London born, Manchester based artist Silyla is carving her own lane within the RnB world. Despite not having much music released, she is a classically trained veteran who has worked in the industry whilst practising her craft and has already received recognition from popular platforms such as COLOURSxSTUDIOS and BBC Introducing.
For her inaugural performance on //SNCSOUNDS, Silyla delivers a silky smooth rendition of her debut single C’est la vie, as well as sharing some details into her early beginnings, how she got started, and what she has planned for the future.
So, what’s your early experience with music?
That’s a really funny one actually because I was classically trained when I was younger, I got my Grade 8 violin, I did ABRSM theory, I was in orchestras, quartets, and all these like choirs, but that wasn’t my thing, I was just forced to do that when I was a kid. That was essentially my first musical experience. It’s how I learned about notes, about scales, I guess where I’ve also been able to develop my musicality.
So, how old were you when you started?
I started music when I was 5. But that kind of music is very different to what I’m doing now. Now is a whole different experience. If I were to talk about my first experience doing pop music and songwriting was probably around 13. My dad plays the guitar, and he has a whole bunch of guitars laying around the house and, well it’s a bit embarrassing but, I saw Ed Sheeran play Lego House at an award ceremony, and I thought; I could do that.
Ever since I saw that I just started to write music and it’s been evolving since then.
You’ve been in the industry of music for quite a while now and you’ve only just started launching your solo career. How have you found things so far?
I released my first song a few months ago after making music for a long time. I actually wrote C’est La Vie over two years ago now, but when I wrote it, I knew that this was the first song that I was going to release. Throughout that time, I’ve just been writing and trying to get better at my craft and what I do and trying to reach a place where, when I start releasing, I can keep consistent.
It’s nice to finally be there and be able to do all of the artist stuff and get into the groove of that.
When you were younger and started song writing, was this always the plan, to become an artist?
It wasn’t the plan back then; I just wrote it because it was fun. I was a kid and had no idea what I was going to do in life. I actually wanted to study film! I love music videos and I love video – I used to make YouTube videos, don’t search for them I’ve made them private – but yeah, I was just always creative and then at the last minute I decided to go to uni to study music ironically because a university said that ‘Ed Sheeran came to our University’ and that made want to go so thank you, Ed Sheeran, for once again pushing me in the right direction.
Going from being classically trained to this now, how do you feel your creative process has changed?
I think that creative processes are changing all the time because you’re constantly learning new things. The more you learn the more natural it becomes for you. The way that you write and produce music is completely different because you don’t need to try so hard at certain things and you’re inspired by different things and things start coming more naturally so yeah, the creative process is ever evolving.
If you look back six years ago at me in uni writing music I was so clueless, I had no idea what I was doing at all. It’s only now that things have started to click. That’s why practice makes perfect, you’re practising to make things easier.
I guess that’s where the constant discipline and practice of your classical days has helped.
Yeah, classical music was much more disciplined, and I had a really scary teacher, and I never did it loosely, but yeah, people who love classical music and practice it will get to the point where they are just feeling it and it becomes natural to you because of the muscle memory, that’s what you’re aiming for.
“It’s like that quote, if you’re sitting at the table with nine successful people, you’ll be the tenth!”
How do you feel about the music scene in Manchester?
Yeah, I think Manchester has a great music scene, a lot is going on, that’s why I came here in the first place. I knew a lot of people here who were doing music and there are a lot of artists and producers here who are doing their thing.
I think that with London and Manchester being connected in a way where you can get a train so easily, a lot of the creative industry has come up here and it seems to be constantly evolving and growing. It’s been a nice space for me to figure myself out and to be around other artists who are also trying to do the same thing.
You said you see the scene here growing. Do you see yourself growing with it?
100 per cent! I’ve learned the most about anything that I do by being around people who are doing it too. It’s a mindset at the end of the day and if you’re in the right mindset you’ll do the right things, but if you don’t know what you’re doing and there’s nobody around you doing it, it becomes so much harder to know what you meant to be doing.
Being around other artists who are putting music out, who are in the studio, who are doing performances, who are doing deals and seeing how they do it firsthand is really important. It’s like that quote, if you’re sitting at the table with nine successful people, you’ll be the tenth!
Follow Silyla here.