and I sang and wrote the songs. We played around the triangle for 2 years, got noticed by Indie Weekly, and put out two albums, the first called ‘Take 5’ and the second ‘Bittersweet.’ We clearly didn’t know about Dave Brubeck yet. Again, we were 12. Tehila eventually did what most people do once they get to be a sensible age which is to start studying forensics and stop going around singing songs and pretending you’re a rockstar, but I could never shake the bug. 

In eighth grade, I released my first self-produced album. I made it in garage band, and the recording quality was horrendous, but I proved to myself that I could create without having to depend on others. This was an important discovery for me because as a young female musician, there is hardly any representation to look up to, and it often feels like the only thing people expect women to be able to do musically is sing. You don’t see a lot of female sound technicians or female instrumentalists, but it’s not because they don’t exist. It’s because they are all in their bedrooms creating things in secret because they don’t think they are good enough to claim an identity as a musician. That, and they don’t want to be the only femme in a room full of men who won’t take them seriously. 

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I put together a seven-piece band and released Goddess Complex. Although I wrote the songs, my friend Ethan Baechtold co-produced it with me, and you’ll hear him playing a lot of the instruments on that album. Goddess Complex is the most recent release to date. 

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Growing up, I received a lot of praise and encouragement for making music, and that made me want to do it more. Of course, I love my craft, but as an adult, I have to make sure I am not tying my sense of self-worth to my ability to create music. Kids are always going to do more of something if they feel they are going to receive more praise, love, and attention for doing it. It gets tricky when you get older. You have to consciously shift that relationship with your craft so that it is no longer transactional because more often than not, as an adult musician, you can pour a ton of time and energy into your craft and not achieve any money or success. 

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
First and foremost, I am a storyteller. I specialize in transporting people into their hearts. I write songs, I sing, and I play a variety of instruments. Lately, I have been getting into writing scores. I love Musescore because you don’t have to know a lick of theory to use it, and I work almost completely by ear. I’m pretty specialized on my instruments, meaning that I can do certain things on them (like composing chord progressions) very well, but I couldn’t play a guitar solo to save my life. I also started learning how to play the drums, and I think it’s the most fun I have ever had playing an instrument. I think what sets me apart from most musicians I meet is my songwriting. I am terrible at practicing because every time I sit down and try to practice something in repetition, I end up writing something new. I think there is something extremely valuable in approaching your instrument as if you have never used it before. It becomes new every time, and in not knowing what you are doing, you end up finding and creating more interesting and complex chords, progressions, and melodies. 

That being said, composing by ear has also made me feel insecure around other musicians. I’ve grown up mostly occupying musical spaces where I am the only woman, and that makes me feel like I have to be exceptional in order to prove that I deserve to be in that room. Underneath that insecurity, I know that I deserve to be there, but I have to become aware of my social conditioning as a woman in order to separate reality from perception. I am very proud to say that I have partnered with Girls Rock NC to create a space for femmes and non-binary folks to come and jam. The event is hosted in Durham at The Fruit. It’s once a month, and right now, I am mostly promoting it through my Instagram. Although it’s just starting out, I have already had so many folks reach out to me to say what an important experience it was for them. I hope we start to see more inclusive spaces like this in the triangle. 

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is a sustained, healthy relationship with your craft as well as the physical and financial freedom to create what you want to create. Today as a 22-year-old, I am deeper than I have ever been in my relationship with music. I see it as an important marriage. It is not about what you can get out of it so much as what you can give to it. How can you be a respectful and consistent partner to yourself and your art? What kind of long-term relationship can you have with your work if you treat it not just as something that can make you money, or even something that comes from you, but as a divine mystery to commune with, to get to know, to offer love to? If you remove all the things around the art — the money, success, fame, recognition, etc….if you remove ego, creativity flourishes. 

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @bellanonamusic
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1L9gERoORwdClikSZWAivP

Image Credits
Katherine Elizabeth Apuzzo