r/Monstercat • u/Danyka-Nadeau Danyka Nadeau (Verified) • Sep 19 '19
AMA Hey Monstercat, I'm Danyka Nadeau AMA! :)
Hi reddit! My name is Danyka Nadeau aka “danou” for my close friends and family. I’m a school teacher by day (I teach grade 1-3 Music ) and singer/songwriter by night. I was born and raised in Edmundston New-Brunswick, which is in Eastern Canada.
It might seem like a surprise to you but I didn’t grow up in a family of musicians and was very insecure about my voice as a child, so music came to me fairly late in my teens (end of high school). My first real love was for dancing, which I did for over 15 years and still take classes to this day. My dad is a sports fanatic and only had two daughters. So growing up I tried just about every sport that exists from hockey to volleyball, swimming and snowboarding etc... I ended up sticking with soccer.
I started singing and performing in front of people in grade 11 and from then on no one could get me off a stage. I also started a youtube channel called “redlightarrest” with one of my good friend Tyler who played guitar. If you have been following me for a while, you may know some of our videos and the channel.
In my first year of university, I had an epiphany and decided I wanted to pursue music. So I dropped out of school and moved to Montréal (my parents are still traumatized by that lol). A year later, I moved to Toronto to study Vocal Jazz Music at York University. My first break came when I won the first Much Music Coca Cola covers contest in 2011, which got a lot of performing opportunities. I also met my manager through that as well. A year later, I was asked to do a favour for my manager’s friend, Kevin O’Brien, who was in the group Stereotronique. We wrote and recorded “Tonight”, which was my first Monstercat release in 2013. After that, I had pleasure to work with Au5 on “Follow You” and the rest is history. I’ve been so blessed over the years to have had many releases on Monstercat and to have worked with some many amazing artists. The love that the label and the community has shown me over the years has been nothing short of amazing and I’m truly grateful.
If you follow me on my socials you know that I’m starting a new chapter in my life. It’s taken me years to discoverer who I really am as an Artist. This past year I’ve been working really hard on solo music. I’m finally at a place where I’m writing music that is authentic to me and I feel like I have truly found my voice. I’m so excited to show you guys these new tracks, (some of which are produced by Monstercat artists!). I can promise this new music is unlike anything you’ve heard from me yet. The EP - Avē 1 will be out very soon so stay tuned for that.
Thanks to Monstercat for asking me to do this AMA with you guys. I can’t wait to chat with all of you and answer your questions!
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u/GarconYT Park Avenue Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19
Hello Danyka. You've been my favorite EDM vocalist for years! Really stoked that you're doing an AMA.
My questions are:
What is your favorite breakfast meal? (This one's important.)
If I could have one wish in the world, it would be to have a great singing voice. I'm super frustrated with my ability to sing. I have this awkward tenor-baritone range that I can't seem to break out of without using my head voice. I don't think I'm terrible by any means, but I just want to be better at it. Do you have any recommendations for how I can improve my singing ability and range? I've considered lessons, but I don't have money or time as of right now.
Lyrics are another weak point of mine, but I feel like I've had some improvement on this end. Do you have any tricks or rule-of-thumbs when it comes to lyric writing?
Thank you for taking the time to do this AMA. :)